Dear FERPA Professor,
Our Scholarship and Awards Committee consistently asks for information on student academic standing. Most recently, they requested the name of the student with the highest grade point average of a certain cohort so they could award the student at the Scholarship and Awards Banquet.
How would one handle this request under FERPA?
Sincerely,
Ida Layd
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Ida,
If the committee consists of employees at your institution, you should be fine providing the information to them under the “school official” exception to signed consent, which can be found in detail in §99.31(a)(1)(i).
However, if this committee is not comprised entirely of employees at your institution you have two options available. If you have an ‘honors and awards’ category in your directory information, you could provide the name or names, absent the specific GPA, to the committee. If you have any question about directory information in particular, reference §99.37. Alternatively, you can obtain written consent from the student to disclose this information to the committee.
I hope this is helpful in answering your question.
Sincerely,
The FERPA Professor
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