What is FERPA? Part II--"The Locker Room Attack"

The "Daily Muckraker" Newspaper  and other various groups want their readers and the community of Anywhere USA to believe everything they say and write, not unlike how the monks are expected to behave  in this Gahan Wilson Cartoon.

FERPA is simple, yet complex.  It has rules that must be followed in order to assure student records are kept confidential.  But as I pointed out in part I, not everything that is known about a student is protected under FERPA.*

So let's look at a fictitious, hypothetical scenario.  I'll call it the "Locker Room Attack at Anywhere USA High School."

Remember, the account below is a fictional story.

Imagine if a basketball team from Anywhere USA High School is in the locker room after losing an important Friday Night game.  Imagine if two of the players from the team lure a team assistant named "Jorge Zapata" (who has a physical disability) out of the locker room and assault him, knocking him unconscious viciously while simultaneously calling him disgusting racial slurs,  like this. [NOTE: This linked video from a recent actual attack near Detroit, MI is violent, disturbing, contains reprehensible images and language,  and is difficult to watch--viewer discretion is STRONGLY ADVISED-victim in this video, according to news reports, retrieved his phone, was not seriously injured, and the perpetrators were caught....]

Imagine if the attackers steal the victim's cell phone and film the incident with the victim's own camera phone while "Jorge" is unconscious.  Imagine if these assailants place this violent video on a social media platform that many of the students in Anywhere USA High School could subsequently see?

Imagine if "Jorge" wakes up, is able to find his phone, and is not too badly injured, and decides not to report the attack because he is humiliated, and instead he just internalizes the matter, and he keeps the incident to himself.  After all, he knows his attackers, and he hears that they are already lining up their stories to say that the whole incident was nothing more than slap-boxing, and the incident is actually going to be blamed on Jorge.  Everyone starts to repeat the story that Jorge started the whole thing by "slap boxing" the players and starting trouble.  If anything comes of the incident, the attackers will say Jorge is simpy "Lying on them!"

The following Monday though, the students at the school are buzzing over the incident; many have seen the video. [NOTE: This linked video from a recent actual attack near Detroit, MI is violent, disturbing, contains reprehensible images and language,  and is difficult to watch--viewer discretion is STRONGLY ADVISED-victim in this video, according to news reports, retrieved his phone, was not seriously injured, and the perpetrators were caught...]

An investigation by the school is launched.  Students are questioned, and law enforcement is brought in.

Meanwhile, within the next week to ten day period, a duly elected school board member for the Anywhere USA School District hears from three  (3) separate parents and three  (3) separate students about the violent assault, and he also hears about but does not see the video [NOTE: This linked video from a recent actual attack near Detroit, MI is violent, disturbing, contains reprehensible images and language,  and is difficult to watch--viewer discretion is STRONGLY ADVISED]taken of the incident from these constituents.  This particular school board member's district includes Anywhere USA High School, and this board member is very engaged with this school, as he has many relatives that attend here.  Furthermore, this school board member has been vocal about his concerns about violence, bullying, and harassment occurring in local schools like Anywhere H.S. USA.    Shocked at what he has heard,  this particular school board member immediately calls the superintendent of the Anywhere USA school district with what he has now heard from several sources close to the incident.

He is told by the superintendent that the situation is known to the district, and that an official investigation is already underway.   "We've got this" the superintendent tells the board member.

What is FERPA? Part I

FERPA is a law that has been discussed a lot recently in and around the Escambia County School District. It has been tossed around a lot lately.  Some people do not understand this law, what it means, and what it does and does not do.  Some people throw out opinions that are incorrect, and expect us all to just swallow these flawed opinions as if they are somehow sacrosanct.

But I don't agree, and I won't be like a monk from a Gahan Wilson cartoon.

Because of all of this, I’ve done a bit of research myself recently, read about 50 FERPA related cases, large portions of two books, and lots of scholarly articles on this subject.  I’ve also spoken to a total of five lawyers (four of whom I agree with) on this subject and I’m going to be posting some of what I have learned about this law on this site in a multi-part series over the next few days.  I’m also going to be talking about FERPA at our next school board workshop.

FERPA was a law that did not go through the traditional rulemaking process in congress; it was an amendment offered on the floor from Senator James Buckley in December of 1974.  The rationale for the law was to address the need to curtail the widespread practice at that time of publicly funded schools’ disseminating student records and other information to unaffiliated persons outside of the schools. 

Additionally, the law was needed to compel schools to allow parents to view educational records, and to challenge the accuracy of such records.  The law also allowed for penalties to be assessed against publicly funded entities that failed to comply with the law, and this “Buckley Amendment” also outlined a mechanism for the filing of complaints against entities that violated the law.  The Connecticut Parent Advocacy Center has a well-written one-page primer on FERPA, here.

So how does this law apply to individual school board members?

I guess that depends upon whom one asks.  So I’ve asked a lot of people. 

Here is my opinion based upon my research*

I started by contacting the Family Policy Compliance Office(FPCO)—the office in the Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, that receives, reviews, and investigates alleged complaints related to FERPA.

Their website lists many opinion letters that they have published—I've read a lot of them--although it is not a complete list.  For some specific opinion letters one might need, third party entities must be contacted in order to easily retrieve such opinions.

I’ve requested and received several of these opinions, and they have made for interesting, enlightening reading.

The initial and largest take away I have about FERPA, after thoroughly looking into this law from many different angles,  is that enforcement provisions concentrate on correcting behaviors rather than harshly penalizing institutions for single event infractions.   FERPA a law that is considered by some scholars as “essentially toothless.”  This is because hundreds of complaints have been filed against

Trying to Improve an Organization Doesn't Equal Not Supporting the Organization

Radical, out of control political correctness exacerbates discipline issues, maintains the status-quo, and hampers district growth.

How can you tell that people are wary of your local schools?  Where is the proof?  That’s a question that someone asked at a recent workshop.   So, let’s see-here goes.  In my last three campaigns I have literally walked and knocked on Thousands of doors each time.  And along with my campaign spiel -I always asked about how we’re doing as a district.  Worry over discipline was a top area of concern. Do I have that fact scientifically synthesized into an action research study?  No. But other evidence is all over the place; apparently it must be hiding in plain sight if people can’t see it… 

Teachers and other district staff send their own children to private schools in large numbers --that is a reality not captured in the latest climate survey.  New neighborhoods that are flourishing have lots of SUVs with “EDS”  “PCA” “CLA” St. Johns Christian School, and East Hill Christian Bumper Stickers on them.  Large PCA busses full of students run through our neighborhoods, up and down Navy Blvd. and Blue Angel Pkwy., and I see them on the way to NAS Pensacola on my morning commutes.  

People contact me about bullying, discipline issues in classrooms.  Students I know personally tell me they can’t learn due to out of control discipline issues in their classrooms and schools.  Many go dual enrolled to PSC just to escape the problems.  Parents pull their kids out of our schools to home-school them. Teachers burn out due to out of control discipline issues anda lack of administrator support. Some schools have astonishing levels of turnover over periods as short as just a few years. Some schools cannot get subs-some subs are highly selective.  Employee morale is low. 

Conversations are had with top level administrators at large growing firms and it is stated that many new transplanted workers to the area are choosing to live in Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and/or Baldwin County.  Anecdotal evidence is all over—yet some people don’t want to acknowledge the uncomfortable reasons why, but here it is.  We have a classroom and school level discipline issue in many of our schools and the word is out. Normal, rational citizens expect us to do better, but it seems we are acquiescing to political correctness instead.  Rather than utilizing firm but fair discipline, we