Ehtical and Legal Guidelines of Record Keeping

Ethical and Legal Requirements of Record Keeping Paperwork, documentation, data, call it what you will: There is certainly an abundance of information generated by school professionals in their work with children. The question of who is in possession of this information, who it can be shared with, its storage and destruction is addressed in the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974 and Individuals with Disabilities Educations Acts of 1997 and 2004 (Merrell, Ervin and Peacock, 2012). FERPA uses the term educational records when alluding to student information, defining them as records maintained by the schools (or their agent) pertaining to the individual student. This language is used by IDEA – 1997 as well (Canter, 2001).
In addition to the legal requirements contained in FERPA, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Principles for Professional Ethics (NASP, 2010) outlines specific guidelines and standards regarding legal and ethical issues surrounding record keeping. Standard II 4.1 states it is the responsibility of the school psychologist to inform parents and students over the age of 18 of their rights to privacy in regard to documentation as well as the rules governing the method of storage, dissemination and destruction of “psychological and educational records that result from the provision of services” (NASP, 2010, p. 311).
In terms of the documentation typically used by school psychologists, what are considered “educational records”? While it may be obvious to consider formal evaluations and written reports as such, there has been some dispute in regards to other documentation. Are test protocols considered “personal notes” and therefore exempt from parental disclosure guidelines, storage and destruction protocols outlined by