Yesterday I shared “How to Submit a Freedom of Information Act Request“.

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requests are similar. The three big differences are: 1) they are related to you and/or your child; 2) while schools can charge a fee for photocopies, they can’t charge a search fee; 3) the timeline is longer.

The FERPA protects the confidentiality of students’ records. It ensures parents’ rights to records, too.

Sec. 300.613 of IDEA states:

(a) Each participating agency must permit parents to inspect and review any education records relating to their children that are collected, maintained, or used by the agency under this part. The agency must comply with a request without unnecessary delay and before any meeting regarding an IEP, or any hearing pursuant to §300.507 or §§300.530 through 300.532, or resolution session pursuant to §300.510, and in no case more than 45 days after the request has been made.

(b) The right to inspect and review education records under this section includes—

(1) The right to a response from the participating agency to reasonable requests for explanations and interpretations of the records;

(2) The right to request that the agency provide copies of the records containing the information if failure to provide those copies would effectively prevent the parent from exercising the right to inspect and review the records; and

(3) The right to have a representative of the parent inspect and review the records.

(c) An agency may presume that the parent has authority to inspect and review records relating to his or her child unless the agency has been advised that the parent does not have the authority under applicable State law governing such matters as guardianship, separation, and divorce.

Why Make a FERPA Request?

Maybe you are concerned about your daughter’s reading and want to review any yearly assessments the school did, in order to see if there is a downward trend.

Perhaps there was a confidentiality breach and you want a record of individuals who have accessed your son’s records. 

Then there are the requests that tend to be related to complaints and due process. Perhaps your child was given a program and you expressed concerns all school year about the program, only to have your child regress after receiving the program for an entire year. You might want to obtain all assessments related to the program, emails between teachers, and so on, in an effort to obtain compensatory education for your child.

There’s also just the fact that computer systems crash, people lose paperwork, and so on. In the world of special education, it’s just a good thing to have everything related to your child in your hands (preferably in organized files).

Who is Your Contact?

You can submit a FERPA request to anyone in the school system, but you’ll streamline the process by going to the office that handles the request, rather than submitting the request to a teacher or principal, who will then forward along your request.

Search for FERPA officer on your school’s site. If you hit a wall, look up FOIA officer, and then go to that contact and ask if he or she handles FERPA requests, too.

In Fairfax County Public School’s (FCPS) case, FOIA officer Brandynn Reaves fields FERPA requests, too. Her email address is bareaves@fcps.edu and her phone number is 571.423.1223.

The Request:

Excuse the copy and paste, but this is similar to yesterday’s FOIA request article. 

There is no form required. If you are advised that you must use a specific form and/or follow a specific format, ask that the specific law requiring these items be cited.

Start your request with, “This is a FERPA request”. 

Next up is your request. 

What do you want? 

With FERPA requests, you can and should go broader than with a FOIA request. 

For example: 

Please provide me all formal and informal evaluations, related to [insert your child’s name here], from the periods of 2016-2020. 

However, if you’re looking for internal communication, you’ll want something more similar to the FOIA request example I provided yesterday: 

Please provide me all emails, text messages, voice mail messages, letters, reports, and all other files in any print and digital formats that have not already been mentioned, which are related to [insert your child’s name here], and which cover the years 2016-2020. Please include [insert teacher’s, principal’s, etc name here] in the search.

If you want emails from all of your daughter’s teachers, you have to provide their names. The FOIA officer won’t know and it isn’t his or her responsibility to look up this information.

Include your name, phone number, email address, and street address.

Fees:

Sec. 300.617 of IDEA states:

(a) Each participating agency may charge a fee for copies of records that are made for parents under this part if the fee does not effectively prevent the parents from exercising their right to inspect and review those records.

(b) A participating agency may not charge a fee to search for or to retrieve information under this part.

When I did my first request, I made the mistake of stating it was a FOIA request. FCPS charged me for the request under FOIA, even though I was asking for access to information related to my own child—and I paid. Lesson learned . . .  

If you are presented with a charge for anything other than copies, call them out on it. If they say there is a fee for a thumb drive or a disk on which they want to put the files, tell them you’ll provide your own to them—or ask for a receipt if the fee seems too high. If they want to charge you for shipping, offer to pick up the files. If their photocopy fees are high, download the Scanner Pro app for your phone and go to the school and scan every file right there. (Side note: I’ve been using Scanner Pro for years. It comes in especially handy in IEP meetings, where members sometimes have documents to which I’ve not been given access. I ask to see it and scan it right there. I’ve used it for work to scan in receipts, at home for scanning in doctor’s notes for school, and so on. Just a great resource period.)

Response Time

There is a maximum 45 day turnaround. If you don’t receive a response within 45 days, cite Sec. 300.613 of IDEA, which states:

(a) Each participating agency must permit parents to inspect and review any education records relating to their children that are collected, maintained, or used by the agency under this part. The agency must comply with a request without unnecessary delay and before any meeting regarding an IEP, or any hearing pursuant to §300.507 or §§300.530 through 300.532, or resolution session pursuant to §300.510, and in no case more than 45 days after the request has been made.

If you don’t hear back, follow-up, follow-up, and follow-up again.