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Balancing Student Privacy and School Safety: A Guide to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act for Elementary and Secondary Schools
Date: October 2007
Author: Family Policy Compliance Office
Institution: U.S. Dept. of Education
Bibliographic Entry: FERPA Family Policy Compliance Office. Balancing Student Privacy and School Safety: A Guide to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act for Colleges and Universities. U.S. Dept. of Education, Oct. 2007.
Electronic Link: http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/brochures/elsec.pdf
Key Words: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), school safety, student educational records
Summary of Key Points, Issues, Conclusions:
This guide addresses how school officials manage to balance safety and privacy for individual students through the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). FERPA generally requires schools to obtain written consent before disclosing a student's personally identifiable information to individuals other than his/her parents, and also allows schools to take key steps to maintain school safety. Understanding the law is important in order to empower school officials to act decisively and quickly when issues arise.
In a heath or safety emergency, FERPA permits school officials to disclose education records, including personally identifiable information from those records, without consent, if the disclosure can protect the health or safety of students or others. During such events, records and information may be released to appropriate parties such as law enforcement officials, public health officials, and trained medical personnel.
Law enforcement unit officials employed by the school should be designated in the school’s FERPA notification as "school officials" with a "legitimate educational interest." These officials may be given access to personally identifiable information from students' education records. The school's law enforcement unit officials must protect the privacy of education records it receives and may disclose them only in compliance with FERPA.
Security video tapes may be shared with parents of students whose images are on the video and with outside law enforcement authorities, as appropriate. Schools with no designated law enforcement unit might consider designating an employee to serve as the "law enforcement unit" in order to maintain the security camera and determine appropriate circumstances in which the school would disclose recorded images.
FERPA does not prohibit a school official from disclosing information of a student if the information is obtained through the school official's personal knowledge or observation, as opposed to the student's education records.
Finally, under FERPA, school officials may disclose any and all education records, including disciplinary records and records that were created as a result of a student receiving special education services under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, to another school or postsecondary institution at which the student seeks or intends to enroll.
Name of Researcher: Alison Stevens
Institution: Integrative Center for Homeland Security, Texas A&M University
Date Posted: Nov. 19, 2007