Your Rights Under FERPA
Here’s what you need to know about campus police, security and administratoraccess to student school records and student arrest information.
3. Does FERPA make any allowances for disclosure of information from student records in responding to emergencies?
In June 2010, the Department of Education released guidelines regarding disclosing information from student education records during emergencies. The guidelines clarify that FERPA is not supposed to be an obstacle when addressing emergencies and protecting student safety. Rather, school and university administrators, police and security officials should know that FERPA provides a great deal of flexibility to campuses in disseminating information in order to respond to emergency situations.
Regardless of who a university or K-12 institution designates as a school official with a legitimate interest in student records, where a health or safety emergency exists, campuses may disclose personally identifiable information from a student’s education records to appropriate parties (such as campus police or security, other students, parents or outside law enforcement). The school would be required to show that there is an identifiable and significant threat to health and safety in order to demonstrate there is an emergency.
Mere possible or eventual emergencies – where the likelihood of the emergency actually occurring is unknown – may not justify the disclosure of student records and information. In addition, disclosure is limited to the period of the emergency and generally does not allow for a blanket release of all personally identifiable information from a student’s education records. In other words, schools should only disclose whatever information is necessary in order to protect health and safety during an actual emergency.
Before personally identifiable information reg
arding students may be disclosed without written consent, campus officials also need to determine that the recipient needs the information to protect health or safety. There must be a rational basis for the school or university’s decision to disclose information to the individuals who receive it. As long as a school can explain how the disclosure of information rationally relates to an emergency, the Department of Education usually will not second guess the decision to release that information.
FERPA tries to strike a balance between a college or K-12 school’s need to disclose student records and a student’s (and parent’s) privacy expectations. Because of this, anytime an academic institution discloses information from a student’s record, the campus must record in the student’s education records the identifiable and significant threat that prompted the disclosure and the parties to whom information was disclosed. (34 C.F.R. § 99.32(a)(5).)
For colleges, the Clery Act requires schools provide timely warnings of crimes that represent a threat to the safety of students or employees. Under amendments to the Clery Act made in the aftermath of Virginia Tech, colleges are now also required to provide emergency warnings to alert the campus community of an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or employees. Under FERPA’s emergency exception, these warnings might appropriately include information from a student’s education record if the circumstances called for such disclosure.
Administration, police and security personnel need to be aware of the parameters established by FERPA. Given the discretion FERPA affords to campus administration, schools and universities should carefully review disclosure policies to allow for necessary disclosure during emergencies or to prevent emergencies.
Planning ahead can avoid FERPA acting as an impediment to the sharing of relevant student information between the school and its police or security personnel.
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