Jenna Barnes reports that a family is being denied the opportunity to see alleged video evidence against their son because of a district policy based on what the district thinks FERPA requires. So this 8th grader at Wentzville Middle School. may be expelled, there’s video evidence relevant to the accusations, and the family cannot see it?
“We asked could we see the video footage of what’s going on, they denied it and said no, you can’t see it,” she said.
The school district told 5 On Your Side that is their policy, citing a federal privacy law called FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
“When the privacy interest of multiple students are involved, and student records of multiple students are involved, the district does not disclose confidential student records,” Mary La Pak, spokeswoman for the Wentzville School District, said in an email.
Read more on KSDK. And no, as the news report suggests, there’s another way to interpret FERPA on this. And the only issue I see is how do they protect the privacy of the alleged victim while allowing the family to see the evidence against the accused student?