The primary law that governs the privacy of educational information is the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. FERPA is the keystone federal privacy law for educational institutions. FERPA generally imposes a cloak of confidentiality around student educational records, prohibiting institutions from disclosing “personally identifiable education information,” such as grades or financial aid information, without the student’s written permission. FERPA also grants to students the right to request and review their educational records and to make corrections to those records. The law applies with equal force to electronic records as it does to those stored in file drawers. DSC’s complete FERPA policy may be found at http://catalog.daltonstate.edu/officialnotices/.
Schools may disclose, without consent, “directory” information such as a student’s name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, honors and awards, and dates of attendance. However, schools must tell parents and eligible students about directory information and allow parents and eligible students a reasonable amount of time to request that the school not disclose directory information about them. Schools must notify parents and eligible students annually of their rights under FERPA. The actual means of notification (special letter, student handbook, or newspaper article) is left to the discretion of each school.
FERPA privacy rules apply to dual enrolled students, regardless of their age.