Avoiding
FERPA Problems when Faculty Disclose Student
Grades
BY EVELYN R. BABEY, PH.D.
Principal Consultant
RESCUU- Registrar & Enrollment Services
Consulting for Colleges & Universities
Published in Student Affairs Law & Policy Quarterly
Volume
2 No. 1, October 2004
INTRODUCTION
A
student calls your office to complain that a faculty
member posted mid-term grades by Student ID numbers
on
his office door. Another student complains that her
professor told a faculty colleague the grade she earned
in
his course. Do these students have valid concerns as
it
relates to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy
Act
(FERPA)?
In
the first case, FERPA privacy rights likely were
violated.
In the second case, it is possible that the student’s
privacy
rights were violated. Did the second faculty member
have
a legitimate educational interest in knowing the
student’s
grade? If there was a legitimate educational interest,
then
no violation occurred. These are just some of the
common
FERPA issues that arise when faculty members disclose
student grades. This article will explore these types
of
FERPA challenges and offer some recommendations to
address potential problems.
POSTING
GRADES
Since
the early days of FERPA, one of the main challenges
colleges have contended with is faculty members publicly
posting grades by student name, social security number
or
any part of the social security number or other student
ID.
Posting grades in this manner is not acceptable under FERPA.
However, there are some ways to post grades. For
example, faculty may post student grades by a unique
identifier known only to the faculty member and the
individual student.
A
student at Hunter College filed a complaint with
the
Family Policy Compliance Office (FPCO) in 2002 alleging
that a professor posted his grade on a web page with
the last
four digits of his social security number.
LeRoy
Rooker, Director of the FPCO, addressed this complaint
in an October, 2002 letter to the Interim President
of Hunter College:
In
this case [the student’s] grades were publicly
disclosed with the last four digits of his social
security number absent his consent when they were
posted on a web page. Because a social security
number, or portions thereof, are by definition‘personally identifiable information’ under
FERPA,
this Office finds that the College violated [the
student’s] rights as alleged. . . .
We
note that FERPA does not prevent an
educational agency or institution from posting
grades the grades of students without written
consent when it is not done in a personally
identifiable manner. Thus, while FERPA precludes
a school from posting grades by social
security numbers, student ID numbers, or by
names because these types of information are
personally identifiable or easily traceable to
students, nothing in FERPA would preclude a
school from assigning individual numbers to
students for the purpose of posting grades as long
as those numbers are known only to the student
and the school officials who assigned them.
Thus,
under the proper circumstances, faculty members
can publicly post student grades. In doing so,
an
additional “best practice” step should
be considered. Any
roster of students is generally run in alphabetical
order. A
unique identifier would not hide the identity
of the
students whose names appear at the beginning
or end of
the list. The list should be randomized by student
name
to avoid names beginning with “A” at
the beginning of
the list and names ending in “Z” at
the end of the list.
Also, if all the grades in the course are the
same, there is
no way to protect the confidentiality of a student’s
grade
even with a unique identifier and a randomized
list— these grades should not be publicly posted.
MAILING
GRADES
Faculty
also can notify students of their grades by mailing
them in individually addressed sealed envelopes. To
be
certain that the student’s address is correct,
the faculty
member might ask each student to give her a selfaddressed
envelope. A faculty member also could e-mail
students their grades but must be careful to address
the emails
to each individual student with only that student’s
grade. A faculty member would probably violate FERPA
if she sends one student’s grade to another student’s
email
address.
It
is recommended that faculty do not notify students
of
their grades via post cards because others with no
right of
access to the grade information could potentially
see them
and this would most likely result in a FERPA violation.
DISTRIBUTING
GRADED PAPERS OR EXAMS
Faculty
members often place graded papers or exams in a
public place, i.e., box outside an office, for students
to
pick up. Leaving graded work in a public place could
lead
to a FERPA violation because they could be accessed by
individuals who have no right of access to this
information. There are several ways faculty members
could return papers to students without potential FERPA
violations. They can return them individually to students
during class or in their office. They can make
arrangements for an office administrative assistant to
give
them to students.
Faculty
and their assistants will want to be sure that they
are returning papers to the appropriate students. For
this
reason, they may want to check a picture ID before giving
a student his paper. Some schools suggest that putting
graded papers or exams in sealed envelopes with the
student names or other identifiers written on the
envelopes, and leaving them in a place for students to
pick up, may be a viable option. The problem with this
alternative is someone else may open the student’s
envelope or walk off with the envelope.
PARENTS,
COLLEAGUES, AND STUDENT GRADES
Parents
Parents
do call faculty to inquire about the academic
progress of their children in classes. It probably
is not
wise for a faculty member to get into a discussion
about a
student’s grades with someone who claims to be
a
student’s parent. They generally should refer the “parent” to the registrar’s
office which would be in a better position to determine
if disclosure is even permissible.
Colleagues
Sometimes
a faculty colleague will ask a faculty member
what grade a particular student received in his class.
A
faculty member should not discuss student grades without
knowing precisely whether the disclosure is permissible.
FERPA does permit disclosure of personally identifiable,
non-directory information from education records, such
as student grades, without the student’s written
consent in
several instances. One instance is to school officials,
including teachers, whom the college has determined
have a legitimate educational interest in the information.
34 CFR § 99.31(a)(1). Legitimate educational interest
generally means that the school official needs the
information to fulfill her institutional role and her
responsibilities. If a student is an advisee of a faculty
member, this faculty member likely meets the legitimate
educational interest requirement in knowing the student’s
academic history.
Some
colleges that have implemented student information
systems have defined all faculty members as
school officials and grant them access to all students’ online
transcripts, advising reports and/or degree audits.
These institutions may be creating a situation in which
FERPA violations can occur because not every faculty
member would have a legitimate educational interest
in
every student’s academic record. Even when a
faculty
member has a particular student in her class, she probably
does not have a legitimate educational interest in
the
student’s prior grades—it will depend on
the facts.
LETTERS
OF RECOMMENDATION
Students
often ask faculty members to write letters of
recommendation based on their work in the faculty
members’ classes. Faculty members usually are happy
to
oblige but should get signed, written requests from the
students. The request should include to whom the letter
is
to be sent, and the reason for sending the information
and
requesting that the course and grade be included. 34
CFR§ 99.30. FERPA does permit
a faculty member to disclose“personal knowledge” about
a student without specific
permission, but grades are considered education records
and thus would require the student’s signed written
consent
before they can be released.
ON-LINE
ACCESS, MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS, ETC.
Today’s
student information systems give faculty access to
real time student advisee transcript data, degree audits,
etc.,
right on their computer screens. Faculty, however,
should
be careful how they position their monitors. If they
are
position in such a way that individuals can see a student’s
grades as they walk by, a FERPA violation may occur.
Faculty also should not leave their computers without
logging off for the same reasons.
Faculty
members also should be careful not to leave papers
or forms with students’ personally identifiable
information,
such as grades, in places where others can view them
or
have access to them. Leaving such information “around” may
lead to a FERPA violation because they might be
accessed by individuals that have no right to access
the
information.
CONCLUSION
Faculty
members have a great deal of access to student
personally identifiable information, including
grades. It is
very important for faculty members to be aware of the
FERPApolicies that govern the disclosure of student
grades
and to understand what actions on their part may violate
these policies. The next issue of Student Affairs
Law and
Policy Quarterly will discuss ways in which a college
can
help faculty gain a better understanding of FERPAand
keep
faculty informed of changes in FERPA policies and
procedures.
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