We asked for testing to be done, so that Liam's teachers next year could get a clear picture of his strengths and weaknesses. The original testing was done about 18 months ago, and he was uncooperative. He is very much a different child now than he was then, and we wanted accurate info, since he will be transitioning from pre-K to kindy.
According to wrightslaw FERPA provides that you can have copies of anything in your child's confidential folder, INCLUDING tests. I have been round and round with 3 differnt people associated with the school system who insist that it is against copyright law-- even after I sent them the link directly to the wrightslaw pages discussign it. The ed.gov sight says that they only have to provide copies if you are at an unreasonable distance to travel and view the originals btw. -- from ed.gov:
Parents or eligible students have the right
to inspect and review the student's education records maintained by the
school. Schools are not required to provide copies of records unless,
for reasons such as great distance, it is impossible for parents or
eligible students to review the records. Schools may charge a fee for
copies.
Who is right??? How do I persuade them that it falls under fair use for education?
heather
You can request to see the records in person and at that time ask for copies of what you want. Make a written request to the superintendant. Call you state department of ED. The law is called the Family Education Right to Privacy Act and you can request any records that are "maintained" by the district. This means that private notes taken in meetings or by therapists are not covered if they are never shown to anyone, but if private notes are added to the student's file or are shared with team members, those are no longer considered private and can be requested. Ask that the District send you, in writing, the reason you cannot see some of your child's testing. If they say it is copyrighted, ask to see the copyright details.
Write a formal request for exactly what you want and why. Quote the law if you want to. Send copies to everyone involved...principal, IEP team, head of special ed, superintendant of schools...whatever it takes.
And document every interaction you have with these people giving you the run around. Write down all they say...You never know when it will come in handy.
BTW, you can go to the evaluators who can then SHOW you the actual work your child did and explain what his or her particular answers show. Otherwise, just the scores -- which they should definitely have already reported to you and which they must give you -- are what a Hearing Officer would consider in Due Process anyway, not the actual answers.This is a big issue that advocates and lawyers are constantly debating about. The fact is that if the school district "maintains" something in a file that is about your child, you DO have a right to it. The copyright thing makes the issue murky because the SD cannot violate copyright however, they ARE maintaing a record of your child. You might need to contact a lawyer about this. However, your child's scores, including the raw scores, are TOTALLY yours for your use. The copyright is just about giving you a copy of the actual piece of paper that your child put his answers down on, not the scores (and you can ask for the raw scores to be converted into precentiles, standard scores, Mental Age and Grade levels.
Hi herc:In my school district, the local parents' group recommends that you do NOT let the school district copy the records for you. Apparently there is a habit of using "post-it" notes and similar that do not get copied. Also, stuff gets missed, for whatever reason. If you want it done right you have to do it yourself. So the SD refusal to copy the records for you might have a silver lining, if you can make copies yourself. One web site recommends bringing a ream of nice copier paper so that they know that you are thinking about their budget - and leaving anything left over.
I'd go in to review the records planning on asking about making copies. ["This is just *too* hard for me to understand ... can I make a copy?"] But I'd bring a small digital camera that is capable of taking good pictures w/o a flash, as a backup against a refusal to allow access to a copier, but that's just me.
Another thought is to find out what company makes the test, and ask them what their copyright policy is. Maybe they can give the school permission for you to copy the scores or scoring sheet or whatever.
School districts are REQUIRED to make copies. They can charge a "reasonable" fee, but there are legal decisions that say what is "reasonable." My guess is that each state's Dept. of Ed. would be able to advise. The District is not required to allow US to use their machines and we cannot take the paperwork home and return it. However, using a digital camera to take pix of all the paperwork is totally permissable. Once you've got all the paperwork, use Pete Wright's system of keeping the original in a 3-ring binder in chronological order (I do mine in reverse chron order, tho Pete recommends the opposite). If you don't start this system when your child is young, you'll go NUTS. I did. I wish there had been a Wrightslaw 14 years ago.