Legal Definitions - Buckley Amendment

The Buckley Amendment is another name for the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a federal law enacted in 1974. This law protects the privacy of student education records. It grants parents certain rights regarding their children's education records, and these rights transfer to the student when they reach 18 years of age or attend a postsecondary institution at any age (referred to as "eligible students").

FERPA generally requires schools to obtain written permission from the parent or eligible student before disclosing personally identifiable information from a student's education records. It also gives parents and eligible students the right to inspect and review the student's education records, request that a school correct records they believe to be inaccurate or misleading, and control the disclosure of their information.

Here are some examples illustrating the application of the Buckley Amendment (FERPA):

• Example 1: Parent Requesting Records

  A parent of a high school student wants to review their child's complete academic file, including attendance records, disciplinary reports, and standardized test scores, before a parent-teacher conference. Under the Buckley Amendment, the school must allow the parent to inspect and review these records within a reasonable timeframe, typically 45 days, and cannot deny access without a valid legal reason.

  This example demonstrates the right of parents to access their child's education records, a core provision of FERPA.

• Example 2: University Student's Privacy Settings

  A college student explicitly instructs their university not to release their grades or academic standing to anyone, including their parents, without their direct written consent. When the student's parents call the registrar's office asking about their child's GPA, the university staff politely informs them that they cannot disclose that information due to federal privacy regulations, unless the student has provided specific authorization.

  This illustrates how FERPA grants eligible students control over the disclosure of their education records, even to their own parents, once they are attending a postsecondary institution.

• Example 3: School Sharing Information with Third Parties

  A public school district is approached by a local non-profit organization that offers tutoring services. The organization asks the school to provide a list of students who are struggling academically so they can reach out to offer their services. The school district informs the organization that it cannot release such a list without obtaining prior written consent from the parents of each student (or from eligible students themselves), as doing so would violate the privacy protections of the Buckley Amendment.

  This example highlights FERPA's requirement for schools to obtain consent before disclosing personally identifiable information from education records to outside organizations.