National Data Privacy Agreement
24 April, 2024 —The Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), a special interest group of the non-profit Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, is proud to announce the release of the National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA), version 2, which has been further developed to streamline application contracting and set common expectations between schools/districts and marketplace providers.
The NDPA version 2 has been developed by the 28 state Alliances addressing common obligations across the U.S. as well as their specific state needs, and this release incorporates feedback from Alliance leaders and Vendor Community Members, and has been reviewed by legal representatives through A4L Community Member Review. It is designed to address common student data privacy concerns and streamline the educational application contracting processes for schools/districts who do not have the legal or fiscal resources and vendors who previously had to sign “one off” contracts with each of the over 13,000 US school districts. While the NDPA allows for any state specific legislative requirements, the majority of the privacy expectations are standardized and can be used by any entity as part of their Terms of Service Agreements.
The NDPA v2 represents the byproduct of hundreds of hours of thoughtful input from the SDPC Vendor and Alliance community. The goal was to clarify the language, and balance substantive changes and create a structure that makes the NDPA easier to use. The result is a new NDPA, and updated usage guide, that will save time and money for schools, districts, and edtech companies, ultimately benefiting students by allowing schools and districts to allocate more resources to learning and less to negotiating
Jim SieglSenior Technologist, Future of Privacy Forum 
The community input and support during this process was incredible. Many, many people from districts, alliances, non-profits and vendors provided hundreds of thoughtful and usable comments. The new version is organized better for our users and their legal advisers, which is going to save a ton of time in both new contracting and ongoing management. I’m especially excited for process changes that’ll make life easier for our vendors doing business in multiple states. And as Jim said, we’ll all be able to put more of our effort to learning and less to negotiating.
Steve SetzerCEO, Loop Data 
To find out more and get your needs addressed, please join in the conversations by being part of the Consortium.
NOTE: National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA) v2.2 published November 19, 2025.
© Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community. All Rights Reserved. This document may only be used by A4L Community members and may not be altered in any substantive manner.
National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA) v2 - presentation recording
Recorded: July 15, 2024.
Originally presented during the PESC-A4L Summit (April-May 2024), this is a recording of the National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA) version 2 session, presented by A4L Community members Steve Setzer, LoopData; Jim Siegl, Future of Privacy Forum; and Mark Williams, F3Law
National Data Privacy Agreement
Recorded: August 5, 2020.
This briefing provides an overview of the National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA).