What is FERPA?
From Holly Teal, Registrar, on Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 1:24 PM, Holly Teal
We want to take this opportunity to givea brief summary of a student’s rights under The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the federal law that governs release of and access to student education records. A student may:
Inspect and review their records
Request to amend their records – This includes adjustments to documents or
personal facts. It does not give the right to request a grade change under FERPA.
Limit disclosure of public/directory information (confidentiality)
And also requires a student to give permission to release private information to
non-authorized parties/individuals
Limiting Disclosure – As professionals at the university, we are required to limit exposure of a student’s information. Specific conditions must be met to disclose information to other parties (see FERPA website link below).
Employees may share student information with other employees only if there is
legitimate educational interest.
Please do not post grades in a public forum that would identify an individual
student.
Graded work should be returned directly to the student whenever possible. If left
for pickup, it should be in a sealed envelope in a supervised location.
If you get an inquiry for “directory information” (as defined on our CMU
website), FERPA does not require we disclose this information. Please do not
feel obligated to disclose directory information.
Work with the Registrar if you have questions or concerns dealing with this issue.
Confidentiality – A student may add or remove confidentiality status through the Registrar’s Office. Confidential status further limits disclosure of information (use FERPA website link below). It does not limit our interactions when we are dealing with the student face-to-face or via Mavzone/D2L/CMU email.
In the classroom, a confidential student should be treated the same as a non-
confidential student.
Provided there is legitimate educational interest, employees may share student
information with other employees.
A confidential student must conduct business in-person, via Mavzone/D2L/CMU
email, or by fax/mail with signatures.
Third party requests and phone transactions must be done with extreme
care.Simply revealing a student is confidential to a third party means we have
violated the confidentiality agreement. Please work with the Registrar if you
have questions or concerns dealing with this issue.
Authorized Individuals – A student may add access to their records for parents, guardians, spouses, etc. Please contact the Registrar’s Office if someone other than the student is requesting information to ensure they have been authorized.
Questions regarding FERPA should be directed to the Office of the Registrar via email using , via telephone at 970-248-1555, or from the Registrar’s website at http://www.coloradomesa.edu/registrar/ferpa.html