FERPA awareness and our school subscribers

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a US federal law protecting the privacy of student education records. This page explains FERPA’s relevance to Ralspin — and what school counselors, district subscribers, and PTAs should know when they share information with us.

§ 01FERPA applies to schools, not to us

FERPA applies to schools and education agencies that receive funding from the US Department of Education. Ralspin is not a school, district, or education agency, and we do not receive Department of Education funding. As a result, FERPA does not directly regulate us as an entity.

§ 02Our school subscribers are FERPA-bound

When school counselors, district administrators, or PTA partners subscribe to Ralspin on behalf of their students, they remain bound by FERPA in their handling of student education records. This affects what they can share with us, and we structure our service to respect those obligations.

§ 03How we structure our service to support FERPA compliance

Our school-tier intake form is designed so school subscribers can describe their student cohort without sharing individually identifiable education records. Specifically:

• School subscribers describe their cohort in aggregate (grade ranges, total enrollment, demographic notes) rather than identifying specific students.
• Where individual student information is necessary — such as identifying named students for outreach about a specific opportunity — the school is responsible for obtaining any consent required by FERPA before sharing with us.
• We treat any information shared by a school as confidential, in accordance with the same security practices that govern all subscriber data.
• We never re-share student information back to programs or third parties; we surface opportunities to the school, and the school decides which students to contact.

§ 04School subscribers’ responsibility

School and district subscribers remain solely responsible for:

• Determining whether information they share with us constitutes an education record under FERPA.
• Obtaining any consent or providing any notice required by FERPA before sharing such information.
• Maintaining their own records of disclosures as required by FERPA.
• Determining whether and how to apply FERPA’s “school official” exception or other applicable exceptions to any information sharing with us.

We do not provide legal advice to school subscribers about their FERPA compliance. Counsel for your school or district is the right resource for that judgment.

§ 05Directory information

Some categories of student information — known as “directory information” — may be disclosed by schools without consent unless a parent has opted out. Our service does not request directory information specifically, but school subscribers may sometimes provide it in connection with cohort outreach. We treat directory information with the same care as all other subscriber data.

§ 06Parents and students

If you are a parent of a student whose school subscribes to Ralspin, and you have a question about whether and how your student’s information may have been shared with us, the right first step is to contact your school. Your school can describe what information they share, the basis on which they share it, and your rights to inspect or correct any records the school holds. If you wish to ensure that no information about your student is held by us, contact [email protected] and we will work with you and your school to confirm what, if anything, we hold and address it.

§ 07Our limits

To be clear about scope: we do not access school information systems. We do not receive transcripts, grades, disciplinary records, or other records traditionally considered education records under FERPA. The information we receive from school subscribers is generally what those subscribers choose to share through our intake form or in correspondence.

§ 08Contact