Access to Education Records
School Officials
School officials have a "legitimate educational interest" if they need to review a student's education record in order to fulfill their professional responsibilities for the university.
At W&M, a school official is a:
- Person employed by the university in an administrative, supervisory, academic, research or support staff position (including law enforcement unit personnel and health staff)
- Person serving on the board of visitors
- Student serving on an official committee, such as the Honor Council
- Volunteer or contractor outside of the university who performs an institutional service or function, such as an attorney, auditor or collection agent under the auspices of a contract
Case Study: Legitimate Educational InterestYou work in the Financial Aid Office and are talking with a member of a Richmond, VA based alumni group. They're establishing a new scholarship for students from Richmond. A scholarship committee from the alumni group will evaluate and award applications. The alumnus asks you for the names, addresses and GPAs for all currently enrolled students from Richmond. What should you give them? Since the alumni are not W&M employees with a legitimate educational interest, you cannot provide them with personally identifiable information from education records. With appropriate approvals from the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs and the University Registrar's office, you may be permitted to release directory information and if students applying for financial aid have given written permission to release their information to third parties for financial aid opportunities, you may release that. However, this is against best practices, even if permitted by FERPA. The most appropriate action is to provide the alumni group's scholarship information to students and let the interested students contact the group. |
Continue to the next section: Faculty Access to Education Records
7 of 12
