Lake County Gazette

Lincolnshire–Prairie View School District 103 in Lake County, Illinois, has received the Trusted Learning Environment (TLE) Mini Seal for Leadership Practice from CoSN. The district is one of seven in Illinois to receive either a TLE Seal or TLE Mini Seal. Nationally, recipients of the TLE Seal have enhanced privacy protections for more than 1.3 million students.

The CoSN TLE Seal recognizes school districts that meet high standards for student data privacy across five practice areas: Leadership, Business, Data Security, Professional Development, and the Classroom. The TLE Mini Seal allows districts to show progress in one or more areas as they work toward full certification.

Illinois joined the TLE State Partnership Program in September 2024. This program offers all state districts unlimited free TLE Seal applications and renewals, statewide benchmarking on privacy and security practices, and targeted resources to address identified gaps. Lincolnshire–Prairie View School District 103 participated as part of a pilot group focused on leadership and business practices.

To qualify for the Mini Seal in Leadership Practice, districts must build leadership knowledge of laws and best practices in student data privacy, develop updated compliance policies, set clear expectations for data protection, designate an executive leader responsible for privacy policies, provide transparent communication to the community about data practices, and allocate resources to support privacy needs.

Keith Krueger, CEO of CoSN, said: “We applaud Lincolnshire–Prairie View School District 103 for this achievement. Their success shows other districts what is possible when you make data privacy a leadership priority. Across Illinois, we’re seeing an inspiring level of commitment as districts advance student privacy through the TLE State Partnership Program.”

Craig Chatham, Ed.D., Director of Technology & Assessment at Lincolnshire-Prairie View School District 103 said: “D103 continually seeks to improve our data privacy practices. This seal is dedicated to all members of the D103 community who have contributed to the incremental improvements we’ve made, and those who closely follow the policies and procedures that help keep everyone’s data safe.”

The CoSN TLE Seal is currently the only privacy framework created specifically for school systems. To earn it, districts must take measurable steps toward organization-wide student data privacy practices and reapply every two years to demonstrate continued improvement.

CoSN recently published a case study highlighting how Illinois school districts—including Lincolnshire–Prairie View School District 103—are using the TLE framework to advance student data privacy statewide.

Lincolnshire-Prairieview School District 103 serves Lake County and includes Daniel Wright Junior High School, Half Day School, and Laura B. Sprague School (https://www.illinoisreportcard.com/). According to state education reports, the district has 151 teachers with an average salary of $76,028; women comprise 85 percent of staff while men make up about 15 percent (https://www.illinoisreportcard.com/). The district's student population is approximately 45 percent White and nearly 48 percent Asian (https://www.illinoisreportcard.com/). In 2020, per-student spending was $26,851 with total expenditures exceeding $50 million (https://www.illinoisreportcard.com/).

For more information about the TLE Seal Program visit www.cosn.org/trusted.