May 11, 2023 • 35 mins
🎶Together and it feels so good...🎵
We are all together for the first time at the New Hampshire CTO Clinic! First and foremost, we thank Barbara and the committee for inviting us and making the trip possible - We had a blast!
We got to hang out with the fine folks of the "Live Free or Die" State and talk all things K12 technology. The key topics were cybersecurity and data privacy. We had a chance to interview Pam and Josh, two of the driving forces behind New Hampshire's outstanding Student Data Privacy standards. We also interview Neal who everyone says "Neal is the State's cyber guy!"
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
(00:25):
Live from New Hampshire this is the K-12
Tech Talk podcast uh I am Josh
and with me in New Hampshire is Chris in
person in person and Mark in person this
is the first time we've ever recorded in
person together awkward direct eye
contact no no I'm not gonna look at me
(00:46):
look at me Josh
um so yeah we're here in New Hampshire
it is cold and rainy but that is not
taking away from the content that is
being talked about here at the New
Hampshire CTO Clinic
um and we got to meet Mark in person for
the first time and stay at his cabin and
he didn't kill us we're still alive yeah
yeah please
um
(01:07):
what I didn't kill you yet yet yes yeah
yeah so Mark Chris shipped Mark the
mixer ahead of time and Mark has done a
bunch of uh shall we say enhancing the
in the yeah I'm not happy about it the
mixer nice uh I didn't I didn't say that
to Mark put a bunch of Chris audio on
(01:27):
here oh come on uh come on guys
oh come on
so yeah this is this is hilarious
um so
what's the couple days been like guys
well cold and rainy uh yeah but really
fun to be able to get to know you we had
a we started off with a
(01:48):
car ride yeah that took forever because
there was so much traffic awesome I
introduced them to Boston traffic yeah
Josh and I got here Mark showed us a
dumpster like a truck well it's called a
trash truck trash truck we were just we
were behind it in traffic like he showed
us a trash truck like we don't have
those in Missouri
and then he's like and here's a tunnel
(02:08):
ah come on
he showed us some tunnels
well then okay so then we describe the
paint we took a visit some some people
on my team wanted oh yeah wanted to meet
you guys yes they did so we popped into
my office real quick yeah that was
awesome after we got pizza and
um we walked in and my team had prepared
(02:31):
a surprise yeah for us
so the mark on the Buffalo picture was
blown up into what two foot by three
foot photos and pasted all over the
walls everywhere everywhere the entire
office was decorated with photos of me
of memes from various episodes of the
podcast nice
um
and the thing that drives me the crazy
(02:52):
part is
they clearly did this outside of work
because we don't have a printer that big
so I couldn't nail them on like you use
District technology to do this nope they
had clearly gone out of their way
to print out giant pictures of me on a
buffalo
[Music]
you're hanging all around the office
it was it was hilarious can I tell you
(03:13):
that we've received a listener email oh
no
from someone in the tech department
go easy on Mark now
next question
do I need to update my resume after
decorating his office
and if so any openings in Missouri
[Laughter]
(03:34):
there are several openings in Missouri
right now
um do you have any guesses we can unpack
this do you think you know who did it
unpack uh yeah yeah I know exactly who
it's going to be and uh
I think he'll do well in Missouri
do you have a first name
I think he's been on the podcast before
yeah yeah
(03:54):
yeah he was on episode 100. who would
that be
Joseph
you could be right he says with this
Dane yeah in the office his name is Joe
it's now Joseph ah
it'll all be by the book now I felt like
because you never laughed or smiled oh
no that no
and then you actually ripped the papers
(04:15):
off the walls
yeah yeah yeah
was that for a show towards us to try to
show that you do have dominance in the
office
my my
face was blown up two by two feet by two
feet and put everywhere even the the
help desk dashboard instead of looking
(04:36):
at like Network outages they're looking
at my face instead so well you were off
that day they had to have your face
somewhere right yeah yeah and the best
part of it were the representatives from
the uh superintendent's office that came
down and yeah no no it did not just stay
within the tech department the soup's
office came down I was like what why are
(04:56):
you on a buffalo
which is a great question it is a great
question I went to Yellowstone last year
that's what we did yeah so anyways yeah
so trash truck
two tunnels yeah Mark's Cabin in the
Woods yep in the White Mountains in New
Hampshire and now this beautiful Resort
yes on the coast of Winnipesaukee which
(05:18):
apparently Jimmy Fallon spends time here
in the summer and Drew Barrymore and
Mitt Romney has a place up here yeah I
feel very npr-ish with this microphone
yeah yeah we're not used to recording
like this no
um so what do we got coming up on this
episode we interviewed several people
right Josh and Pam uh hear from New
Hampshire they're two of the big drivers
(05:39):
behind some of the student data privacy
alliances here in New Hampshire I almost
said Missouri
um and then we talk with Neil who
everybody everybody at this conference
we had dinner last night everybody talks
about Neil as the Cyber guy apparently
Neil is like the go-to tech director
here in New Hampshire that knows a lot
about cyber and helps out other
districts around the state with cyber
(06:02):
stuff so
um we hope you enjoy this this episode
and thanks to New Hampshire CTO clinic
for having us up we really enjoyed our
time and hopefully we can come back
so we are here at the New Hampshire CTO
clinic and I we have with us well Mark
this is the first time Mark and I are in
the same room together which is pretty
fantastic we just uh I did not hear you
(06:25):
oh sorry can you hear me now yeah
um so we just wrapped up our keynote
address and we have two uh people from
two attendees from the event here that
are uh I guess you could say rock stars
in in this space with data privacy and
I.T leadership in New Hampshire so I
will let them introduce themselves we'll
(06:45):
start with Josh
all right thanks for having me and
thanks for coming all the way out here
guys yeah uh my name is Josh I'm the I.T
director in the Oyster River Cooperative
School District uh we're about just over
2100 students and I've been there about
11 years now wow okay
and I'm Pam McLeod I'm with the Concord
(07:07):
School District in New Hampshire it's
about the third largest District in New
Hampshire okay give us an idea how many
students that we have about
um 4 100 students plus a CTE Center so
we're up over 4 500 students okay as
well this is my 19th year in education
wow nine years in Concord and before
that I was 10 years at one of those
small K-8 500 students okay I'm also a
(07:31):
school board member at New Hampshire we
heard last night we were talking to you
that that a lot of school districts in
New Hampshire excuse me are very small
rural it's almost like a very
decentralized uh Live Free or Die Live
Free or Die local control yes yeah so
Missouri's local control but I think you
guys you're from our discussions last
night it seems like New Hampshire is
(07:51):
taking that up a notch or two uh from a
local control standpoint for sure so uh
tell us about what your guys what your
efforts have been around student data
privacy here in New Hampshire and what
but
um like again last night at dinner you
were talking about the commissioner you
know there's new there's new things
coming from the Department of Education
(08:12):
so uh give us a little bit of that
um it's it's uh a little complicated
I'll start with a little bit of a
timeline okay um in New Hampshire uh
they passed the data Privacy Law in
2018. we call it HB 1612 it's now an RSA
um and even as they were working on the
bill cousin notified us about it at the
(08:35):
national level and so we actually got
involved with talking with the sponsors
of the bill as it was going through the
process and we're able to kind of water
it down a little bit make it more
palatable for schools it was pretty
intense as it passed it was one of the
few pieces of legislation around the
country I think at the time it was the
(08:56):
first one that had minimum security
standards so
um it passed it had this reference to
this department of Ed needs to create
these minimum security standards it's
the standards by which school districts
need to operate as well as we need to
hold our vendors accountable to those
standards so it passed and then we all
sort of panicked um we weren't quite
(09:18):
sure you know the smaller school
districts especially nobody kind of knew
how to handle all of especially the
vendor vetting part of it
um so Josh uh was friendly with Steve
Smith down in Cambridge who does so much
work on the national level with sdpc and
a4l yeah I was going to say we're kind
of lucky we have this guy who started
(09:40):
the sdpc very close he's presented at
this conference before so we had already
known him pretty well and said well this
might be a good way to start meeting
some of these privacy standards because
these small school districts in New
Hampshire are going to have a really
hard time reaching out to these vendors
and actually getting a response please
(10:00):
sign this data privacy agreement and so
I think at that time there was 24
think about 24 State alliances with
Texas California being big ones and
obviously Massachusetts
so we felt that seemed to be really a
good Avenue
um to start the work because the way the
law is written is there's these security
standards and then that wonderful
(10:23):
language that um at least in New
Hampshire it's everywhere it's meet or
exceed the minimum standards right and
it was the vendors had to provide an
assurance that they would meet or exceed
the minimum standards and so how do you
get a vendor to do that and so the DPA
seemed like a really good vehicle to do
that so was the original intent of the
bill that each district would write its
(10:44):
own DPA or is that the state would come
out with
uh no they didn't provide any funding to
the state to do anything okay we did
reach out to the state very first thing
and uh and they basically said you know
we have to deal with this too
um they had to develop those minimum
security standards we don't have any
funding to help you we were hoping they
(11:05):
would kind of take the that was our
first uh check we were hoping they would
take the ball and organize all of us and
sort of help lead us through this but uh
Live Free or Die that's not how it works
um so we spent the next six months just
trying to figure out what to do how to
organize this
um we worked so we had a we have a state
(11:25):
CSO and um the person at the time came
from a federal background and he
developed the minimum security standards
based on nist
800-171 so it's a subset of 42 of those
standards so it's a smaller bite
but he was great because he brought
those to us
(11:46):
he let us take a look at him we had some
discussions about them before they went
to the state and were adopted and
finalized and after that we've even gone
through a couple of rounds during the
pandemic we went through a couple of
rounds of how do we make it so that
these more commercial companies Panda
doc was one it's an e-signature company
(12:08):
they have soc2 certification so we
thought we developed an addendum so that
vendors with these Nationwide
certifications could just sort of get a
pass because their their certifications
exceed our standards sure sure so they
didn't have to go through our checklist
(12:28):
to sign the data privacy agreement and
um the gentleman that came up with the
standards if you look across the
Spectrum you have the CIS top 18 you
have nist CSF he did a lot of research
into what education records fall under
and that's how he arrived at nist 800
(12:50):
171 it's really interesting because it
seems like
there's so many different standards that
people can follow it feels kind of like
ceases
kind of go with the top 18 for schools
but I know I think New York
um
Texas are doing some variation of CSF so
so it's pretty interesting and like Pam
(13:12):
said I I pretty sure it was the first
legislation nationally that tied privacy
um and security together you know when
you guys had dug on that was kind of one
of his points was yeah everyone's
talking about privacy but not security
right
um but that was I think something unique
in our law was that those two were
together so how how has adoption been
(13:33):
from districts that might be smaller
districts that have a one-man shop or
what what's that pinch Point bin or
what's that struggle been like have they
been successful in getting these
agreements obviously you know with dpas
you can piggyback off of other
Agreements are they primarily doing that
or yeah who's having those tough
conversations are you guys leading those
tough conversations we're leading a lot
(13:55):
of the tough conversations because we
have more staff than some of those
districts so especially during the
pandemic we were really taking the lead
on having those conversations with the
vendors but it's really um we collect a
dollar ten cents per student per year
from our member districts we have about
130
(14:16):
000 students in New Hampshire covered
under this agreement which is about 82
percent
um roughly of the students in New
Hampshire I don't know what the other
districts are doing yeah but I mean that
would be a good yeah do they ever come
to conferences and you're able to ask
them that or are they are those
districts that aren't adhering to that
kind of they stated themselves or you
(14:37):
know don't like to I think for for
whatever reason they're sort of flying
under the radar that first year Josh and
I you know we organized
um so we use a non-profit in
Massachusetts the tech the education
Cooperative so we collect These funds or
they collect These funds and we pay them
to do they have an attorney on staff
(14:58):
they call the vendors we're now in a
Consortium with five other states so
that's built up or four other states in
New England so that's built up over time
as well that's really helped our
adoption but that first year Josh and I
um spent a lot of time going to every
Regional superintendent's meeting in New
Hampshire we got the buy-in from the
superintendent's executive board Joshua
(15:20):
superintendent Dr Morris was really
instrumental in just leading us around
introducing us to people we made sure we
had that buy-in so that it would be more
successful and I'm wondering the one
meeting we missed is probably the region
where we have two remote stragglers yeah
that would be interesting yeah I was
going to say I think for anybody who is
(15:41):
early on trying to build like an sdpc
alliance or there's states that have
them and you know maybe they're not as
active as other states I really think
what worked out well for us is number
one our our nhcto group our coast and
affiliate we're a tight group we meet
monthly it's a great group of people we
have a lot of fun and then from there we
(16:04):
started building strategic Partnerships
with these other groups and specifically
the superintendents Association and the
school boards Association I have to give
them a shout out
um yeah they were they were great as
well so we really worked with those
other groups so the superintendents knew
what we were trying to do we explained
that you know this wasn't we were
(16:25):
putting forth kind of this collaborative
approach to data privacy instead of
everyone trying to do it on their own
we're going to pool our resources
because ver there's only a couple school
districts that even have attorneys on
staff most of us all share common law
firms so the idea was how do we not pay
our law firms multiple times for this
(16:45):
work for the same project and so we had
seen I think at the time in
Massachusetts there was only maybe 10
schools kind of working with with this
group Tech to collaboratively do this
and so we said well do you think you
could do it New Hampshire and
um you know they said yeah you know
we'll see but there can't be that many
people that'll jump on board and I think
(17:07):
within the first month of kind of
releasing this we had about 40 districts
wow on board and so we've really
leveraged them and a collaborative
approach to like we're dealing with one
attorney we're all funneling money into
that one attorney and then we use um one
of the ladies names Rhema she actually
is the one that we interface with she
(17:28):
goes out contacts vendors on our behalf
starts that process helps the back and
forth so uh in some ways a lot of the
districts the heavy lifting the contact
the vendors is really taken care of and
then you know if we run into problems
with vendors you know we start talking
amongst our group and we've put the
pressure on a couple and there's a
couple vendors that wouldn't sign that
(17:50):
when we all said we're not going to
renew that changed their mind it's just
magic how that works right so and I just
want to give a shout out Microsoft was
our first vendor to sign which was great
it actually aligned with the we have a
Microsoft pricing purchasing Consortium
as well which I started when I was in a
(18:10):
small District so it's like gosh it was
I think it was 2010 it was a while ago
so it aligned with the renewal of that
contract
um so that was um really um helpful for
us and they were really great to work
with so we have as large as Microsoft
that's probably our largest and a small
like we have tiny little vendors there's
a company called pickup Patrol which
(18:32):
does uh after school you know parent
pickup organization they're based here
in New Hampshire I think they were
developed by students in New Hampshire
and then became a company and um so you
know organizations of all sizes but um
we have 1500 different products covered
under our IPA so at this point it's
almost in maintenance mode
(18:53):
um at this point and
um it really has been fantastic but it's
really that collaboration with the other
states that has helped us get there and
you're working on Google right to get
them to sign
we've gotten nowhere with Google yeah
California
yeah progress on it yeah yeah so uh help
me understand how many districts are in
(19:14):
New Hampshire
167 ish
Public Schools you can have a single
Community right with two districts right
right so there's kind of splits and
breaks and Pam's a school board member
where they just Consolidated three
districts into one so it's kind of
(19:36):
constantly changing still still three
districts we've just Consolidated SAU
services so we just our Central offices
so Pam you mentioned something a few
minutes ago that that was really cool
about the cyber security Grant yeah uh
the the sltt grant tell us what New
Hampshire did with that Grant yeah well
I have to speak about like our
Partnerships again because most of us
(19:56):
use uh primex which is our public risk
management
um pool and they have really uh Corey
Casey will be here this afternoon from
primex for a presentation they've really
taken the lead in working directly with
school districts and municipalities
around the state they've been really
awesome and then we have a forensic
first respect under the atom group so
(20:18):
they they're actually it's a private
company but they've been tapped as like
the state's first responder and cyber
security incidents fantastic and we have
a state um CSO we have a different one
now
um the new one is Ken weeks um he's
absolutely really awesome to work with
as well from the state so
um I'm forgetting the original question
(20:39):
yeah sltt cyber grade the Cyber Grant so
they've all been working together with
representatives from the schools and the
municipalities to help determine how
they would spend this money obviously
it's limited money right in the grand
scheme of things they came up with three
things I've been trying to remember them
one was UB keys for every everybody who
wants them in New Hampshire
(21:00):
um if private public organizations the
second was training so they have a
training uh it's like cyber training
Library certifications yeah like a
voucher program so anyone who wants to
get like um a plus security oh wow I'll
provide a voucher for that's cool so
like if I I have a team of six so if
they wanted to get certified we could
(21:21):
get vouchers wow to get certified and
then the last one I don't think it
affects us as much but all the small
communities they're using personal email
accounts and all this crazy stuff so
they're doing a um a facilitated move
to.gov addresses oh good so I I don't
think that's going to affect us that
(21:42):
much and I'd kind of heard that cesa was
wanting to move education to.edu's
that'd be great I I spent some time at
higher ed and they all have edu but
those are managed by educause K-12
doesn't have correct access to educause
so I think it'd be great for K-12 to
have edu accounts I mean that Nashville
(22:03):
is a edu I'm not quite sure interesting
I wonder how they have been for a long
time yeah so yeah we we really felt that
the group and Neil was our
representative from our group on the
sltt grant group and um you know it felt
like they did a really good job trying
to identify
(22:24):
really easy things that are you know
they could write the grant quick for
yeah and then Implement quickly so I
think we were one of I think it was
under five yeah Missouri was one
approval in December and I think at this
point we're just waiting for the feds to
release the money I just got an email
about an hour ago saying they they
released FEMA released the money so oh
(22:45):
great so yeah hopefully we'll be able to
get that in Massachusetts we've applied
for a waiver
on the deadline and so we're gonna think
about it in a few more months so it's
only jealous yeah we're really excited
we we appreciate what Neil who's a
fellow I.T director and in um in New
Hampshire what he was able to do for
that kind of represent us on the group
(23:07):
and yeah he's our cyber security Guru in
the crowd I think we all do a lot of
cyber security but he's you know he's
our go-to of heads and shoulders above
the rest of us yeah it's really good
well we appreciate you guys joining us
and taking away from time in sessions
but uh you guys are definitely doing
some amazing things up here in New
Hampshire and we wanted to bend your ear
(23:27):
and tell us uh how how did you do it so
uh we appreciate your time thanks guys
yeah we were preparing for a
presentation on privacy and realizing
that we're we're the ones talking to the
experts about it so there's a little
what do we say that they don't already
know so congrats thank you thanks guys
thanks we do want to thank our sponsors
(23:47):
for this special episode at the New
Hampshire CTO Clinic it's been awesome
getting to hang out with Josh and with
Mark for the first time in person we're
not just friends via zoom we're not just
friends via text uh the relationship
it's real it's a real one so again
thanks to our sponsors manage methods is
(24:08):
back manage methods make securing data
and detecting students safety signals in
Google Microsoft 365 and zoom easy and
affordable for District technology teams
check out manage methods we also want to
thank ntp our newest sponsor look them
up
ntp check out their K-12 cyber Security
(24:29):
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antivirus but you gotta mention us and
we can't forget about Fortinet email
fortinetpodcast fortinet.com if you are
interested in any of Fortinet services
and products
reach out to extreme networks that's D
(24:50):
mayor at extremenetworks.com and I think
I just said extreme.com when Josh and I
were talking that's extreme
networks.com get your extreme switches
and your networking from them they can
bring your network to the next level go
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finally last but not least
somethingcool.com a proud sponsor since
(25:12):
the beginning email sales at
somethingcool.com
so we are back here at the New Hampshire
CTO Clinic the Kosen affiliate here in
New Hampshire and Chris and Mark are
both with me now and we also have guest
uh speaker or guest attendee Neil hey
(25:34):
Neil how's it going good how are you
guys doing get a little closer to that
microphone
how's that that's much better
um so give us an idea of what you like
about this conference what what your
part is in this conference and planning
and all of that uh so what I like about
this conference is it's
geared towards getting not just the tech
directors but the superintendents and
(25:56):
the business managers like that's the
entire hope and Foundation of this this
conference um to get us in that room
talking together and hearing that same
message from all of the presenters yeah
um as far as involvement and planning
and stuff I'm a past board member for
the New Hampshire chapter and that's
pretty much the extent of okay of that
(26:18):
and um they did reach out to me early on
they're like hey
with K-12
podcast come and talk with us of course
we will
let me reach out no that's cool and then
you and you and I had met last summer at
the MS ISAC conference in Baltimore
right yes
um so everybody here calls you the Cyber
(26:38):
guy like you are you're you're it's
always here it's all here Niels the
Cyber guy Niels are the expert
um so give us a little bit of of the
help that you give school districts or
the resource that you are in that cyber
realm like are people calling you all
the time asking for help or what's going
on there yes
um so the answer to that was yes yes
(26:59):
across the board
um
so I'm the only
cyber certified professional okay in
K-12 in New Hampshire oh wow um I also
happen to be the director of Technology
um but that's it I've got
oh seven or eight certificate cissp the
Sim cisf the data privacy and then
(27:24):
a bunch of sand certs as well okay
so that's sort of where you know that
cyber security thing came from sure
um but because of that the state passed
the data Privacy Law in 2019 and they
were looking around and they're like uh
we don't know anything about this
I'm in the southwest corner of New
Hampshire nobody comes to see us but
(27:45):
nobody knows we really exist
um I was like well I've been doing this
from 2013 that's when I started doing
cyber and K-12 and like oh and then they
sucked me in in this
that it's just grown from there there
um really involved with the CTO group
here in New Hampshire
(28:06):
then the state reached out and said hey
uh can you help us Define these
standards that the legislature said that
we must develop so I helped
um with Pam McLeod get those squared
away
then they they reached out again to me
when the sltt grant came through they
said you know would you be the K-12 rep
(28:28):
so we can right get that money right
going and then you know I
GT government Tech magazine reached out
and asked me to be on there
for our conference board oh wow another
conference reached out down in Florida I
don't even remember who they are right
now wow that's cool yeah so Pam
mentioned something earlier that the
(28:50):
with the sltt grant cyber Grant
um States buying UV keys for public
employees can you like what how did that
come about that's awesome Yep um so we
we got together you know
um all the different reps from the
different sectors within within the
state and we're like you know dollar for
(29:11):
dollar this isn't a lot of money right
what can we do with this to get the most
value out of it so they developed you
know the governor box because that
doesn't cost them much of anything to do
the state will just give us a gov
address and you know set business cards
and letterhead to get it started
um and then they're like well training
(29:31):
if we can get anybody or everybody
trained even just an intro into cyber to
at least have a better understanding and
we can sort of level set across the
board so they've started that route and
it wants to be trained reach out to the
state
um and tell them what cyber course you
want to take and they'll figure out how
to get that paid about your
(29:53):
um and then eventually even pay for the
certification if you want to go that far
with it one of the things you mentioned
too is the dot gov address yes so what
we heard was that there are still some
districts in New Hampshire that don't
have district-wide email accounts is
that where it is
that is where it is yes
[Laughter]
(30:14):
and it's funny
the real problem is down at the
municipality level right right like the
small towns yeah
where you know they're all running on
Yahoo addresses right Chief is you know
at
msm.com it's crazy it's
so that's the problem they're trying to
address I wouldn't be surprised we
(30:35):
haven't been in Missouri as well so to
our cybers Gamers that are listening
what towns are those yeah
so okay so part of the plan is to get
those towns that are
that are running off of personal
accounts onto a.gov correct
um training for folks and UB Keys yep
um what's been the response from
districts and towns to those kinds of
(30:56):
things
um so we're still waiting to get that
first check in to get the Yuba Keys
purchased yeah that was the third thing
um and the thought there was how can we
best facilitate 2fa Implement Implement
implementation without telling everybody
you got to use your personal device
right because that's the one complaint
(31:17):
we hear there's no I'm not using my
personal device if
the state's like well we get a huge
discount anyways so just be that
purchaser you tell us how many you want
add 30 because they're going to lose
them yeah and we'll ship them to you
that's fantastic
so okay so
I don't want to use my personal uh
account or my personal device for for
(31:39):
two-step but also like our our do you
think you're going to get resistance
from towns or schools that don't want to
move off of personal email accounts move
on to a statement yes absolutely
absolutely
because the motto of New Hampshire still
is Live Free or Die absolutely
absolutely so now having the state come
in and say you must use this address
correct so are you gearing up for that
(32:00):
have you heard from some districts
already so the districts are torn right
we've got this Longevity if we already
have our established domain right a lot
of us yes our four character domains
rightly
we don't want to just walk away from
that to get some yeah oh so even if you
have a domain you're still migrating
over you can or you can okay you can you
(32:21):
don't have to okay you can I keep
thinking about email addresses like
police chief underscore 2004.
and then I keep thinking of some
inappropriate ones yeah so does it is it
police chief one and then the new police
chief comes in there police chief2
yahoo.com or do they just pass the
credentials that's the conversation
right so fascinated if they get canned
(32:44):
do they share the password with the next
person and there are police Chiefs like
or officers handing out business cards
that say like yeah absolutely absolutely
amazing I mean okay also amazing that
that was recognized yeah
in 2023 like let's nip it yeah yeah I
mean real talk let's use this money and
fix this problem yeah this thing's been
(33:05):
lingering around for a while no that
makes sense but it also outlines I think
it's it's very common across the United
States where you have
states that are very very rural with a
mixture of kind of urban Suburban
districts and that's exactly what New
Hampshire is you've got Concord
Nashville Manchester or the kind of
mid-sized bigger districts but the
majority of your kids go to
(33:26):
sub 1 000 student accounts or districts
right so we've heard that quite quite a
lot with with a very very kind of
decentralized District by District small
District approach from Tech Support to
security to data privacy so
um we talked earlier to to Pam and Josh
who talked about how they're really
trying to build this Consortium around
(33:47):
data privacy do you feel that same thing
can happen with security obviously the
two are related do you think there's
going to be more Consortium and kind of
group thinking or District you know
groups of districts thinking about cyber
security I hope so I think it will get
there
um you know we've got nationally we're
starting to see that pickup we've got
k-126 yep that's out there trying to
(34:07):
make an effort we've got MSI Sac right
with the K-12 working group there out
there
um so I think it will come I think it's
going to be slow yeah because districts
still at the end of the day don't have
those resources it it's still a time
commitment yeah and if you're a two or
three person
Department right
yeah whose time am I taking away and
(34:29):
rightly you're not going to do what what
problems are you not solving because you
are focusing on this other bigger
problem yeah well but but this
conference this week is happening in the
shadow of your second largest District
in New Hampshire getting hit with
ransomware so National was just hit
earlier this week
is that sending waves it's it's
definitely sending waves around this
room do you feel it it's going to hit
(34:51):
superintendents as well I I think it
will and I think it's already started
when I went into our leadership meeting
on Monday that was the topic of the
principles like what happened to
Nashville is it going to happen here is
it you know it's yeah yeah yes yes yes
yeah it can absolutely yeah yeah
(35:13):
and it will yeah yeah yeah yeah
well Neil we we appreciate your time
with us today uh we don't want to keep
you from any other sessions here this
afternoon so uh we appreciate it and
thanks for thinking of us and getting us
up here thank you thank you thanks Neil
(00:25):
Live from New Hampshire this is the K-12
Tech Talk podcast uh I am Josh
and with me in New Hampshire is Chris in
person in person and Mark in person this
is the first time we've ever recorded in
person together awkward direct eye
contact no no I'm not gonna look at me
(00:46):
look at me Josh
um so yeah we're here in New Hampshire
it is cold and rainy but that is not
taking away from the content that is
being talked about here at the New
Hampshire CTO Clinic
um and we got to meet Mark in person for
the first time and stay at his cabin and
he didn't kill us we're still alive yeah
yeah please
um
(01:07):
what I didn't kill you yet yet yes yeah
yeah so Mark Chris shipped Mark the
mixer ahead of time and Mark has done a
bunch of uh shall we say enhancing the
in the yeah I'm not happy about it the
mixer nice uh I didn't I didn't say that
to Mark put a bunch of Chris audio on
(01:27):
here oh come on uh come on guys
oh come on
so yeah this is this is hilarious
um so
what's the couple days been like guys
well cold and rainy uh yeah but really
fun to be able to get to know you we had
a we started off with a
(01:48):
car ride yeah that took forever because
there was so much traffic awesome I
introduced them to Boston traffic yeah
Josh and I got here Mark showed us a
dumpster like a truck well it's called a
trash truck trash truck we were just we
were behind it in traffic like he showed
us a trash truck like we don't have
those in Missouri
and then he's like and here's a tunnel
(02:08):
ah come on
he showed us some tunnels
well then okay so then we describe the
paint we took a visit some some people
on my team wanted oh yeah wanted to meet
you guys yes they did so we popped into
my office real quick yeah that was
awesome after we got pizza and
um we walked in and my team had prepared
(02:31):
a surprise yeah for us
so the mark on the Buffalo picture was
blown up into what two foot by three
foot photos and pasted all over the
walls everywhere everywhere the entire
office was decorated with photos of me
of memes from various episodes of the
podcast nice
um
and the thing that drives me the crazy
(02:52):
part is
they clearly did this outside of work
because we don't have a printer that big
so I couldn't nail them on like you use
District technology to do this nope they
had clearly gone out of their way
to print out giant pictures of me on a
buffalo
[Music]
you're hanging all around the office
it was it was hilarious can I tell you
(03:13):
that we've received a listener email oh
no
from someone in the tech department
go easy on Mark now
next question
do I need to update my resume after
decorating his office
and if so any openings in Missouri
[Laughter]
(03:34):
there are several openings in Missouri
right now
um do you have any guesses we can unpack
this do you think you know who did it
unpack uh yeah yeah I know exactly who
it's going to be and uh
I think he'll do well in Missouri
do you have a first name
I think he's been on the podcast before
yeah yeah
(03:54):
yeah he was on episode 100. who would
that be
Joseph
you could be right he says with this
Dane yeah in the office his name is Joe
it's now Joseph ah
it'll all be by the book now I felt like
because you never laughed or smiled oh
no that no
and then you actually ripped the papers
(04:15):
off the walls
yeah yeah yeah
was that for a show towards us to try to
show that you do have dominance in the
office
my my
face was blown up two by two feet by two
feet and put everywhere even the the
help desk dashboard instead of looking
(04:36):
at like Network outages they're looking
at my face instead so well you were off
that day they had to have your face
somewhere right yeah yeah and the best
part of it were the representatives from
the uh superintendent's office that came
down and yeah no no it did not just stay
within the tech department the soup's
office came down I was like what why are
(04:56):
you on a buffalo
which is a great question it is a great
question I went to Yellowstone last year
that's what we did yeah so anyways yeah
so trash truck
two tunnels yeah Mark's Cabin in the
Woods yep in the White Mountains in New
Hampshire and now this beautiful Resort
yes on the coast of Winnipesaukee which
(05:18):
apparently Jimmy Fallon spends time here
in the summer and Drew Barrymore and
Mitt Romney has a place up here yeah I
feel very npr-ish with this microphone
yeah yeah we're not used to recording
like this no
um so what do we got coming up on this
episode we interviewed several people
right Josh and Pam uh hear from New
Hampshire they're two of the big drivers
(05:39):
behind some of the student data privacy
alliances here in New Hampshire I almost
said Missouri
um and then we talk with Neil who
everybody everybody at this conference
we had dinner last night everybody talks
about Neil as the Cyber guy apparently
Neil is like the go-to tech director
here in New Hampshire that knows a lot
about cyber and helps out other
districts around the state with cyber
(06:02):
stuff so
um we hope you enjoy this this episode
and thanks to New Hampshire CTO clinic
for having us up we really enjoyed our
time and hopefully we can come back
so we are here at the New Hampshire CTO
clinic and I we have with us well Mark
this is the first time Mark and I are in
the same room together which is pretty
fantastic we just uh I did not hear you
(06:25):
oh sorry can you hear me now yeah
um so we just wrapped up our keynote
address and we have two uh people from
two attendees from the event here that
are uh I guess you could say rock stars
in in this space with data privacy and
I.T leadership in New Hampshire so I
will let them introduce themselves we'll
(06:45):
start with Josh
all right thanks for having me and
thanks for coming all the way out here
guys yeah uh my name is Josh I'm the I.T
director in the Oyster River Cooperative
School District uh we're about just over
2100 students and I've been there about
11 years now wow okay
and I'm Pam McLeod I'm with the Concord
(07:07):
School District in New Hampshire it's
about the third largest District in New
Hampshire okay give us an idea how many
students that we have about
um 4 100 students plus a CTE Center so
we're up over 4 500 students okay as
well this is my 19th year in education
wow nine years in Concord and before
that I was 10 years at one of those
small K-8 500 students okay I'm also a
(07:31):
school board member at New Hampshire we
heard last night we were talking to you
that that a lot of school districts in
New Hampshire excuse me are very small
rural it's almost like a very
decentralized uh Live Free or Die Live
Free or Die local control yes yeah so
Missouri's local control but I think you
guys you're from our discussions last
night it seems like New Hampshire is
(07:51):
taking that up a notch or two uh from a
local control standpoint for sure so uh
tell us about what your guys what your
efforts have been around student data
privacy here in New Hampshire and what
but
um like again last night at dinner you
were talking about the commissioner you
know there's new there's new things
coming from the Department of Education
(08:12):
so uh give us a little bit of that
um it's it's uh a little complicated
I'll start with a little bit of a
timeline okay um in New Hampshire uh
they passed the data Privacy Law in
2018. we call it HB 1612 it's now an RSA
um and even as they were working on the
bill cousin notified us about it at the
(08:35):
national level and so we actually got
involved with talking with the sponsors
of the bill as it was going through the
process and we're able to kind of water
it down a little bit make it more
palatable for schools it was pretty
intense as it passed it was one of the
few pieces of legislation around the
country I think at the time it was the
(08:56):
first one that had minimum security
standards so
um it passed it had this reference to
this department of Ed needs to create
these minimum security standards it's
the standards by which school districts
need to operate as well as we need to
hold our vendors accountable to those
standards so it passed and then we all
sort of panicked um we weren't quite
(09:18):
sure you know the smaller school
districts especially nobody kind of knew
how to handle all of especially the
vendor vetting part of it
um so Josh uh was friendly with Steve
Smith down in Cambridge who does so much
work on the national level with sdpc and
a4l yeah I was going to say we're kind
of lucky we have this guy who started
(09:40):
the sdpc very close he's presented at
this conference before so we had already
known him pretty well and said well this
might be a good way to start meeting
some of these privacy standards because
these small school districts in New
Hampshire are going to have a really
hard time reaching out to these vendors
and actually getting a response please
(10:00):
sign this data privacy agreement and so
I think at that time there was 24
think about 24 State alliances with
Texas California being big ones and
obviously Massachusetts
so we felt that seemed to be really a
good Avenue
um to start the work because the way the
law is written is there's these security
standards and then that wonderful
(10:23):
language that um at least in New
Hampshire it's everywhere it's meet or
exceed the minimum standards right and
it was the vendors had to provide an
assurance that they would meet or exceed
the minimum standards and so how do you
get a vendor to do that and so the DPA
seemed like a really good vehicle to do
that so was the original intent of the
bill that each district would write its
(10:44):
own DPA or is that the state would come
out with
uh no they didn't provide any funding to
the state to do anything okay we did
reach out to the state very first thing
and uh and they basically said you know
we have to deal with this too
um they had to develop those minimum
security standards we don't have any
funding to help you we were hoping they
(11:05):
would kind of take the that was our
first uh check we were hoping they would
take the ball and organize all of us and
sort of help lead us through this but uh
Live Free or Die that's not how it works
um so we spent the next six months just
trying to figure out what to do how to
organize this
um we worked so we had a we have a state
(11:25):
CSO and um the person at the time came
from a federal background and he
developed the minimum security standards
based on nist
800-171 so it's a subset of 42 of those
standards so it's a smaller bite
but he was great because he brought
those to us
(11:46):
he let us take a look at him we had some
discussions about them before they went
to the state and were adopted and
finalized and after that we've even gone
through a couple of rounds during the
pandemic we went through a couple of
rounds of how do we make it so that
these more commercial companies Panda
doc was one it's an e-signature company
(12:08):
they have soc2 certification so we
thought we developed an addendum so that
vendors with these Nationwide
certifications could just sort of get a
pass because their their certifications
exceed our standards sure sure so they
didn't have to go through our checklist
(12:28):
to sign the data privacy agreement and
um the gentleman that came up with the
standards if you look across the
Spectrum you have the CIS top 18 you
have nist CSF he did a lot of research
into what education records fall under
and that's how he arrived at nist 800
(12:50):
171 it's really interesting because it
seems like
there's so many different standards that
people can follow it feels kind of like
ceases
kind of go with the top 18 for schools
but I know I think New York
um
Texas are doing some variation of CSF so
so it's pretty interesting and like Pam
(13:12):
said I I pretty sure it was the first
legislation nationally that tied privacy
um and security together you know when
you guys had dug on that was kind of one
of his points was yeah everyone's
talking about privacy but not security
right
um but that was I think something unique
in our law was that those two were
together so how how has adoption been
(13:33):
from districts that might be smaller
districts that have a one-man shop or
what what's that pinch Point bin or
what's that struggle been like have they
been successful in getting these
agreements obviously you know with dpas
you can piggyback off of other
Agreements are they primarily doing that
or yeah who's having those tough
conversations are you guys leading those
tough conversations we're leading a lot
(13:55):
of the tough conversations because we
have more staff than some of those
districts so especially during the
pandemic we were really taking the lead
on having those conversations with the
vendors but it's really um we collect a
dollar ten cents per student per year
from our member districts we have about
130
(14:16):
000 students in New Hampshire covered
under this agreement which is about 82
percent
um roughly of the students in New
Hampshire I don't know what the other
districts are doing yeah but I mean that
would be a good yeah do they ever come
to conferences and you're able to ask
them that or are they are those
districts that aren't adhering to that
kind of they stated themselves or you
(14:37):
know don't like to I think for for
whatever reason they're sort of flying
under the radar that first year Josh and
I you know we organized
um so we use a non-profit in
Massachusetts the tech the education
Cooperative so we collect These funds or
they collect These funds and we pay them
to do they have an attorney on staff
(14:58):
they call the vendors we're now in a
Consortium with five other states so
that's built up or four other states in
New England so that's built up over time
as well that's really helped our
adoption but that first year Josh and I
um spent a lot of time going to every
Regional superintendent's meeting in New
Hampshire we got the buy-in from the
superintendent's executive board Joshua
(15:20):
superintendent Dr Morris was really
instrumental in just leading us around
introducing us to people we made sure we
had that buy-in so that it would be more
successful and I'm wondering the one
meeting we missed is probably the region
where we have two remote stragglers yeah
that would be interesting yeah I was
going to say I think for anybody who is
(15:41):
early on trying to build like an sdpc
alliance or there's states that have
them and you know maybe they're not as
active as other states I really think
what worked out well for us is number
one our our nhcto group our coast and
affiliate we're a tight group we meet
monthly it's a great group of people we
have a lot of fun and then from there we
(16:04):
started building strategic Partnerships
with these other groups and specifically
the superintendents Association and the
school boards Association I have to give
them a shout out
um yeah they were they were great as
well so we really worked with those
other groups so the superintendents knew
what we were trying to do we explained
that you know this wasn't we were
(16:25):
putting forth kind of this collaborative
approach to data privacy instead of
everyone trying to do it on their own
we're going to pool our resources
because ver there's only a couple school
districts that even have attorneys on
staff most of us all share common law
firms so the idea was how do we not pay
our law firms multiple times for this
(16:45):
work for the same project and so we had
seen I think at the time in
Massachusetts there was only maybe 10
schools kind of working with with this
group Tech to collaboratively do this
and so we said well do you think you
could do it New Hampshire and
um you know they said yeah you know
we'll see but there can't be that many
people that'll jump on board and I think
(17:07):
within the first month of kind of
releasing this we had about 40 districts
wow on board and so we've really
leveraged them and a collaborative
approach to like we're dealing with one
attorney we're all funneling money into
that one attorney and then we use um one
of the ladies names Rhema she actually
is the one that we interface with she
(17:28):
goes out contacts vendors on our behalf
starts that process helps the back and
forth so uh in some ways a lot of the
districts the heavy lifting the contact
the vendors is really taken care of and
then you know if we run into problems
with vendors you know we start talking
amongst our group and we've put the
pressure on a couple and there's a
couple vendors that wouldn't sign that
(17:50):
when we all said we're not going to
renew that changed their mind it's just
magic how that works right so and I just
want to give a shout out Microsoft was
our first vendor to sign which was great
it actually aligned with the we have a
Microsoft pricing purchasing Consortium
as well which I started when I was in a
(18:10):
small District so it's like gosh it was
I think it was 2010 it was a while ago
so it aligned with the renewal of that
contract
um so that was um really um helpful for
us and they were really great to work
with so we have as large as Microsoft
that's probably our largest and a small
like we have tiny little vendors there's
a company called pickup Patrol which
(18:32):
does uh after school you know parent
pickup organization they're based here
in New Hampshire I think they were
developed by students in New Hampshire
and then became a company and um so you
know organizations of all sizes but um
we have 1500 different products covered
under our IPA so at this point it's
almost in maintenance mode
(18:53):
um at this point and
um it really has been fantastic but it's
really that collaboration with the other
states that has helped us get there and
you're working on Google right to get
them to sign
we've gotten nowhere with Google yeah
California
yeah progress on it yeah yeah so uh help
me understand how many districts are in
(19:14):
New Hampshire
167 ish
Public Schools you can have a single
Community right with two districts right
right so there's kind of splits and
breaks and Pam's a school board member
where they just Consolidated three
districts into one so it's kind of
(19:36):
constantly changing still still three
districts we've just Consolidated SAU
services so we just our Central offices
so Pam you mentioned something a few
minutes ago that that was really cool
about the cyber security Grant yeah uh
the the sltt grant tell us what New
Hampshire did with that Grant yeah well
I have to speak about like our
Partnerships again because most of us
(19:56):
use uh primex which is our public risk
management
um pool and they have really uh Corey
Casey will be here this afternoon from
primex for a presentation they've really
taken the lead in working directly with
school districts and municipalities
around the state they've been really
awesome and then we have a forensic
first respect under the atom group so
(20:18):
they they're actually it's a private
company but they've been tapped as like
the state's first responder and cyber
security incidents fantastic and we have
a state um CSO we have a different one
now
um the new one is Ken weeks um he's
absolutely really awesome to work with
as well from the state so
um I'm forgetting the original question
(20:39):
yeah sltt cyber grade the Cyber Grant so
they've all been working together with
representatives from the schools and the
municipalities to help determine how
they would spend this money obviously
it's limited money right in the grand
scheme of things they came up with three
things I've been trying to remember them
one was UB keys for every everybody who
wants them in New Hampshire
(21:00):
um if private public organizations the
second was training so they have a
training uh it's like cyber training
Library certifications yeah like a
voucher program so anyone who wants to
get like um a plus security oh wow I'll
provide a voucher for that's cool so
like if I I have a team of six so if
they wanted to get certified we could
(21:21):
get vouchers wow to get certified and
then the last one I don't think it
affects us as much but all the small
communities they're using personal email
accounts and all this crazy stuff so
they're doing a um a facilitated move
to.gov addresses oh good so I I don't
think that's going to affect us that
(21:42):
much and I'd kind of heard that cesa was
wanting to move education to.edu's
that'd be great I I spent some time at
higher ed and they all have edu but
those are managed by educause K-12
doesn't have correct access to educause
so I think it'd be great for K-12 to
have edu accounts I mean that Nashville
(22:03):
is a edu I'm not quite sure interesting
I wonder how they have been for a long
time yeah so yeah we we really felt that
the group and Neil was our
representative from our group on the
sltt grant group and um you know it felt
like they did a really good job trying
to identify
(22:24):
really easy things that are you know
they could write the grant quick for
yeah and then Implement quickly so I
think we were one of I think it was
under five yeah Missouri was one
approval in December and I think at this
point we're just waiting for the feds to
release the money I just got an email
about an hour ago saying they they
released FEMA released the money so oh
(22:45):
great so yeah hopefully we'll be able to
get that in Massachusetts we've applied
for a waiver
on the deadline and so we're gonna think
about it in a few more months so it's
only jealous yeah we're really excited
we we appreciate what Neil who's a
fellow I.T director and in um in New
Hampshire what he was able to do for
that kind of represent us on the group
(23:07):
and yeah he's our cyber security Guru in
the crowd I think we all do a lot of
cyber security but he's you know he's
our go-to of heads and shoulders above
the rest of us yeah it's really good
well we appreciate you guys joining us
and taking away from time in sessions
but uh you guys are definitely doing
some amazing things up here in New
Hampshire and we wanted to bend your ear
(23:27):
and tell us uh how how did you do it so
uh we appreciate your time thanks guys
yeah we were preparing for a
presentation on privacy and realizing
that we're we're the ones talking to the
experts about it so there's a little
what do we say that they don't already
know so congrats thank you thanks guys
thanks we do want to thank our sponsors
(23:47):
for this special episode at the New
Hampshire CTO Clinic it's been awesome
getting to hang out with Josh and with
Mark for the first time in person we're
not just friends via zoom we're not just
friends via text uh the relationship
it's real it's a real one so again
thanks to our sponsors manage methods is
(24:08):
back manage methods make securing data
and detecting students safety signals in
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check out manage methods we also want to
thank ntp our newest sponsor look them
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(24:29):
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(24:50):
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(25:12):
the beginning email sales at
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so we are back here at the New Hampshire
CTO Clinic the Kosen affiliate here in
New Hampshire and Chris and Mark are
both with me now and we also have guest
uh speaker or guest attendee Neil hey
(25:34):
Neil how's it going good how are you
guys doing get a little closer to that
microphone
how's that that's much better
um so give us an idea of what you like
about this conference what what your
part is in this conference and planning
and all of that uh so what I like about
this conference is it's
geared towards getting not just the tech
directors but the superintendents and
(25:56):
the business managers like that's the
entire hope and Foundation of this this
conference um to get us in that room
talking together and hearing that same
message from all of the presenters yeah
um as far as involvement and planning
and stuff I'm a past board member for
the New Hampshire chapter and that's
pretty much the extent of okay of that
(26:18):
and um they did reach out to me early on
they're like hey
with K-12
podcast come and talk with us of course
we will
let me reach out no that's cool and then
you and you and I had met last summer at
the MS ISAC conference in Baltimore
right yes
um so everybody here calls you the Cyber
(26:38):
guy like you are you're you're it's
always here it's all here Niels the
Cyber guy Niels are the expert
um so give us a little bit of of the
help that you give school districts or
the resource that you are in that cyber
realm like are people calling you all
the time asking for help or what's going
on there yes
um so the answer to that was yes yes
(26:59):
across the board
um
so I'm the only
cyber certified professional okay in
K-12 in New Hampshire oh wow um I also
happen to be the director of Technology
um but that's it I've got
oh seven or eight certificate cissp the
Sim cisf the data privacy and then
(27:24):
a bunch of sand certs as well okay
so that's sort of where you know that
cyber security thing came from sure
um but because of that the state passed
the data Privacy Law in 2019 and they
were looking around and they're like uh
we don't know anything about this
I'm in the southwest corner of New
Hampshire nobody comes to see us but
(27:45):
nobody knows we really exist
um I was like well I've been doing this
from 2013 that's when I started doing
cyber and K-12 and like oh and then they
sucked me in in this
that it's just grown from there there
um really involved with the CTO group
here in New Hampshire
(28:06):
then the state reached out and said hey
uh can you help us Define these
standards that the legislature said that
we must develop so I helped
um with Pam McLeod get those squared
away
then they they reached out again to me
when the sltt grant came through they
said you know would you be the K-12 rep
(28:28):
so we can right get that money right
going and then you know I
GT government Tech magazine reached out
and asked me to be on there
for our conference board oh wow another
conference reached out down in Florida I
don't even remember who they are right
now wow that's cool yeah so Pam
mentioned something earlier that the
(28:50):
with the sltt grant cyber Grant
um States buying UV keys for public
employees can you like what how did that
come about that's awesome Yep um so we
we got together you know
um all the different reps from the
different sectors within within the
state and we're like you know dollar for
(29:11):
dollar this isn't a lot of money right
what can we do with this to get the most
value out of it so they developed you
know the governor box because that
doesn't cost them much of anything to do
the state will just give us a gov
address and you know set business cards
and letterhead to get it started
um and then they're like well training
(29:31):
if we can get anybody or everybody
trained even just an intro into cyber to
at least have a better understanding and
we can sort of level set across the
board so they've started that route and
it wants to be trained reach out to the
state
um and tell them what cyber course you
want to take and they'll figure out how
to get that paid about your
(29:53):
um and then eventually even pay for the
certification if you want to go that far
with it one of the things you mentioned
too is the dot gov address yes so what
we heard was that there are still some
districts in New Hampshire that don't
have district-wide email accounts is
that where it is
that is where it is yes
[Laughter]
(30:14):
and it's funny
the real problem is down at the
municipality level right right like the
small towns yeah
where you know they're all running on
Yahoo addresses right Chief is you know
at
msm.com it's crazy it's
so that's the problem they're trying to
address I wouldn't be surprised we
(30:35):
haven't been in Missouri as well so to
our cybers Gamers that are listening
what towns are those yeah
so okay so part of the plan is to get
those towns that are
that are running off of personal
accounts onto a.gov correct
um training for folks and UB Keys yep
um what's been the response from
districts and towns to those kinds of
(30:56):
things
um so we're still waiting to get that
first check in to get the Yuba Keys
purchased yeah that was the third thing
um and the thought there was how can we
best facilitate 2fa Implement Implement
implementation without telling everybody
you got to use your personal device
right because that's the one complaint
(31:17):
we hear there's no I'm not using my
personal device if
the state's like well we get a huge
discount anyways so just be that
purchaser you tell us how many you want
add 30 because they're going to lose
them yeah and we'll ship them to you
that's fantastic
so okay so
I don't want to use my personal uh
account or my personal device for for
(31:39):
two-step but also like our our do you
think you're going to get resistance
from towns or schools that don't want to
move off of personal email accounts move
on to a statement yes absolutely
absolutely
because the motto of New Hampshire still
is Live Free or Die absolutely
absolutely so now having the state come
in and say you must use this address
correct so are you gearing up for that
(32:00):
have you heard from some districts
already so the districts are torn right
we've got this Longevity if we already
have our established domain right a lot
of us yes our four character domains
rightly
we don't want to just walk away from
that to get some yeah oh so even if you
have a domain you're still migrating
over you can or you can okay you can you
(32:21):
don't have to okay you can I keep
thinking about email addresses like
police chief underscore 2004.
and then I keep thinking of some
inappropriate ones yeah so does it is it
police chief one and then the new police
chief comes in there police chief2
yahoo.com or do they just pass the
credentials that's the conversation
right so fascinated if they get canned
(32:44):
do they share the password with the next
person and there are police Chiefs like
or officers handing out business cards
that say like yeah absolutely absolutely
amazing I mean okay also amazing that
that was recognized yeah
in 2023 like let's nip it yeah yeah I
mean real talk let's use this money and
fix this problem yeah this thing's been
(33:05):
lingering around for a while no that
makes sense but it also outlines I think
it's it's very common across the United
States where you have
states that are very very rural with a
mixture of kind of urban Suburban
districts and that's exactly what New
Hampshire is you've got Concord
Nashville Manchester or the kind of
mid-sized bigger districts but the
majority of your kids go to
(33:26):
sub 1 000 student accounts or districts
right so we've heard that quite quite a
lot with with a very very kind of
decentralized District by District small
District approach from Tech Support to
security to data privacy so
um we talked earlier to to Pam and Josh
who talked about how they're really
trying to build this Consortium around
(33:47):
data privacy do you feel that same thing
can happen with security obviously the
two are related do you think there's
going to be more Consortium and kind of
group thinking or District you know
groups of districts thinking about cyber
security I hope so I think it will get
there
um you know we've got nationally we're
starting to see that pickup we've got
k-126 yep that's out there trying to
(34:07):
make an effort we've got MSI Sac right
with the K-12 working group there out
there
um so I think it will come I think it's
going to be slow yeah because districts
still at the end of the day don't have
those resources it it's still a time
commitment yeah and if you're a two or
three person
Department right
yeah whose time am I taking away and
(34:29):
rightly you're not going to do what what
problems are you not solving because you
are focusing on this other bigger
problem yeah well but but this
conference this week is happening in the
shadow of your second largest District
in New Hampshire getting hit with
ransomware so National was just hit
earlier this week
is that sending waves it's it's
definitely sending waves around this
room do you feel it it's going to hit
(34:51):
superintendents as well I I think it
will and I think it's already started
when I went into our leadership meeting
on Monday that was the topic of the
principles like what happened to
Nashville is it going to happen here is
it you know it's yeah yeah yes yes yes
yeah it can absolutely yeah yeah
(35:13):
and it will yeah yeah yeah yeah
well Neil we we appreciate your time
with us today uh we don't want to keep
you from any other sessions here this
afternoon so uh we appreciate it and
thanks for thinking of us and getting us
up here thank you thank you thanks Neil
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