EdTech to America: Teaching COPPA and FERPA to Your Team Before Day One

You’re building a learning product for the U.S. market. It works. It helps. It’s almost launch-ready. Before you ship, there is one more job to do: teach your team how U.S. student privacy really works. 

If you get it right now, sales conversations are smoother, district pilots move faster, and your brand earns trust from day one. If you wing it, you’ll be answering hard questions from school lawyers, not teachers.

 

Start with one clear goal

Your goal is simple: everyone on the startup’s team can explain, in plain words, who you collect data from, what you collect, why you collect it, how long you keep it, who sees it, and how families can control it. 

That’s the bar.

Hitting that bar means you already speak the language of two core U.S. rules: COPPA and FERPA.

What COPPA covers in the real world

I understand – edtech is a phenomenal business. It’s more a visionary thing, than just a product. However, the rules surrounding edtech businesses are very strict – especially those serving users under 13 years of age.

COPPA protects children under 13 when they use websites, apps, and connected devices. If your product is directed to kids, or you actually know you are collecting personal information from a child under 13, the rule applies. 

It requires a clear online privacy notice, direct notice to parents, and verifiable parental consent before you collect, use, or disclose a child’s personal information, with limited exceptions. It also requires reasonable security, data minimization, and deletion when the data is no longer needed.

 

That phrase “verifiable parental consent” matters. The rule does not force a single method; it says you must use a method reasonably designed for the tech you have to make sure the person giving consent is the parent. Think credit card verification, a small charge with a follow-up, a signed consent form, or an identity check through a verified database. Pick a method that fits your risk, document it, and test it often.

 

If you sell into schools, there is a special path. In the school context, the school may give consent on a parent’s behalf when your service is used for the benefit of the school and not for any other commercial purpose. You must still give the school full notice, and you cannot repurpose the data for ads, profiling, or unrelated analytics. If you want to use the data for your own commercial aims, you need parental consent directly. Treat this as a narrow lane, not a blank check.

 

What FERPA covers in the real world

FERPA is different. It protects education records held by schools and districts that receive U.S. Department of Education funds. It gives parents rights to access, seek corrections, and control disclosure of personally identifiable information in those records. When a student turns 18 or attends a postsecondary institution, those rights transfer to the student (the “eligible student”). For vendors, the key is understanding how schools can share records with you as a “school official” with a legitimate educational interest, and when they cannot. 

 

For example, if you need a child’s information to ascertain their level in STEM subjects, that’s fine. But not if you want it to tailor advertisements.

 

There is also “directory information.” Schools may disclose limited items like name or honors without consent, but only if they publish what counts as directory information and give families a way to opt out. Do not assume you can treat directory data like free data; it is controlled by the district’s policy.

 

Your product will touch both worlds. If you market directly to families and invite under-13 users, you live in COPPA land. If you sell to schools and they provision student accounts or push roster data, your access may be under FERPA’s “school official” exception. Many products live in both, so train your team to know which hat they are wearing in each workflow. 

 

Teach the team a clean mental model

Give your team a simple map:

• Who is the user? Child under 13, teen, or adult?
• Who is the customer? Family or school?
• What is the basis for data collection? Parent consent, school authorization, or neither (because you collect nothing personal)?
• What is the promise? Only what is needed for learning, kept only as long as needed, never sold, never used for unrelated advertising.

Say it out loud in training. Make everyone try it in their own words. If a sales rep or engineer cannot explain this clearly in one minute, you’re not ready.

 

Design changes that make compliance real

Build privacy into the product, not just the policy. Use age screens that are honest and simple. If you might reach under-13 users, default to high privacy and request a parent’s email before any personal data is saved. Keep profiles lean. 

Store only what you must to make the feature work. Delete old data on a schedule you actually follow. These are not just good habits; they align with COPPA’s limits on collection, data security, and retention.

 

If schools are your route, shape your flows to match the educational purpose test. When a district authorizes your service, keep your use of student data inside that lane. Do not mix student telemetry into ad networks. 

Do not profile for cross-product marketing. Keep your consent records, copies of notices you sent to the school, and a log of what data fields you receive and why. This is how you prove the “school context” and avoid scope creep.

 

On the FERPA side, ask each district to spell out who counts as a “school official,” what “legitimate educational interest” means in their policy, and which data you will get. Save those documents. Align your staff access controls so only people who truly need to see student data can see it, and log those views. This mirrors the rule’s requirement that access be limited to officials with a legitimate educational interest.

 

Write policies people actually read

Your privacy policy is not for your lawyer alone. Write it so a principal, a parent, and an IT director can all understand it. State what you collect, why, and for how long. State whether you use third-party processors and for what tasks. 

For child users, add a clear parent notice that hits COPPA’s points and explains your consent path. If a school is giving consent, include a separate notice for schools that describes your practices in the educational context. 

These are explicit COPPA expectations.

 

For FERPA, mirror the district’s structure. Name the data categories you receive as an outsourced “school official,” describe how you secure them, and define your deletion standard at the end of the contract. If the district asks for a data map, you should be able to hand it over in minutes.

 

Train sales to pass the first 10 minutes with a district

Most pilots die early because privacy answers are vague. Train sales to hit four notes calmly:

1. Our default mode is to collect the least data needed to deliver learning; 2) here is our parent consent flow when families sign up; 3) here is our school-authorized flow and how we limit use to the educational purpose; 4) here is our deletion and security practice. When you can show this in a product, not just words, trust rises.

If your product has a community feature, chat, or uploads, explain how you moderate and what data is stored. If you use push notifications, explain how you keep them instructional rather than engagement bait for kids. 

Regulators have scrutinized push and tracking around children; staying conservative earns goodwill.

 

Make engineering checklists short and strict

Short is the point. 

For under-13 flows: do not write or transmit any personal data until consent is recorded; block third-party ad or analytics tags that are not essential to learning; gate social features behind parent controls; and timestamp consent events. 

For school flows: only accept fields you listed in the agreement; encrypt in transit and at rest; expire tokens quickly; and make deletion jobs visible in logs. 

These moves line up with COPPA’s “reasonably necessary” collection standard and verifiable consent, and with FERPA’s duty to restrict access to those with a legitimate educational interest.

 

Give support a script for hard questions

Families and districts will ask for copies of data, corrections, and deletions. Write short scripts that walk your team through each step. Make sure the person handling the request can see where the data lives, submit the job, and confirm completion. 

Under FERPA, schools handle parent access requests for education records, but your team must help them do it quickly and completely when you hold the records on their behalf.

 

Conclusion

If you plan to bring an education product to the U.S., you can’t treat COPPA and FERPA as fine print. They are not “legal chores.” They are the very first trust test you will face. District leaders, parents, and teachers won’t ask about features until they believe you can handle data with care. That belief starts the moment your team opens their mouth and explains how you collect, use, and protect student information.

Teaching your team before day one is the smartest investment you can make. When everyone — engineers, sales reps, marketers, and support staff — can explain in plain words why your product is safe for children and compliant with schools’ duties, you lower friction in every conversation. Instead of being caught off guard, you sound ready, calm, and trustworthy.

COPPA is about knowing the rules for under-13 users and showing that parents or schools are in control. FERPA is about proving you act as a responsible “school official” when districts share records. If your people understand those pillars, the rest — documentation, contracts, and certifications — falls into place.

So, before you press “launch” in the U.S., pause. Bring your team together. Walk them through the simple map of who your users are, who your customers are, and what your promises mean. Show them the flows. Let them practice the words. When you do, you’re not just teaching law — you’re building culture. And culture, not paperwork, is what convinces schools and families that you’re safe to trust.

That’s how an education company earns the right to grow in America. Not by adding features faster, but by showing you respect the people you serve.

 

Author Bio: Adhip is a consultant at Tran.vc and PowerPatent.com. He hails from a legal and data analytics background. He is also the founder of Debsie.com.