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The U.S. Education Department announced in the Federal Register two public hearings to solicit input on agency regulations related to postsecondary education that may be appropriate for repeal, replacement, or modification.
- September 26, 2017, at Salt Lake Community College—Miller Campus, 9750 South 300 West, Karen Gail Miller Conference Center, Copper Creek Room A&B, Sandy, Utah 84070
- October 4, 2017, at the U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Ave. SW., Barnard Auditorium, Washington, DC 20202
The public hearings will be held from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., local time.
In June, the department sent out a request for written comments on higher education regulations and guidance in accordance with Executive Order 13777, "Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda." AACRAO recently submitted comments in response to inform the Regulatory Reform Task Force of existing regulations and guidance that we believe have a detrimental policy impact on our members, particularly with regard to education records and student privacy.
AACRAO's Comments on Regulatory Reform Agenda
Institutions or state and regional organizations interested in submitting comments to the department may use the following form letter to guide their responses (Institutional/State or Regional Form Letter). The deadline for all comments has been extended to September 20, 2017.
Submit your comments directly to the department using this website and please send a copy to William Gil, AACRAO Director, Government Relations, at gilw@aacrao.org.
Specifically, AACRAO's comments to the department will focus on the following issues:
2012 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) Regulations
In 2012, the Obama Administration, through the Department of Education, implemented regulatory amendments that dramatically expanded FERPA. The amendments greatly broadened the definition of who is given access to personally identifiable information (PII) from student records on a nonconsensual basis.
ΓÇïAACRAO strongly urges that the following 2012 regulatory amendments to FERPA be rescinded.
- We believe that the definition "Authorized Representative" should be restored to its previous definition of "individuals and entities under direct control of officials" as designated in the original statute.
- The 2012 regulations also overreached on the definition of "Implied Authority" to audit programs and have created much confusion, and lacks legal precedent. We urge the Task Force to close this loophole for non-consensual disclosure of education records.
- The 2012 regulations vastly widened the definition of "Education Programs" to include programs not administered by educational authorities. We believe that the definition should revert back to the original "programs administered by an educational agency or institution."
- The 2012 regulations expanded the meaning of non-consensual disclosure of personal information from education records to organization conducting "for, or on behalf of" educational agencies or institutions. We strongly urge the restoration of the limitation on the purposes for which the research exception may be invoked, and to statutorily prohibit re-disclosure of personally identifiable information by organizations accessing education records under this exception.
Guidance on the Disclosure of Student Medical Records
On August 24, 2016 the Department issued a Dear Colleague Letter outlining its final guidance on the obligations of institutional school officials under FERPA, 20 U.S.C. 1232g and the regulations in 34 C.F.R. Part 99, to protect students' education records from disclosure without consent, and provides guidance more specifically on the disclosure of student medical records.
The guidance reviewed and clarified the agency's views regarding the protections applicable to student medical records, specifically in cases where litigation occurs between the institution and the student. The letter advised colleges to handle the privacy of student medical records under FERPA similarly to the way health care providers and hospitals are required to treat such records.
We urge the task force to recommend that the department modify itsΓÇï guidance to defer to FERPA when student medical records are involved, as previous joint guidance advises.
2017 Changes to the Family Policy Compliance Office (FPCO)
On January 19, 2017, the outgoing Obama administration issued a final rule that amended FERPA to change the name of the office designated enforcement functions by the Secretary from the Family Policy Compliance Office (FPCO) to the Office of the Chief Privacy Officer as part of an expansion of student privacy operations at the Department.
We urge the task force to recommend that the department rescind this regulatory change and restore FPCO and its Director as the office designated to administer FERPA in all aspects.
Related Links
Federal Register
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2017-08-25/pdf/2017-18104.pdf
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