Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) safety and health exceptions and employee privacy training

Sparked by the Virginia Tech Shooting of 2007 and the resultant changes to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a review was conducted of FERPA's impact on university policies regarding student privacy and safety. A single, private university's policies were reviewed and a survey was distributed to 500 campus employees who had recently completed the university's FERPA training to determine if the university's current training was effective in training employees to understand FERPA's health and safety exceptions clause. The results showed that while the university's training was effective in training employees how to safeguard students' academic records, employees did not have a clear understanding of which information they could or should share in response to a threat to health and safety or to which university entity they should route safety concerns. The survey suggests that the university's FERPA training should be expanded to include training on FERPA's health and safety exceptions, including the communication of clear reporting lines for possible threats to campus safety and security.