Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act

(FERPA)

  Parents' rights to privacy are protected under a law called the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA. FERPA contains many safeguards to protect sensitive information regarding students.Only authorized persons can review special education records. Anyone who reviews records is supposed to sign for them. They must be kept in a secure place.

   Under FERPA, parents have the right to request and inspect all documentation a district holds pertaining to a child. Even information that does not contain the name, but refers to the child is protected. The district is required to present these records for your review within forty days of the initial written request.

   Such a review is important so parents can be kept abreast of what records the district holds. You can request that those records be brought together in one place for you to review.  I suggest taking a friend or family member along so you can accurately record each document, the date of the document, the number of pages, and note anything that looks out of the ordinary to you. Sometimes there may be information you believe is misleading or inaccurate. If so, you have the right to request that information be eliminated or that you want to attach a correction to it.

   One important area of concern to parents is the handling and dissemination of information the district receives from out of district, such as medical evaluations, psychological evaluations, etc. Parents may trustingly hand the entire document to the district.  This can at times be a mistake.  While many districts will use such information responsibility, some districts will take advantage of the information to try to place the cause of a child's symptoms, even disability related, onto the family.  This may be done subconsciously, but it can cause great harm to the family and the child.

   Some of this information is no more relevant than the personal history of any other person in attendance at a meeting, or any team member.  But it can be  information that colors the perspective of people who do not need and should not have such information in their possession. The district needs to consider only educationally relevant information.

   One way parents can protect their privacy, yet provide what the district needs is to ask outside service providers to write a letter of summary. For example, a medical doctor or psychologist could include such information as the symptoms, the diagnoses, (if educationally relevant), and any educational recommendations.

   If you believe there are sections of a document that would be helpful to the school you can always copy just those portions and black out what you believe is sensitive information that is no more educationally relevant than the personal, medical, or psychological history of other team members.