Security

CoSN Awards Data Security Honor to Texas K–12 District

Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District became the fifth Texas school district to receive the Consortium for School Networking’s Trusted Learning Environment Seal.

Rebecca Torchia

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Rebecca Torchia is a web editor for EdTech: Focus on K–12. Previously, she has produced podcasts and written for several publications in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and her hometown of Pittsburgh.

The Consortium for School Networking announced last month that Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District in Texas has earned the Trusted Learning Environment Seal. The TLE Seal is awarded to K–12 districts that meet the requirements within CoSN’s framework for protecting student data privacy.

The district has implemented modern security solutions to ensure data privacy for its nearly 24,000 students, though Goose Creek CISD’s cybersecurity specialist Gary Lackey says the district was already checking most of the boxes when it came to data security.

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“A lot of it came down to making information more public and being clear about everything we were doing,” Lackey says. To earn the TLE Seal, he says, the district focused on creating and updating documentation and sharing it with stakeholders.

Past Seal Recipients’ Advice Helped GCCISD to Change Its Culture

Lackey thanked CoSN for developing the framework and the Texas Education Technology Leaders organization for its additional resources and support. He says schools looking to earn the TLE Seal should learn from other districts.

“We had some recommendations and some resources that had already been collected by other schools that had gotten the seal, and that was very beneficial to know where to start,” Lackey says.

Gary Lackey Goose Creek CISD Cybersecurity Specialist

It’s so easy to go 180 miles an hour into purchasing software and then realize down the road that it doesn’t do what you need to do.”

Gary Lackey Cybersecurity Specialist, Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District

Goose Creek CISD Superintendent Randal O’Brien believes it is imperative to implement measures that promote best practices for technology integration and management in schools.

“I am proud of Matt Flood, our CTO, and his team of professionals as they continue to strive for excellence by strengthening our district culture as it relates to cybersecurity and data management responsibilities,” O’Brien says.

Lackey says that security is often seen as a roadblock, “and that’s really not what we’re trying to do. What we’re trying to do is protect ourselves, because it’s so easy to go 180 miles an hour into purchasing software and then realize down the road that it doesn’t do what you need to do.”

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