Christina Gavin

Comment on Katherine Hillerich's post: I've worked at a couple places,  where looking at your own health records using your hospital/office credentials is actually illegal under the HIPAA law,  unless you have signed the release of records form. I guess, in that instance it depends on where you work, but under FERPA this is not allowed regardless. 

Basically to make sure before releasing any information, that you have the student's permission, unless they have a parent listed as their guardian, then you can release to the parent without their permission. It's best just to keep everything under "lock and key" so to speak.

Having worked in the medical field for 30 years, FERPA reminds me of HIPAA. Basically, if you treat student information the same as you would a patient's then all should be good. The basic difference being that when a student asks for information you have 45 days to comply, where as, with patient information, that is readily available to them. So that will be a change for me to remember that the students have to request access and it is not readily accessible for them.