The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, gives parents and eligible students the right to review, amend, and annotate educational records.
Unfortunately these rights also place added regulatory responsibility and potential legal consequences on your already strained administration staff.
Managing this process can be cumbersome for educational organizations who must not only maintain the records but must make them available for review.
docAssist's custom workflows and document management tools enforce compliance with internal procedures, maintain accurate records, and provide easy access to documents - making compliance easy
Parents and eligible students also have the right to request corrections to these documents and, if not satisfied with the results, initiate a formal hearing with the school administrators. If the record is not amended to the satisfaction of the parent or eligible student they can require that a statement be placed along with the record describing their view regarding the contested information. Assuring that this formal statement accompany the record or that the corrected version of the document is used is critical in adhering to the legal requirements set forth in the act.
Under FERPA guidelines schools must also maintain written permission to release any information from the student's educational records.
Some exceptions are made for directory information regarding name, place of birth and residence, contact information, attendance and awards received through the educational institution. This information can be requested by certain school officials, other educational institutions and accrediting organizations as well as state, local, and judicial authorities.
Although express permission is not required to release this information they must notify parents and eligible students each year and give them adequate time to request that the school not disclose the information when a request is made. Therefore an accurate accounting of requests for non-disclosure must be maintained in order to remain in compliance with FERPA.
docAssist can handle all these challenges with compliant workflow management, file attachments & security, and file version tools.
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