Records and Access to Special Education Records

What's Required
    The Federal law Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) governs personal information about students. Name, addresses, and phone number can often be given out as “directory” information under that statute, though social security numbers should not be given out. There are provisions in the FERPA regulations allowing information to be shared with certain educational oversight agencies, such as TEA or the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), as well as other exceptions. The regulations (Chapter 99 of Title 34) of the US Code of Federal Regulations are readable and on the US DOE website.

    Information about public employees is generally public, except that Section 552.024 of the Texas Government Code requires a process by which an employee be given 14 days to choose not to have address, phone number, social security number and family information disclosed.

    Parents have a right to inspect their child’s student records under the federal confidentiality law (usually called by its acronym “FERPA”). A link to that regulation is http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html. A parent also has access to student records of their child under the state public Information Act, Section 552.114 (b) of the Texas Government Code. 

    School districts are required to keep some student records permanently. Which personnel, in the district, are responsible for maintaining the records is determined locally. A school district retains students records for a period of time determined by their local record retention plan, but some retention periods are determined by schedules published by the State Library and Archives Commission http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/

    What We Do
    The Federal law Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) governs personal information about students. Name, addresses, and phone number can often be given out as “directory” information under that statute, though social security numbers should not be given out. There are provisions in the FERPA regulations allowing information to be shared with certain educational oversight agencies, such as TEA or the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), as well as other exceptions. The regulations (Chapter 99 of Title 34) of the US Code of Federal Regulations are readable and on the US DOE website.
    All identifiable student information is considered confidential under FERPA and the right to access/view must only be provided to individuals with a "legitimate educational interest" for each individual students. 

    The Special Education Records Access Sign linked below identifies staff roles that often have an educational need to view a special education record. However, a case-by-case determination should be made based on the individual’s need for record access. The Special Education Records Access Sign is to be posted wherever special education records are stored (at all campus and district locations). Additionally, staff are to complete and sign the Folder Access Record Form contained inside each student folder that they view.