The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act or FERPA provides certain rights for parents regarding their children's education records. When a student reaches 18 years of age or attends an institution of postsecondary education at any age, the student becomes an "eligible student," and all rights under FERPA transfer from the parent to…

This guidance document provides school officials with general information about the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), with a particular focus on student health records maintained by educational agencies and institutions and by third parties acting on their behalf.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act or FERPA provides certain rights for parents regarding their children's education records. This guide provides general information on a parent's rights under FERPA.

Online program managers (OPMs) are third-party companies that work with colleges and universities to develop, launch, and deliver online learning. The prevalence of OPMs, however, has important implications for higher education program quality and transparency. In the final piece of our four-part series, higher education scholars establish a…

Granting access to student information, for what purpose, and to whom, is rarely a simple decision. Academic records have long been critical to the functioning of a university, but leveraging institutional data has become increasingly important (Lester, et al. 2017). Data stewards in higher education institutions nationwide confront a…

Technology integration and learning analytics offer insights to improve educational experiences and outcomes. In advancing these efforts, laws and policies govern these environments placing protections, standards, and developmental opportunities for higher education, students, faculty, and even the nation-state. Nonetheless, evidence of…

The surveillance and securitization of schools has transformed over the last decade to include predictive analytics and algorithms. In Florida, for example, the Pasco Sheriff's Office used school record data sets to identify and monitor youth they believed were "destined for a life of crime." Yet the extent of big data policing as a…

The Department of Education's Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) prepared this document to assist school officials working with public health officials in managing public health issues related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), while protecting the privacy of students' education records. Understanding the Family Educational Rights and…

Everyone who uses student information has a responsibility to maintain students' privacy and the security of their data. Ensuring student data privacy is about so much more than complying with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). While privacy must be top of mind when thinking about collecting and using personally identifiable…

States often turn to a data masking procedure called microsuppression in order to reduce the risk of disclosing student records when sharing data with external researchers. This process removes records deemed to have high risk for disclosure should data be released. However, this process can induce differences between the original data and the…

States often turn to a data masking procedure called microsuppression in order to reduce the risk of disclosing student records when sharing data with external researchers. This process removes records deemed to have high risk for disclosure should data be released. However, this process can induce differences between the original data and the…

Schools generate and maintain numerous student records, including grades, standardized test scores, disciplinary accounts, contact information, mental health records, and more. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which applies to educational agencies and institutions that receive certain types of financial assistance from the…

The Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) is performing a four-year review of a sample of the websites of 1,504 local education agencies (LEAs) to identify whether and how these websites include information about student privacy. In each year of the study, SPPO is reviewing a nationally representative sample of 376 LEA websites, focusing on whether…

Our current federal postsecondary data system is incomplete and fails to provide today's students with the accurate, timely information that they need to inform their college choices and promote their success. As policymakers consider proposals to improve this federal data system, it is critical that they work in tandem to protect students'…

After an introductory legal framework based on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, this article canvasses the court decisions concerning liability for disclosures of confidential information about students with disabilities. The relatively few court decisions illustrate the wide variety of disclosures, including (a) those to the media,…