through Wars, Tornadoes, and Cyberattacks, He’s a Guardian of scholar privateness

As a faculty district tech director who puts statistics privateness on the desirable of his precedence record, Jun Kim says "no" lots.

No, that app doesn't have adequate privacy protections. No, that you can't carry a new platform into your school room simply since you find it irresistible. No, that you would be able to't use that know-how unless you fill out these types.

All those "no" responses can be laborious for him—and the district's teachers and faculty leaders. So when Kim, the director of expertise for Moore public schools outdoor Oklahoma metropolis, stepped into his job about a decade ago, he had a competent-made hashtag to poke enjoyable at his professional role: #junbrokeit.

including the fake social media signifier to a lot of his emails is Kim's means of unveiling he gets it: Making know-how work for instructing and gaining knowledge of whereas prioritizing issues like securing pupil data may also be time-consuming and irritating.

It's self-effacing, empathetic, simply simple funny—the embodiment of Kim's leadership fashion, stated Amy Simpson, the primary of Moore's Oakridge elementary school.

"he's taking possession of the know-how usaand downs that we face in the district," she stated. although Kim doesn't use the "broke it" joke regularly nowadays, he nonetheless champions the message that "it's ok to push the boundaries and be ingenious and do this stuff that are going to supply our children the talents they should be lifelong freshmen. but at the equal time, be mindful issues may additionally fail, and that's good enough, too."

And if know-how—or the district's policies and tactics around it—aren't working for specific staffers, they recognize who is accountable. "He's saying, 'Don't go blame any one else. I'm the chief. Jun broke it,'" Simpson noted.

Kim's experience of humor is counterbalanced with the aid of what he says his spouse calls his take-action, "militia voice," honed over the more than three decades that Kim has juggled his work as an educator—instructor, educate, administrator, primary, district tech director—with armed forces provider, normally in the Oklahoma countrywide guard.

"If the militia has taught me one element, it's that you simply look at strategies, how you make [them], while taking care of your americans," Kim referred to. "know-how this present day, it's a dime a dozen. that you may throw some thing tech in there you need, but if americans don't care, if they don't understand a way to use it, it's a paperweight."

Spreading his wisdom all through the state

Kim has now not best deploy and perpetually subtle a thorough—but educator-pleasant—method for vetting platforms to support comfy pupil and body of workers suggestions in his personal district, he's additionally helped ensure the complete state can improvement from his capabilities and from his district's figuring out of the way to retain scholar and team of workers records safe.

Kim, whose suburban district is the fourth greatest within the state at greater than 25,600 college students, leads a crew of 37 full-time body of workers and six high school student interns.

That degree of technology aid is a great deal higher than what most districts within the Sooner State have, talked about Jack green, a former district tech director and a founding member of Oklahoma's chapter of the Consortium for faculty Networking.

"Most of Oklahoma is rural and has one grownup at most that's liable for suggestions expertise," eco-friendly talked about. And tech is far from their only role, he brought. "usually, they're riding a bus, they could be serving as custodian, a principal, a teacher, a superintendent."

That leaves little time for scrutinizing the first-rate print on application contracts to bear in mind how educational expertise companies will collect and use scholar facts. So Kim has labored to create a statewide clearinghouse of systems, applications, and classes which have been vetted for records-privateness practices by using districts across the state.

Tech officials in smaller districts with fewer elements can use the clearinghouse to peer what structures other districts have signed off on and share expectations on records privacy.

"pupil-statistics privacy is his baby," mentioned Sherri Pankhurst, the assistant superintendent of the Cleveland public colleges, a 1,500-pupil district near Tulsa. "I come from a smaller, rural district. The manpower is not there" to competently vet even payroll software, she referred to. "And so, for him to take that can charge, to steer a state-level initiative to assist colleges" is very beneficial.

Kim helped the district rebuild after a lethal twister

Born in South Korea, Kim, 52, moved to the united states when he became about 6 for his father's job at conventional Motors. The household lived in Michigan and Ohio before settling down in Moore, the place Kim started as a third grader and went on to graduate from excessive school.

growing to be up, Kim's parents used to joke that he at all times appreciated to "see who the most recent child in the local changed into," Kim recalled. "I've at all times been interested in working with youngsters and simply have a love for young children."

educating changed into a natural fit.

however correct earlier than Kim entered school, his father turned into laid off from GM. He still offered to take out loans to cowl his son's lessons, but Kim saw a unique route. He joined the Air drive Reserve of the U.S. Air drive, then later transferred to the Oklahoma national guard. He's served in the armed forces for 32 years and counting, starting as a weapons loader for F-sixteen fighter jets. He's also worked as a stinger operator, photo artist, public affairs supervisor, and human elements adviser.

In 2013, while he become deployed in Afghanistan, Kim realized he had been selected because the district's director of expertise.

simply days after coming back from a warfare zone, Kim found himself combating a distinct variety of fight when a huge twister hit Moore in may additionally. Seven elementary faculty college students within the district were killed when a faculty constructing changed into destroyed. The storm demolished two colleges and broken other facilities, including the constructing that housed key district advice, recalled Robert Romines, Moore's latest superintendent.

"All of our information from payroll, employee records, pupil statistics, anything else so you might consider of became inside that building. That turned into a complete loss," mentioned Romines, who was the personnel director at the time the storm hit but become already slated to step into the superintendent's function. The district turned into able to get well some servers—without which Moore do not need been able to open its doorways in time for the starting of the subsequent college yr in August, Romines referred to.

There became no more desirable approach to underscore the significance of keeping information secure and backing it up, Romines mentioned. "We obligatory to make sure that we had redundant servers that might proceed working within the event of a further catastrophic adventure here," he referred to.

Kim coordinated the recuperation and rebuilding of the district's technology infrastructure with body of workers, cyber web providers, and companies.

The event taught him to all the time "overplan. Ask what ifs," although it looks a bit nutty, Kim stated. "I've swapped out the 'aluminum foil hat' to a 'bigger-brimmed [aluminum foil] sombrero," he joked.

data security is paramount within the age of AI

this present day, Kim and lots of alternative schooling know-how administrators are walking a tricky tightrope as they work to take advantage of a rapidly changing ed-tech landscape it truly is already revolutionizing studying—devoid of endangering scholar records.

heaps of applications and structures can spark student engagement, make school room corporation easier, or customize guide for college kids. and college techniques are embracing them: Districts across the nation accessed a typical of 2,591 distinct ed-tech tools during the 2022-23 college year, in accordance with LearnPlatform.

on the equal time, cyberattacks of all varieties are getting increasingly typical in ok-12 colleges. Eighty % of ok-12 colleges had been centered by ransomware, in line with a survey of IT professionals carried out closing 12 months by Sophos, a cybersecurity enterprise. That's a more robust percentage than any other industry surveyed, including fitness care and monetary services.

Cyberattacks can charge districts thousands and thousands of greenbacks and days and even weeks of ignored discovering time. Hackers have utilized for credit score playing cards in little ones's names and sent threatening messages to parents. And student-information privacy challenges will possible grow greater as artificial intelligence—which depends on large amounts of records—powers more and more ed-tech equipment.

Most districts are on their own fighting this tidal wave of assaults, many of which come from shadowy overseas criminal gangs.

under Kim's leadership, Moore has been forward of the curve in paying attention to the skills hazards for pupil tips to fall into the incorrect fingers.

back in 2018, even before the pandemic sparked a enormous expansion within the use of training know-how, Kim started requiring lecturers who desired to use an software no longer already authorised by means of the district to submit it for vetting.

He requested providers to fill out a survey explaining, among other issues, what kind of facts they bring together about students and how they plan to use it. Will they promise to wreck Moore's student facts when the relationship with the district has ended? He and his group additionally work to get a way of how every application or application will integrate with the district's other technologies.

Kim has the curriculum group seem one by one on the app or utility to make certain it's in response to how the district wants to approach a particular theme or discipline. He'll also element academics to application or classes the district already has that may additionally meet their needs as well as—if no longer superior than—the software they're asking about.

Kim works to make certain lecturers be mindful the explanations at the back of these techniques so that his requests for information a couple of platform they may need to use think more significant than a tangle of pink tape.

"He does a extremely decent job of explaining the why versus simply saying, 'Oh, we've received to do that, because we've received to offer protection to pupil-statistics privacy,'" stated Laura Rousseau, the major of South Ridge Junior high. "For us, as educators, the why is vital. We are expecting our kids to have in mind the why when they're researching things. And he does the same for us. He tells us the nitty-gritty at the back of coverage alterations and procedure adjustments."

Kim is also willing to trade direction if his colleagues say they have got a better strategy to do some thing or that a procedure isn't working. every time a huge coverage or system exchange is within the offing, Kim will present it to principals first to get a way of a way to refine and message it to academics and other district personnel.

"earlier than [a policy] goes out to our heaps of personnel and lots of students, we're in a position to digest it, and shoot holes in it, and troubleshoot," Rousseau talked about. Kim asks how the district can allow individuals "in the faculty building to discover success with some thing digital factor we're wanting to make use of," Rousseau stated.

Kim's openness to others' ideas and willingness to take heed to their frustrations make it less demanding for Moore's educators to hear, for example, that a protracted-loved utility or platform has up-to-date its privacy policy and isn't any longer allowed in Moore. That's something that commonly happens with STEM apps, Rousseau referred to.

while Kim will are trying to discover a safer alternative to substitute a platform that no longer meets Moore's privateness standards, sometimes there simply isn't one.

"we will get very mad at Jun sometimes," Rousseau conceded. "however I suppose everyone is aware of that on the conclusion of the day, he's having to place himself in a position to give protection to us from any lengthy-term penalties that can come from our records getting out into the area the place we don't desire it."

Complicating Kim's communications problem: The influence of all this work is largely invisible. It's tough to rejoice the student statistics that weren't stolen or the hack that became thwarted.

The closest component to a public victory: Hackers did hit Moore ultimate year in what Kim deems a "cyber experience." The programs Kim put in place helped hold sensitive pupil statistics out of their palms, Romines stated. within an hour, Moore's tech become back up and running.

notwithstanding Kim has spent years refining and reworking Moore's procedure, he "should be the first to inform you we're nowhere close where we need to be" when it comes to records privateness, Romines said. "I don't suppose we'll ever be the place we need to be as a result of [technology means] a constant alternate. And he simply does a really good job on thinking out toward the future and doing what must be executed."

keeping college students 'digitally protected'

Kim sees securing scholar facts as just a further part of a college's directive to give protection to its students.

"faculties are definitely terrific about making an attempt to preserve youngsters safe, right? physically protected, emotionally protected," Kim spoke of. "Now, it's only a matter of: do we maintain them digitally protected?"

That mission encompasses all infants, no longer simply the ones in Moore, he delivered. "Our whole center of attention has been our kids, whether they're my kids in Moore or youngsters in Gotebo, Oklahoma, or Cleveland, Oklahoma, it doesn't rely. They're nevertheless youngsters, and we nonetheless wish to offer protection to kids' counsel."

That's why in 2022, Kim played a number one position in constructing Oklahoma's pupil statistics privacy Consortium, which gives collaborating districts access to components for vetting application, plus lists of programs and platforms different districts have accredited. at least 26 other states have similar corporations.

facts-privacy work has largely been a scattershot, district-by way of-district affair. Getting assorted districts to team up on the problem may also be a major boon for college systems with constrained components—and can even make existence simpler for companies, consultants say.

"if you build a kind of a collaborative, or cohort of people who are deeply, deeply engaged within the work, you then unfold the potential at scale," observed Linnette Attai, the task director for CoSN's pupil statistics privateness Initiative and relied on discovering atmosphere application.

Kim demurs when others credit score him as the riding drive in the back of Oklahoma's statewide privateness work, his colleagues say.

"He brags about possibly how a long way the state has come or the districts have come, but he never offers himself credit for any of it," spoke of Emily Monroe, an schooling know-how specialist in Moore. "He goes above and beyond for so many districts across the state. he's actually a mentor to loads of other ed-tech administrators and IT directors throughout the state. And when we're at a convention with him, he's like a rock big name. every person knows him."

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