Public school students soon will be assigned new student identification numbers. The state education department says the Louisiana Secure Student ID system required under state law has been developed.
Agency spokesman Barry Landry tells The Associated Press the department is working with school districts to test the new system, with regional training beginning Thursday. Lawmakers required the state to move away from using Social Security numbers to identify students in a law passed last year that also added new privacy protections for student data.
Parents had pressed for more protections of the information collected on students; they raised concerns about identity theft and the improper sharing of sensitive data.
The education department was required to complete the student identification system by last week. Local school boards must assign each student a number by June 1.
