Letters of Importance

This case study illustrates a scenario where a State educational agency creates high school feedback reports using the audit or evaluation exception under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

February 2022, this document was edited to update hyperlinks and the name of the U.S. Department of Education office administering FERPA. 

This document provides guidance to schools and local educational agencies (LEAs) regarding disclosure of personally identifiable information (PII) from education records to community based organizations.

Letter to Kansas Board of Regents about the applicability of FERPA to redisclosures of PII from students’ education records to contractors.

Letter to Nevada Department of Education about the applicability of FERPA to providing parents with access to their children’s education records at the State level.

Letter from 2014 providing official opinion from the Family Policy Compliance Office (FPCO) relative to the impact of the sharing of student information provisions in the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) on California Assembly Bill (AB) 2160, which aims to streamline the application process for the Cal Grant program.

Parents often ask questions like “What information are you collecting about my child?” “Why do you need that information, and what do you use it for?” or “How do you safeguard my child’s information?” These are legitimate questions that parents want schools and districts to answer.  This document provides a number of recommendations for keeping parents and students better informed about schools’ and districts’ collection and use of student data.

This guidance details the changes to FERPA made under the Uninterrupted Scholars Act. It explains how and under which circumstances PII from Education Records can be disclosed to caseworkers or other representatives state, local or tribal child welfare agencies.