Since the passage of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of
1974 (FERPA) regulating of the maintenance and dissemination of
educational records, educators have struggled to meet federal compliance
requirements while operating in the daily realities of public schools.
Such practices as determining whether a child's cumulative file could be
accessed, by whom, and for what purposes suddenly became a matter of
federal law. Legal compliance became more elusive in the late 1990's and
in the first decade of the twenty-first century with the fracturing of
the family, the passage of other state and federal laws regulating
records security, and through computer technology posing unique security
challenges to record integrity and maintenance. Until now, educators
lacked a single volume resource for directly and confidently answering
their questions. In Educational Records, Murphy and Dishman provide
educators with a readily accessible, jargon-free source for legal
questions concerning educational records. The book's question-and-answer
format, as well as its analysis of court opinions and opinion letters of
the United States Department of Education's Family Policy Compliance
Office, provides educators with the resource they need to quickly and
authoritatively address records issues.
