Question
What rights do parents have under FERPA?
Answer
The big piece about FERPA is it gives parents the right to do many things. The first thing is to inspect and review the student's education records. They have the right to request that the school correct records they believe to be inaccurate. For example, a parent comes up says, "Hey, I'd like to look at my child's academic records from fourth grade. It says in there that he made a D in math in the second semester but he made a B in math the second semester. I'd like that corrected." Under FERPA, parents have the right to request this.
FERPA also gives parents the ability to restrict the release of personally identifiable information, which is crucial. We'll talk about that later on when we detail some of this. Parents have the right to give permission before the school releases some records. They can't just give records out to future landlords or anyone else. They've got to get permission from parents in order to do that. Parents have a right to be given a copy of a school's policy regarding access to educational records. Every school that falls under FERPA should have a policy in place about what they do in order to keep records safe and what records they release. That's a right that parents be given a copy of that, or it may be made available to parents on a website. Under FERPA, parents also have the right to file a complaint with the United States Department of Education, should something go awry.
Inspect and Review
Parents have the right to inspect and review the records created and maintained by the school for their child. Schools are not required to provide copies of these records and schools have 45 days to comply with the requests for inspection. If a parent or an eligible student is circumstantially unable to exercise the right to review the records, then the school must provide copies of the records or otherwise make arrangements for them to inspect the records.
While the law says that they're not required to provide copies, it also says if they are circumstantially unavailable. That means there is some circumstance that does not allow them to be able to come to the school and view those records. Here is an example. When I was a principal, I had a non-custodial parent who lived out of state and in a different time zone. He lived on the East Coast and I'm in the center of the country in Texas. He would call us every grading period and request that a copy of his child's report card be sent to him. In the state of Texas, non-custodial parents have access to those records.
FERPA doesn't say that they don't, so barring a judge's order that says this parent doesn't have access to his child's educational records, I had to make a way for him to view that record either through some secure online version or I had to stick a copy in snail mail to him in order for him to be able to view those records. That would be an example of how circumstances didn't allow for the parent to come up to the school and view the record. Schools cannot charge a search fee. For example, if you were to go up to a school and want to see a copy of your child's record, they can't charge you a fee just to search for the record. However, if they have to make copies, the law does allow for a small fee to be charged for copying.
This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) for Early Childhood Providers, presented by PJ Winters, EdD.
