{"id":4255,"date":"2011-02-10T10:00:47","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T14:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=4255"},"modified":"2011-02-07T14:52:09","modified_gmt":"2011-02-07T18:52:09","slug":"confidentiality-and-ieps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/confidentiality-and-ieps\/","title":{"rendered":"Confidentiality and IEPs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/gallery\/share-button-gray.png\" style=\"border:0px\" alt=\"Share\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_border=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"wrightslaw\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"Confidentiality%20and%20IEPs\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><blockquote><p>I am the Assistant Coordinator of an Adult Learner Services program that assists adults who left high school before graduation. These students are now seeking a GED and often discuss the difficulty they had in school and their previous IEPs.<\/p>\n<p>The program&#8217;s new Special Education Director stated that I should not ask about the IEP. It is against policy and rules of the Special Education Dept.<\/p>\n<p>Is it &#8220;breaking the rules&#8221; to ask students about their concerns and what was included in the previous IEP?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There is no law that prohibits you from asking if a child has\/had an IEP&#8230;<!--more--> or requesting a copy of the child&#8217;s file that includes evaluations and IEPs. You need this information to help your clients.<\/p>\n<p>Many school administrators are woefully ignorant about confidentiality, often advising staff that IEPs should locked away so no one can see them. This is NOT legally correct.<\/p>\n<p>The special education law specifically states that teachers, related services providers, and others who work with the child must have easy access to the child&#8217;s IEP. This is the only way the adults will know the student&#8217;s needs and what the adults need to do to meet the child&#8217;s needs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Diplomacy Counts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When you work with administrators, you try to be diplomatic.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d write a polite letter, perhaps with a short summary of how you work with kids, and request the written policy that prohibits people in the helping professions from asking if a student has an IEP. You may find that the policy is &#8220;unwritten&#8221; or made up on the fly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Another Question<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I\u00a0 recently went to a school meeting to discuss the law that began in July of 09 where no child can exit high school before the age of 18 (currently the age is 16).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I was surprised to hear this. There is no federal law about this so it must be a state law.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Have you seen and read it?<\/li>\n<li>What is the purpose of such a law?<\/li>\n<li>Will schools actually provide additional services that they didn&#8217;t provide for the first 10-11 years of the child&#8217;s school career?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As you probably know, schools can be cruel, unfriendly places for some students, especially children who &#8220;underachieve.&#8221; Many governors are moving to allow students to leave high school earlier, while providing more effective options to prepare kids for life after school.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/info\/ferpa.index.htm\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">FERPA<\/span><\/a> is a federal statute. The purposes of FERPA are twofold: to ensure that parents have access to their children&#8217;s educational records and to protect the privacy rights of parents and children by limiting access to these records without parental consent.<\/p>\n<p>FERPA deals with access to educational records, parental right to inspect and review records, amendment of records, and destruction of records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am the Assistant Coordinator of an Adult Learner Services program that assists adults who left high school before graduation. These students are now seeking a GED and often discuss <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/confidentiality-and-ieps\/\">Continue Reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[195,18],"tags":[708,1324,1325,707,1299],"class_list":["post-4255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-confidentiality","category-ieps","tag-adult-learner-services","tag-confidentiality","tag-ferpa","tag-ged","tag-ieps"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4255"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4659,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255\/revisions\/4659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}