Back to Basics
This 1974 law, often called the "Buckley Amendment," was enacted to protect the privacy of student educational records.
What is FERPA?
These typically include name, address, telephone listing, date and place of birth, participation in officially recognized activities and sports, and dates of attendance.
What is Directory Information?
The universal following of each legal detail of FERPA in an impartial and universal manner falls under this ethical philosophy
What is ethics of justice?
This Utah district requires annual FERPA training, mandates encryption for mobile devices, and restricts external storage of student data.
What is Jordan School District?
A non-custodial parent has asked for access to their child's grades. To ensure there is no violation of FERPA, school employees should check for these potential outstanding documents.
What are relevant court document?
These three core rights were granted to parents and students under FERPA to protect their educational records.
What are the rights to access, right to amend education records, and the right to restrict disclosure without consent?
These include the right to review a student’s record, and to amend the records if there is something in there that is “inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise in violation of the privacy rights of the student”
What are parental rights?
This constitutional value, affirmed in Griswold v. Connecticut and Justice Douglas’s dissent in Pollak, underpins the legal foundation of FERPA.
What is the right to privacy?
This district distinguishes FERPA from GRAMA and maintains a vendor registry to track third-party access to student data.
What is Provo City School District?
A parent of an 18 year old student must have this in order to access the student's educational records.
What is prior written consent?
FERPA gives these people the right to see and correct a student’s education records.
Who are parents and eligible students?
In order for a school to lose federal funding for being in violation of FERPA, this is the legal premise that must be demonstrated.
What is “Policy or practice”?
This law from 2015 increased the amount of student data collected in schools, making FERPA even more important as a tool to protect student privacy rights.
What is the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)?
According to Utah Code Ann. § 53E-9-308(5)(b), this type of training must be conducted annually for all public education employees with access to student records.
What is FERPA?
What is student data privacy training?
A teacher casually shares information about a student with a colleague who does not teach them or have any other direct educational connection, violating this core FERPA provision.
What is the “legitimate educational interest” requirement for record access?
Before FERPA, many schools collected information like health records and family background but didn’t give this group access.
Who are parents (or students)?
This non-federal code bars students from participating in any survey without parental knowledge of - and opportunity to opt out from - the survey.
What is the Utah State Code?
This type of language, common in policy written in districts such as Park City, is insufficient to provide effective implementation of FERPA from an ethical leadership perspective.
What is aspirational language?
This district’s policies emphasize aspirational values around data privacy but lack detailed procedures for implementation and training.
What is Park City School District?
A police officer asks for a student’s attendance records but lacks a subpoena. Unless one of these two conditions exists, schools must deny the request.
What is an articulable and significant threat to health or safety, or written parental consent?
This 1973 report by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare introduced Fair Information Practices and heavily influenced FERPA’s design.
What is Records, Computers, and the Rights of Citizens?
These four US officials have explicit rights to see protected student records under specific circumstances set out in the FERPA legal code.
Who are the Secretary of Education, the Comptroller General of the United States, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Agriculture
This ethical leadership philosophy should be employed in regards to students when laws like FERPA contain ambiguity or exceptions.
What is err on the side of protecting student rights?
What is seek guidance when uncertain?
This is the most critical shared vulnerability across all three districts’ FERPA implementation, particularly concerning educational technology.
What is inadequate oversight of third-party digital platforms?
A vendor contracted to provide instructional software asks for access to student data. To avoid violating FERPA, the school district must ensure these two things.
What are a designation as a "school official" with a legitimate educational interest, and that data-sharing is governed by a written agreement in alignment with FERPA and Utah State Code