Privacy policy.

The three commitments

• MLCN sees aggregates only. Network-level analysis works from school-level rollups. Individual respondent rows are never shipped upstream from a school's reporting surface. Cross-school comparisons appear only when at least two schools contribute, so no single school's results can be read off a “network” number.
• Free-text comments stay inside the school. Cluster-end reflections are visible to that school's administrators. They never appear in MLCN's aggregate views; they are not attributed by name in the report.
• The roster auto-purges after the window closes. Default retention is 90 days after an administration's close date. Names, emails, class labels, and tokens are deleted. The structurally irreversible answer rows remain so the report stays valid.

What we collect

From schools and educators: the information you provide on the school self-signup, your school's mailing address and contact details, billing information for membership, and the rosters you upload to run a survey administration.

From survey respondents: the answers given on the Strength-Indicator instrument and any free-text reflections. Respondents are identified by a single-use token; their name and email live in the roster (which purges as above), separate from the answer rows.

From visitors to our public pages: standard server logs (IP address, browser, requested URL) for security, and Google Analytics for aggregate usage measurement on our public and informational pages. Analytics is not loaded on the survey-taking pages that students and families use, and we do not run third-party advertising trackers or sell any data.

Who sees what

• School administrators see their own school's report, including free-text comments.
• MLCN staff see aggregates across schools, the full instrument-quality signal (the “I don't understand” flags), and administrative metadata. MLCN staff do not see individual respondent answers tied to names.
• The public sees what schools choose to share: membership profile, principle-tagged stories, and (if enabled) a permalink share of a specific survey report.

Third parties

Service providers we use to operate the platform: Supabase (database + auth), Vercel (hosting), Resend (transactional email). Data sent to these providers is governed by their respective privacy and security commitments.

Your rights

You can request access to, correction of, or deletion of your data at any time by emailing info@mnlcn.org. For survey-related data, the structural 90-day roster purge happens automatically.

Students, parents, and the law

Student respondents (grades 4–8 and 9–12+) participate in survey administrations only through their school. The legal framework below governs how that data is handled. MLCN does not collect student-identifying data outside of what a school uploads via roster, and that data is purged on the schedule above.

Student surveys (PPRA). The Strength-Indicator asks students how much they agree with statements about their own learning experience. It is intentionally designed not to solicit any of the categories of sensitive information protected under the federal Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) — for example political affiliations, mental-health problems, sexual behavior or attitudes, illegal conduct, religious practices, or family income. Schools remain responsible for providing any PPRA-required notice and parental opt-out under their own policies; MLCN supports this by making the full instrument available for review before an administration opens.

FERPA — MLCN as a “school official.” When a school runs an administration, MLCN processes student survey data as a “school official” with a “legitimate educational interest” under FERPA's exception (34 CFR § 99.31(a)(1)). MLCN acts under the direct control of the school with respect to the use and maintenance of that data, uses it only to operate the survey for that school, and does not re-disclose it or use it for any other purpose.

COPPA. Rosters may include students under 13. MLCN collects student-identifying data only as a school uploads it and uses it solely to administer that school's survey. Each school is responsible for obtaining any parental consent required by its district policy or by federal law.

Minnesota data practices. For Minnesota public schools, student data is also governed by the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act (Minn. Stat. ch. 13) and Minnesota's student-data-privacy provisions. Where a district requires it, MLCN handles such data under an executed Data Privacy Agreement.

Data security & breach notification

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest by our infrastructure providers, and access is limited to MLCN staff who need it to operate the platform. We do not sell personal data, and we do not use it for advertising or to build profiles. In the event of a security incident affecting personal data, MLCN will notify the affected school(s) within 72 hours of confirming the incident — describing its nature and the data involved — and cooperate with the school's investigation and any notification obligations it has under Minnesota law (including Minn. Stat. § 13.055 for public bodies) and federal law.

For school districts

Districts that require a signed student-data-privacy agreement before using the platform can have MLCN sign the National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA) — the Minnesota/SDPC standard form — or their own agreement. See the Data Privacy Agreement page and contact info@mnlcn.org to execute it.

Changes

This policy will evolve as the platform does. Material changes will be announced in the member dashboard and reflected in the “Last updated” date at the top.

Contact

Privacy questions: info@mnlcn.org. For the full mechanics of how survey scoring and reporting handle respondent data, see the Strength-Indicator methodology.