Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act - All About All

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) is a federal statute codified at 20 U.S.C. § 1232g (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/ts_search.pl?title=20&sec=1232g), with implementing regulations in title 34, part 99 of the United States Code of Federal Regulations. The regulations cover violations such as parent volunteers grading another child's work, school employees divulging information to someone other than the child's parents about a child's homelife, grades or behaviors, and school work posted on a bulletin board with a grade.

This privacy policy also governs how state agencies transmit testing data to federal agencies. For example see Education Data Network.

Some Web sites that supply access to the text of the regulations:

• http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_00/34cfr99_00.html
• http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html

The act is also referred to as the Buckley Amendment, named for one of its proponents, William F. Buckley, Jr.