Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

The Family Educational and Privacy Act (FERPA), a Federal law requires that the Esparto Unified School District, with certain exceptions, obtain your written consent prior to the disclosure of personally identifiable information from your child’s education records. However, the Esparto Unified School District may disclose appropriately designated “directory information” without written consent, unless you have advised the District to the contrary in accordance with District Procedures. The primary purpose of directory information is to allow the Esparto Unified School District to include this type of information from your child’s education record in certain school publications. Examples include:

A playbill, showing your student’s role in a drama production
The annual yearbook
Honor Roll or other recognition lists
Graduation Programs
Sports activity sheets, such as for wrestling, showing weight & height of team members.

Directory information, which is information that is generally not considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if released, can be disclosed to outside organizations without a parent’s prior written consent. Outside organizations include, but are not limited to, companies that manufacture class rings or publish yearbooks. In addition, two federal laws require local educational agencies (LEA’s) receiving assistance under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) to provide military recruiters, upon request, with three directory information categories- names, addresses and telephone listings- unless parents have advised the LEA that they do not want their student’s information disclosed without their prior written consent*.

If you do not want the Esparto Unified School District to disclose directory information from your child’s education records without your prior consent, you must notify the District in writing by September 15, 2007. The Esparto Unified School District has designated the following information as directory information:

Student’s Name
Address
Telephone listing
Date of birth
Grade level

* These law are: Section 9528 of the ESEA (20 U.S.C.7908), as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (P.L. 107-110), the education bill and 10 U.S.C. 503, as amended by section 544, the National Defense Authorization Act for the Fiscal Year 2002 (P.L. 107-107), the legislation that provide funding for the Nation’s armed forces.

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