Legal References

This one-page document provides a brief overview of parents’ and eligible students’ rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), with a particular focus on student health records.

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. 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 the student. This guide provides general information on an eligible student’s rights under FERPA.

The Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) at the U.S. Department of Education (Department) performed a four-year review of a nationally representative sample of the websites of 1,504 local education agencies (LEAs) to identify whether and how these websites include information about student privacy.

This document is a side-by-side comparison of the legal provisions and definitions in IDEA Part B, IDEA Part C and FERPA. It is intended to help differentiate these statutes and provide a comparisons for the shared definitions.

Letter to institutions of postsecondary education regarding the applicability of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to the disclosure of certain personally identifiable information from student education records to representatives of the U. S. Census Bureau (Bureau) who are conducting Group Quarters (GQ) or group housing data collection for the American Community Survey (ACS). Unlike the decennial census, the ACS is an on-going monthly survey of a sample of housing units and GQs, but the guidance is consistent with census collections. 

This letter is meant to inform State Education Agencies about their responsibilities regarding federal privacy laws including FERPA and PPRA.