Source: http://www.infosharetoolkit.org/ferpa-cat3/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 02:40:35+00:00

Document:
This section explores the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA), and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA).
Records made by officials of a school law enforcement unit  as long as they are for a law enforcement purpose and kept separate from other records at the school.  Law enforcement officials may – but are not required to – release these records to parents or eligible students.  Moreover, officials may release these records to third parties without the consent of the parent or eligible student.
Under this exception, juvenile justice personnel may receive educational information regarding a student involved in the juvenile justice system without the consent of the student’s parent when certain conditions are in place. See section 1.a.iv on FERPA and the Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice System below for further discussion of this exception.
Schools also may disclose personally identifiable information from the student's education records to the Attorney General of the United States or to his designee in response to an ex parte order (an order issued by a court of competent jurisdiction without notice to an adverse party)  in connection with the investigation or prosecution of terrorism crimes. Information must subsequently be destroyed when it is no longer needed for the research.  These exceptions allow agencies and institutions to aggregate data and disclose statistical information from educational records, without consent, so long as the student’s identity is not easily traceable.
In 2013, the Uninterrupted Scholars Act amended FERPA to provide child welfare caseworkers with easier access to certain students’ education records.  The Uninterrupted Scholars Act creates a new exception under FERPA that allows schools to release a child’s education records without parental notification or consent to an agency caseworker or other representative of a State or local child welfare agency or tribal organization.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) of 2004 amended the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), originally enacted in 1975. The amended IDEA, referred to here as the IDEA, explains in Part B that in exchange for federal funding, states must provide students with disabilities who are eligible for services under the IDEA a “free, appropriate public education” (or FAPE) in the least restrictive environment.  In Part B it also sets forth the process to provide such education, including evaluations for services, eligibility determinations, individualized education programs (IEPs), and educational placements,  as well as procedural safeguards.  The IDEA recognizes the need to protect the confidentiality of special education records.
The IDEA grants parents the right to inspect and review all education records,  and defers to FERPA’s definition of an education record.  As discussed under the FERPA heading of this site, apart from specifically enumerated exceptions,  education records under FERPA are those records that are (1) directly related to a student, and (2) maintained by an educational agency or a party acting for the institution.
Special education records are all records dealing with the identification, evaluation, educational placement, and the provision of FAPE to a child.  These records are included in the education record when they meet FERPA’s definition of education record described above.  IEPs, for example, meet that definition and must be in the education record for at least five years.  Accompanying documentation used to design the IEP also may be in the education record, if the individual maintaining the record is employed with the school. Take for example a psychological evaluation that will be used to create an IEP for a child with autism. That evaluation, because it will be maintained by a psychologist who is acting for the school, is part of the education record.
By contrast, an outside evaluation, such as a psychological evaluation that is performed at an outside hospital, by a psychologist who is not acting for the school would NOT be part of the educational record UNLESS the parent provides a school with a copy.
IDEA regulations specifically provide for the release of personally identifiable information in the education record, without parental consent, to personnel participating in providing the special education.  For example, parental consent is not needed for a student’s IEP to be shared with school officials involved in implementing it. However, there are two special confidentiality rules that apply to children receiving services under the IDEA.
First, parental consent is required to release education records for children receiving services under IDEA when the child will enroll or has enrolled in a private school that is not in the school district of the child’s parents.  This IDEA provision preempts FERPA’s enrollment exception for this particular circumstance.
While the definition of parent under FERPA does not conflict with the IDEA, it is worded more broadly and interpreted to allow for simultaneous parents. FERPA defines a parent more generally to include “a natural parent, a guardian, or an individual acting as a parent in the absence of a parent or guardian.”  The regulations explain that this definition allows various parents, custodial and non-custodial, to simultaneously have rights as a “parent” unless a legally binding document specifically states otherwise.  IDEA, meanwhile, does not allow multiple types of parents under its definition to simultaneously act as the IDEA parent.
However, under the IDEA the age when a student can control the creation and implementation of their special education services is different than the age when a student can access and disclose his or her records. Under the IDEA, the authority to make decisions related to the substance of one’s special education transfers at the age of majority. The age of majority varies based on state law.  For example, in Pennsylvania the age of majority is 21 unless a statute specifies otherwise. Consult state law to determine that state’s age of majority.
Federal Law Statutory Compilation: Confidentiality, Privacy, and Information Sharing Provisions - This table catalogues key sections of FERPA, HIPAA, and the Confidentiality of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Patient Records of the Public Health Service Act. For each key component of legislation, the table includes excerpted text and a brief summary highlighting the real world implications of the act. Resource available at http://www.promoteprevent.org/sites/www.promoteprevent.org/files/resources/federal_law_statutory_compilation_2012.pdf.
 Id.; 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(a)(4)(B); 99 C.F.R. §99.3.
 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(a)(4)(A); 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(d).
 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b)(1)(L); See “FERPA and the Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice Systems” infra section iv.
 DoE FERPA Guidance, supra at note 6.
 Id. (explaining that for there to be an articulable and significant threat, a school official must be able to explain why, based on the information available, he or she believes there is a substantial threat).
 20 U.S.C § 1232g(b)(1)(F); 20 U.S.C § 1232g(b)(1)(K).
 20 U.S.C. § 1232b(b)(1)(C). See 18 U.S.C. 2332b(g)(5)(B) and 2331 for enumerated crimes.
 20 U.S.C § 1232g(b)(1)(L) (“an agency caseworker or other representative of a State or local child welfare agency, or tribal organization (as defined in section 4 of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (25 U.S.C. 450b)), who has the right to access a student’s case plan, as defined and determined by the State or tribal organization, when such agency or organization is legally responsible, in accordance with State or tribal law, for the care and protection of the student, provided that the education records, or the personally identifiable information contained in such records, of the student will not be disclosed by such agency or organization, except to an individual or entity engaged in addressing the student’s education needs and authorized by such agency or organization to receive such disclosure and such disclosure is consistent with the State or tribal laws applicable to protecting the confidentiality of a student’s education records).
 See 20 U.S.C § 1232g(b)(1)(L); See infra section b “The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA)”, especially text accompanying notes 65-67.
 A person is considered to have been adjudicated delinquent if he or she is under age 18 and has been found by a juvenile court judge to have committed a violation of a criminal law.
 34 C.F.R. § 501(a); 34 C.F.R. § 99.10.
 These records, discussed under the FERPA heading of this site, are specifically excluded from the definition of education records: memory aids, records of the school’s law enforcement unit, records relating to an individual’s employment with the school, and treatment records from outside providers when the subject of the disclosure is an eligible student. 34 C.F.R. § 99.3.
 Letter to Cossey, 211 IDELR 351 (OSEP 1984).
 Letter to Kudwa, 211 IDELR 89 (OSEP 1979).
 34 C.F.R. § 99.4. (An educational agency or institution shall give full rights under the Act to either parent, unless the agency or institution has been provided with evidence that there is a court order, State statute, or legally binding document relating to such matters as divorce, separation, or custody that specifically revokes these rights.)(emphasis added). This interpretation is also supported by guidance from the Family Policy Compliance Office guidance, available athttp://familypolicy.ed.gov/content/case-divorce-do-both-parents-have-rights-under-ferpa; http://familypolicy.ed.gov/content/can-stepparents-grandparents-and-other-caregivers-be-considered-parents-under-ferpa (June 2015).
 20 U.S.C. § 1232g (d); 34 CFR § 99.3.
 34 C.F.R. § 300.520; 34 C.F.R. § 300.622(b)(2).
 20 U.S.C. § 1232(h). The PPRA also requires schools to allow parents to inspect materials used in connection with any survey, analysis or evaluation in which their children participate.
 20 U.S.C. § 1232h(b); 34 C.F.R. § 98.4.
 20 U.S.C. § 1232h(c); 42 U.S.C.A. § 5101 et seq.

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