FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act)

FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, is the federal law that protects the privacy of your child's education records and gives you rights over them. As a parent, you generally have the right to inspect and review those records, to ask that inaccurate information be corrected, and to have a say over who else can see them. When your child reaches adulthood, those rights typically transfer to the student.

For families in special education, FERPA is quietly powerful because so much of the process runs on documents — evaluations, IEPs, progress data, meeting notes, and communications. If you want to understand what the school is basing decisions on, you have the right to see the file. Schools must provide access within a reasonable time, and often must respond before an IEP meeting so you can review records ahead of it.

If you have never asked for your child's complete records, it is worth doing once, in writing, so you know what is in the file. Read for anything inaccurate or outdated, since old evaluations and stray notes can quietly shape how staff see your child. FERPA gives you the standing to ask that clear errors be corrected, and to control much of how your child's private information is shared.