YES! THE FEDERAL EDUCATION RIGHTS AND PRIVACY ACT (FERPA) IS A BIG DEAL, AND IT AFFECTS YOU!

The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act is a piece of federal legislation designed to protect the confidentiality of student records. Under this law, the Indiana University School of Continuing Studies (SCS) and Indiana University High School (IUHS) are required to get permission before releasing student information.

If you are a student and want the School of Continuing Studies or Indiana University High School to share your academic records with third parties (i.e., someone other than yourself and us, including – in some cases – your parents), FERPA impacts YOU.

A typical scenario involves high school students who are attending another educational institution and who want the credits they earn from IUHS courses to be applied toward their diploma at their “home” institution. The School of Continuing Studies must have a signed FERPA form (also referred to as a “permission to release information” form) on file before we can release your grades to that institution.

Let’s say you’re trying to finish up your course work so that you can graduate from your local school in May. Like many of us, you’ve procrastinated, meaning you finish your course work just days before you plan to graduate. If we do not have a signed FERPA form for you, we cannot, by federal law, release your final grade to your local school. Big problem – for you, for your local institution, and for us!

Who holds the FERPA rights to the course I am taking?
The School of Continuing Studies provides plenty of opportunities for the appropriate person to complete and submit a FERPA/Permission to Release Information form. The appropriate person is the person who holds the FERPA rights for the course in question. Who, you ask, is that? The chart below should help.

Where can I find the form?
Now that you know what the FERPA form is and who needs to complete and submit it, the question becomes, “Where can you find the form?”

• The form is included in the paper versions of the undergraduate and high school course registrations forms and should be filled out completely as part of the registration process. Important: Do not just sign the form. Read it and provide the requested information. If you are a high school student attending a local high school, it is especially important to provide your school’s ETS code. Ask your guidance counselor or principal.
• We enclose the form with the payment receipt we mail to you after you register for courses.
• The first time you log in to Dragon, the SCS/IUHS student information system, you are required to complete a FERPA form.
• If you’ve accessed Dragon in the past but did not submit an electronic signature, you can still do so by going to the Privacy link under Student Tools.
• If you have registered for undergraduate courses you can download the form from the Web at http://scs.indiana.edu/UN_handbook/forms.html.
• If you have registered for high school or dual-credit courses, you can download the from the Web at http://iuhighschool.iu.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=73&Itemid=888. Please note: Students must register for dual-credit courses using a paper form, and their registration will not be processed unless we have a FERPA form on file.

How do I know if you have a form on file for me?
If you have recently filled out a paper FERPA form, or if you provided an electronic signature when you first accessed Dragon, we should have a form on file for you. Students for whom we are the least likely to have forms are those who register by phone, and those who have submitted incomplete forms.

If you know that you’ll want the School of Continuing Studies or Indiana University High School to share your academic information with third parties, if you change schools, or if you turn 18 while taking a high school course, it doesn’t hurt to complete the FERPA form in Dragon or to download and submit it from the Web. If you do not foresee a need to share your information, no form is needed.

If you have questions, please contact us at 800.334.1011 today!