Oregon responds to U.S. Dept. of Education demands for evidence of student privacy law compliance
Oregon is among 19 states suing the U.S. Department of Education over proposed threats to federal funding for public schools. ()
Oregon education leaders say they're already following federal student privacy laws in response to an ultimatum from the U.S. Department of Education over federal funding that implied schools are withholding information from parents related to students' gender identity.
In March, federal officials wrote to state education agencies demanding proof that schools and states' departments of education are following two federal student privacy laws.
The Dear Colleague Letter, sent March 28 by Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Frank Miller, acting director of the federal education department's Student Privacy Policy Office, gave states until April 30 to respond. In the letter, McMahon and Miller imply 'many' schools and districts are violating the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, or FERPA, and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, or PPRA by allowing schools to use workarounds that keep parents and guardians from receiving requested records from schools about their students.
Among the examples listed were schools creating 'gender plans' that are left out of an 'official student record,' and stories McMahon said she's heard from young people who formerly identified as trans 'about the lengths schools would go to in order to hide this information from parents.' McMahon and Miller did not provide evidence of such hiding from any schools or districts but implied the problem was widespread.
Charlene Williams, director of Oregon's Department of Education, wrote back Wednesday to remind McMahon and Miller that Oregon codified the rights inferred by FERPA in state law in the 1990s.
FERPA protects students' education records. It provides students and their parents or guardians the right to request their education records, request corrections or halt personally identifiable information from being released without their, or their parent's or guardian's consent.
Williams enumerated the ways in which the state ensures parents and students understand their rights and what records they are entitled to request.
'This includes the ability to request to access, amend, and control the disclosure of education records, as well as clear procedures for exercising these rights, definitions regarding directory information, and effective communication for parents and students with disabilities or whose primary language is not English,' she wrote.
The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment requires parents and guardians to be notified before students are asked questions in surveys regarding their, or their parent or guardian's, political affiliations, sexuality, religion, income and a host of other personal details. It gives parents and guardians the ability to review such surveys and opt their student out of them.
Both the Oregon and the federal laws require local school districts to notify parents and students annually about the privacy laws and encourage school administrators to post annual notifications related to the laws on school websites.
The Oregon Department of Education also provides recurring training on data governance and privacy for school staff, Williams wrote.
The Dear Colleague Letter demanding privacy law compliance was one of several recent attempts the federal education agency has made to leverage and reinterpret existing federal education laws, demanding states show compliance or suffer financial losses.
By law, schools found to be violating FERPA can lose all of their federal funding, according to the Virginia-based nonprofit Public Interest Privacy Center. The U.S. Department of Education has never enforced the penalty, according to a June 2024 report from the center.
In a follow-up letter to Oregon school districts Wednesday, officials at the state Department of Education wrote they would protect federal funding for Oregon's kids.
On April 25, Oregon's Attorney General Dan Rayfield joined 19 Democratic attorneys general in suing the U.S. Department of Education over these federal funding threats. Oregon schools rely on about $1.5 billion per year from the federal education agency.
'We will not tolerate this unwarranted and unlawful attempt to take away resources promised to Oregon students and paid for by the tax dollars we send to the federal government,' Gov. Tina Kotek said in a news release earlier this month.
Miller of the Student Privacy Policy Office said in an email to state leaders Friday clarifying the intent of the letter, that their responses are 'not a pass/fail exercise, in that our review of the submitted materials will more than likely result in follow-up interactions either wholistically (sic) or on a state-by-state basis as needed.'
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