Midwest Education Law

The Family Compliance Policy Office of the U.S. Department of Education, together with the newly-created Privacy Technical Assistance Center, will host a webinar on January 11 to discuss new FERPA regulations.  The webinar will summarize the recent regulatory changes, then focus primarily on new requirements for data sharing.  As we've shared before, these requirements can be very technical and confusing.  Agency officials are expected to share "best practices," which may help navigate these dangerous waters.  In light of the Department's pledge to increase FERPA enforcement efforts, it's important to understand how the agency views schools' obligations under the new regulatory scheme.  More information about the webinar can be found here.   

The U.S. Department of Education will publish its new FERPA regulations today in the Federal Register.  The regulations, together with the appendix, span more than 250 pages and become effective on January 3, 2012.  The appendix, which begins on p. 238 of the regulations, contains answers and forms that provide good information about FERPA and the new regulations.  Changes announced in the regulations include, among other things, guidance on sharing student data for research purposes, increased enforcement authority and creation of the Privacy Technical Assistance Center.  The Department also drafted a helpful overview, which provides a summary of the changes and links to additional resources.  This would be the best starting point for reviewing the impact of the new regulations. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit today affirmed the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor a school district and against tenth grade student who was suspended for sending "instant messages" to various friends in which the plaintiff talked about bringing a gun to school and committing acts of violence.  The case, D.J.M. v.  Hannibal Public School Dist., can be found here. 

The messages in question were sent by DJM through his home computer to various friends (who were also using their home computers), including messages to a female student, CM. Although CM initially believed DJM to be joking, she became concerned at the increasingly threatening nature of DJM's messages and alerted a school administrator, who in turn contacted police. DJM was taken into juvenile custody and later suspended for the balance of the school year.  DJM and his parents sued the School District under Section 1983, alleging that the School District had violated the First Amendment because the instant messages in question were not "school speech."

Rejecting this claim, the court held that true threats are not protected by the First Amendment and here the school district was given enough information that it reasonably feared DJM had access to a handgun and was thinking about shooting specific classmates.  In light of the district's obligation to protect its students and reasonable concerns created by other school shooting incidents, the district did not violate DJM's First Amendment rights by notifying the police about the messages and subsequently suspending him after he was placed in juvenile detention.  The action was also appropriate under the school's authority to prevent a "substantial disruption" of school activities.  The court also found that the district court did not abuse its discretion in remanding DJM's state law claim for administrative relief to Missouri state court after it dismissed his Section 1983 claims.

Late last week, the U.S. Department of Education proposed amendments to regulations implementing FERPA.  The changes are designed to allow use of data gathered in statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDS).  Specifically, the proposed amendments would allow authorized representatives of state governments to access the data for purposes of evaluating academic programs, while still protecting the privacy of education records.  Details of the proposed language and the anticipated impacts can be found here. 

Comments on the proposal must be provided by May 23, 2011.  Instructions for submitting a comment are set forth in the Federal Register at the link above. 

A Philadelphia-area school district has settled lawsuits filed by the families of two students who accused the district of tracking them through district-issued laptops.  The students had alleged that the Lower Merion School District secretly spied on them and other students through the webcameras in their district-issued laptops.  One student alleged that the District took hundreds of pictures of him while he was at home in his bedroom.  The District said its laptop tracking program was intended to be activated when a student reported that a laptop was missing.  After the allegations surfaced, the District suspended two staff members who oversaw the tracking and conducted an investigation, which the District reported found no proof that employees ever intentionally spied on students.  Beyond the $610,000 settlement, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the team of lawyers and computer experts the District hired to defend the lawsuit had submitted more than $1 million in bills.

To read more about the lawsuits, click here: http://tiny.cc/1hocy