While the numbers are constantly changing based on fluid circumstances and data, it’s safe to say that millions of students across the U.S. are engaging in virtual learning. This has largely been the way of life since COVID-19 caused school shutdowns nationwide in March 2019, and the path forward toward in-person school as we knew it is still unclear.

As most institutions and school districts are well aware, remote learning brings with it a host of cyber security threats and considerations. These concerns have brought the idea of encrypted data to the forefront of the discussion, because student data is now being stored in, and accessed from, a variety of locations.

The Covid-19 pandemic has reshaped education compliance, both in K-12 and higher education. As classes went fully online, it has become incredibly difficult for school IT administrators and teachers to keep track of all the elements of compliance.

From the cybersecurity of students’ and teachers personal devices used for lecturing, the monitoring of various communication channels, to preserving all the business records, which are in themselves an ever-evolving topic, the past year has been quite a challenge for legal and compliance professionals working in schools, as well as teachers, school tech teams, and administration.

Practically overnight, the global pandemic crumpled up traditional education models and tossed them into the wastebasket. Schools around the world were forced to reinvent their infrastructure in real time and to persevere through one of the most urgent, drastic, and important pivots of any sector.

With roughly 1.4 billion children across 186 countries facing pandemic-related school closures, there was no precedent for a disruption of this magnitude—and no readily-available Plan B.