Dear FERPA Professors,
Our faculty has presented us with a question: If the student has authorized us to release information to the parent, can the institution refuse to do so?
Generally, the parent functions as the student. The student has signed their FERPA authorization form, so there is no concern about who we are speaking to; we know it's the parent. However, the faculty is asking if they can refuse to speak with the parent about the student's educational record even though we have the release.
Regards,
Nore Lease
Dear Nore Lease,
§ 99.30 of the FERPA regulations requires that a student provide a signed, dated, written consent prior to the institution disclosing student education records in any format, including oral disclosures, unless the conditions of one of the exceptions to signed consent found at § 99.31 are met. In either situation, other than to the student as required in §99.31(a)(12), any disclosure under FERPA is permissible, not required. Thus, in the example you give, it would be at the discretion of the institution or school official whether or not to honor the signed consent and discuss information from the student's education record with the parent.
I hope this is helpful in answering your questions. You can find the above cited FERPA regulations on pages 159 and 161 of the 2012 AACRAO FERPA Guide.