F.E.R.P.A.

In the United States, there are laws that protect the right of students’ academic records. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act also known as FERPA is a federal law that affords parents the right to have access to their children’s educational records. According to studentprivacy.ed.gov, “the right to seek to have records amended, and the right to have some control over the disclosure of personally identifiable information from the education records.” When a student turns eighteen years old there FERPA rights are transferred over to the student. They are then considered an eligible student. This law overall is helpful because it allows a parent that is concerned about their child to be able to get them the help that they need. Another reason this is helpful is being able to know what areas that a child needs help in. FERPA can get challenging for people when entering college. The records are only at the access of the student. When families call to see if the student is enrolled in an institution a school isn’t able to release that or if a parents wants to know where there student stands in a class they aren’t able to see that either. When a student askes through email about what their grade is for a test that shouldn’t be seen as an individual violating FERPA the professor should have to provide them those records. In some cases that doesn’t happen or they don’t want to discuss your grade with you through email because they are unsure of who’s sending the email. If the FERPA law is violated it can result in serious penalties. I do think that students should have the right to know what their grades are throughout the school year, because it can get complicated when a student isn’t aware resulting in them potential not improving in time. Overall this is meant to protect student’s records whether that be where that student lives, what classes they are taking, and what grades they have.

In the case Miami Student v. Miami University, the student newspaper requested records from the university which detailed criminal activity that occurred on campus. The university released the information, but didn’t release the identities of the students that were present within these crimes. The newspaper wasn’t pleased that they didn’t receive the names of the people. They filed an action with the Ohio Supreme Court demanding that they would receive the names. The students felt that the First Amendment gave then the right and access to public record. The university felt that this is violating the rights of FERPA. Ohio Supreme Court concluded that these rights were not covered by FERPA. Since this happened the Department of Education filed a complaint against the University. This stated that student disciplinary records are a part of the student record. This lead to the district court determining that this was under education records and should be under FERPA. This does apply on my campus as well within our own newspaper various incidents whether they be in the classroom, resident halls, or off campus. They are reported in the newspaper not directly identifying the person, but letting the Utica College community know what is exactly occurring. I do think this is important because schools are responsible for the students that are on campus and they also need to protect their rights as well.