It is truly an exciting and invigorating time to be an active part of the A4L Community. There is so much positive energy and momentum driving numerous productive projects forward, fueled by the dedication of our members. This was undeniably evident at our recent 2026 SDPC & Unity Convening in the beautiful city of Long Beach, just a couple of weeks ago.
It’s hard to believe that 2025 is already coming to a close. It has been a whirlwind of a year. With new administrations in all of our communities, US, AU & NZ, there have been many changes impacting the educational ecosystems across our membership with rippling impacts to be felt in years to come. As a Community driven by our members to address their most pressing needs, A4L has remained agile and responsive to these challenges. I continue to be inspired daily by the commitment and dedication of our members and leadership to address the challenges being faced by the PK20W+ ecosystem across the globe…
The new school year is well underway, and we want to recognize the incredible work our employees, volunteers, members, partners, and Alliances are doing to support students and protect their privacy. As classrooms come alive with learning, the Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community remains committed to providing the resources, collaboration, and community you need to navigate this important work…
As we reach the midpoint of 2025, the A4L Community continues to demonstrate what’s possible when interoperability and privacy are treated not as competing priorities—but as complementary pillars of a secure, learner-centered data ecosystem.
This year, the development of the Registry 2.0 initiative has taken center stage. When launched with a redesigned interface, enhanced metadata capabilities, and a growing library of shared agreements, the new SDPC Resource Registry will help districts and vendors streamline privacy workflows while improving transparency and trust. The Registry 2.0 pre-conference workshop at our Annual Meeting was a powerful reminder of how far we’ve come—and how much more we can do together.
I can still remember my first A4L conference in 2016. Walking into the room, filled with people whose names I recognized from emails and phone conversations, the “old guard” of SIF. I had so much respect for that group that had founded not just a standard but a movement, a cause worth fighting for, to simplify the way education data was shared across the rapidly increasing number of software systems that schools, districts, and states were using to manage the operational and instructional business of education. And I also saw opportunities for change and modernization, as we looked to move forward and continue to ensure that our cause was relevant to the needs of our stakeholders. I found a like-minded group within the organization, and together we created exciting new possibilities at A4L.
It’s that time of year again; students, educators, administrators and staff all returning to school, along with caregivers all excited with anticipation about the new school year. For some they will experience new teachers, a new classroom, a new school building, and some will be returning to the same environment, but for all the excitement and anticipation for what lies ahead is palatable.
Although the A4L Community has gone through a lot of changes over the last year, there is a great deal of positive momentum. We have many new members stepping up to leadership positions, our overall membership continues to grow and the Association Board has adopted new strategic goals, actions and targets that will drive our work for the year to come.
It has been a very exciting and fulfilling first month as full time Executive Director. There is so much positive energy and engaged members it is difficult not to get excited!
There are great new developments both in the SDPC and with SIF. In SDPC work has begun on developing the Registry 2.0! This is a very large project and many of you will be engaged throughout the process. In the end we will be delivering a much more robust and user friendly Resource Registry. Much more to come on this in the near future.
To say it has been an eventful year at A4L in 2023 would be an understatement. This year, we experienced one of the most significant years in the history of the organization. Despite the turmoil that happens with change, the A4L Community has emerged as an even stronger force for interoperability and privacy in education.
All of this has been possible because of you. Over the course of this year, we have been heartened to see the outpouring of support amongst our membership, with the strongest engagement we have seen in our years working with this organization.
The past three months since the last A4L Quarterly Newsletter has been very busy and rewarding…
In August I had the honor of representing A4L/SDPC at the White House Back to School Safely: Cybersecurity for K-12 Schools event. The event took place in the East Room…
