About FERPA: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act

-Designed to protect the privacy of educational records. Gives guidelines for using and releasing student education records.

-Begins for a student after at 18 years of age or enrolled in a higher education institution

-Right allows student to review educational records, request corrections, control the disclosure of certain aspects of their educational records.

Types of disclosures
Personal information disclosure
Directory disclosure

Hardship Withdrawals covered by FERPA
Until mid-term students can get a W without GPA affect. After mid-term, if something prevents a student from continuing the semester studies, students can write a letter with supporting documents to the registrar and may be considered for hardship withdrawal. These supporting documents become a part of FERPA documents.

-Peer Grading are not covered until they have been formally recorded/assigned to the students
-Letter of reference may contain academic information only if accompanied with a signed release from the student. Strongly recommended to get a signed release letter from the student mentioning what information needs to be released in the reference letter. Personal observations of a student in a letter of reference are not covered by FERPA

-911/emergency calls: Students personal identifiable information can be shared with responders.