The primary purpose of this document is to help state & local education agencies & schools develop adequate policies & procedures to protect information about students & their families from improper release, while satisfying the need for school officials to make sound management, instructional, & service decisions. Sections include: a primer for privacy; summary of key federal laws; protecting the privacy of individuals during the data collection process; securing the privacy of data maintained & used within an agency; providing parents access to their child's records; & releasing information outside an agency. 5 appendices.

Aimed at parents of and advocates for special needs children, explains how to develop a relationship with a school, monitor a child's progress, understand relevant legislation, and document correspondence and conversations.

Since the passage of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) regulating of the maintenance and dissemination of educational records, educators have struggled to meet federal compliance requirements while operating in the daily realities of public schools. Such practices as determining whether a child's cumulative file could be accessed, by whom, and for what purposes suddenly became a matter of federal law. Legal compliance became more elusive in the late 1990's and in the first decade of the twenty-first century with the fracturing of the 'family,' the passage of other state and federal laws regulating records security, and through computer technology posing unique security challenges to record integrity and maintenance. Until now, educators lacked a single volume resource for directly and confidently answering their questions. In Educational Records, Murphy and Dishman provide educators with a readily accessible, jargon-free source for legal questions concerning educational records. The book's question-and-answer format, as well as its analysis of court opinions and opinion letters of the United States Department of Education's Family Policy Compliance Office, provides educators with the resource they need to quickly and authoritatively address records issues.

Designed to protect the privacy of individual student test scores, grades, and other education records, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974 places limits the access of educational researches, and slows research not only in education but also in related fields, such as child welfare and health. Recent trends have converged to greatly increase the supply of data on student performance in public schools. Education policies now emphasize education standards and testing to measure progress toward those standards, as well as rigorous education research. At the same time, private firms and public agencies, including schools, have replaced most paper records with electronic data systems. Although these databases represent a rich source of longitudinal data, researchers' access to the individually identifiable data they contain is limited by the privacy protections of FERPA. To explore possibilities for data access and confidentiality in compliance with FERPA and with the Common Rule for the Protection of Human Subjects, the National Academies and the American Educational Research Association convened the Workshop on Protecting Student Records and Facilitating Education Research in April 2008.

"Running records support responsive teaching -- instruction that follows ongoing assessment and is carefully differentiated to match children's accomplishments, current needs, and specific interests"-- Provided by publisher.

Covering a wide range of issues pertaining to student records management, this book will be of interest to both novices and seasoned professionals who work in a variety of offices at colleges and universities: Admissions, Records and Registration, Enrollment Services, Financial Aid, Veteran Affairs, International Students programs, Athletics, and Information Systems. Chapters written by experts for the forward-thinking higher education administrator cover: ethical practice; confidentiality of student information (including in an electronic record-keeping environment); compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act; certification of eligibility for veterans' benefits; unleashing human potential in the workplace; training in an automated systems environment; certification of academic eligibility for athletics participation; disaster preparedness and recovery; interpreting foreign academic credentials; and the impact and use of technology in the management of records and provision of services to students.