Privacy in education

Privacy in education refers to the broad area of ideologies, practices, and legislation that involve the privacy rights of individuals in the education system. Concepts that are commonly associated with privacy in education include the expectation of privacy, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Fourth Amendment, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The majority of privacy in education concerns are prevalent to the protection of student data, such as educational records and other personal information, both inside and outside the traditional classroom setting as well as the privacy and confidentiality of medical records. Many scholars are engaging in an academic discussion that covers the scope of students’ privacy rights, from student in K-12 and even higher education, and the management of student data in an age of rapid access and dissemination of information.

"Expectation of privacy," similar to the "right to privacy," is a phrase that describes the natural desire of humans to maintain their sense of privacy. There is currently no legal definition in the American law that explicitly grants humans the right to privacy. Oftentimes, the Fourth Amendment is utilized by people in court cases to defend themselves from actions that involve certain infringements upon their privacy, such as searches that require warrants. However, over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court has found it difficult to determine an impartial non-biased meaning for "expectation of privacy" because there are too many subjective variables to consider.

In line with the general meaning of "expectation of privacy," student expectation of privacy refers to a student's inherent right to privacy in the school system. Examples of student expectation of privacy, especially in the pre-collegiate levels, include the protection of a student's academic record from being viewed by anyone other than the academic instructor, the student's parents or guardians, and the students themselves. There have been many legal cases regarding the privacy concerns of pupils' academic records, for example the Owasso Independent School District v. Falvo that was handled by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2002. This particular case began in October, 1998 when Kristja J. Falvo filed a lawsuit against the Owasso Independent School District on the premise that the grading practice employed in her children's classroom, peer grading, was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and of FERPA. Additionally, peer grading embarrassed her children in front of their peers, which could be interpreted as a violation of a student's expectation of privacy in the classroom. When the case reached the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, it was ruled in October, 2000 that peer grading was not a violation of the constitutional Fourteenth Amendment but was, in fact, a violation of FERPA. The Tenth Circuit judges reasoned so by closely interpreting the statue in FERPA about privacy protection of "educational records." Since it was agreed upon that teacher grade books were considered "educational records," the Tenth Circuit decided that anything that went into these grade books, including student grades written on student work, were also considered "educational records" and thus subject to FERPA's privacy protection policies. After the court decision was released, peer grading practices were banned in school districts within the Tenth Circuit regional borders.

...
Wikipedia