Role of Privacy Laws Scrutinized in Report on Va. Tech Tragedy
A state review panel’s report on a student gunman’s shooting spree at Virginia Tech last spring is spotlighting questions about student-records laws and whether high schools should be able to share more information about their graduates with colleges.
School staff members at all levels need more training on privacy laws affecting students, suggests the report. And it recommends that Congress and the U.S. Department of Education consider changes to the main federal school privacy law, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, and its regulations, to help clarify confusing provisions and to offer stronger protections for school officials over disclosures of information.
There was plenty of evidence to indicate that Seung Hui Cho, the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University student who killed 32 other people and himself on April 16, needed effective mental-health...
This article is available to subscribers only.
To keep reading this article and more, subscribe now or purchase this article.
Subscribe to Education Week and Save
Get a full year and save up to 45%!
Viewed
Emailed
Recommended
Commented
- K-8 Principal
- EdVantages/Performance Academies, Detroit, MI
- Principals
- Prince George's County Public Schools, MD
- Elementary School Teacher
- Success Academy Charter Schools, New York, NY
- Superintendent
- Pinellas County Schools, Pinellas County, FL
- Principal
- Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, Los Angeles, CA
