By Audience: K-12 School Officials

The resources on this page are intended for staff and educators of public K-12 schools and school districts.  Resources found here typically address FERPA and how it applies to the various day-to-day operations of public schools at the administrative level.  Guidance is also provided for specific situations that occur only in the K-12 setting.

Guidance

Contractor Responsibilities Under FERPA: Single Page

This document is intended for state educational agencies (SEAs) and/or their contracted companies to use to inform the contractors’ staff about their responsibilities to protect students’ personally identifiable information acquired under FERPA’s audit or evaluation exception.

This version is a single-page .pdf intended for use as a standard FERPA-only acknowledgement.

 

Guidance

Checklist: Mapping Data Flows

This guidance document is intended to help educational agencies and institutions create visual “maps” of how their data flows in the data systems.  Including maps in data governance plans can help organizations better understand what data are in their systems, where the data reside, what sources they come from, why those data are collected, what limitations or restrictions apply, how they are linked, and what policy questions those data are used to answer.

mapping data flow flows

Guidance

Identity Authentication Best Practices

This brief offers best practice recommendations for developing and implementing effective authentication processes to help ensure that only appropriate individuals and entities have access to education records. General suggestions provided in the brief are applicable to all modes of data access, be it in person, over the phone, by mail, or electronically.

Guidance

Data Security Checklist

This checklist is designed to assist stakeholder organizations with developing and maintaining a successful data security program by listing essential components that should be considered when building such a program, with focus on solutions and procedures relevant for supporting data security operations of educational agencies.

Guidance

Cloud Computing FAQ

This document is designed to assist educational agencies and institutions that are considering using cloud computing solutions for education data. It contains responses to frequently asked questions about meeting necessary data privacy and data security requirements, including compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, to ensure proper protection of education records.

Guidance

Checklist: Data Governance

This checklist is designed to assist stakeholder organizations with establishing and maintaining a successful data governance program by summarizing the key data privacy and security components of such a program and listing specific best practice action items.