Progress Monitoring and FERPA

When it comes to progress monitoring, there are an unlimited amount of tools available to teachers, especially with all the new technology being developed. There are tons of Google apps available for education. Google can do just about anything these days. https://www.google.com/a/signup/?enterprise_product=GOOGLE.EDU&hl=en&source=gafe-homepage-canvas-en#0 My school uses an internet site called Alpine to track all of our progress monitoring data, both short and long term. This makes it easy for all teachers working with a child to have access to and update their records. http://www.alpineachievement.com/index.php Before this week I did not know that the National Center on Student Progress Monitoring existed, but they have a lot of really great resources available to teachers. http://www.studentprogress.org/weblibrary.asp#tools FERPA is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. It applies to all public and charter schools. This Act protects students’ personal records and information. I know I always stay on the side of caution when it comes to sharing student information. When releasing day-to-day info to parents I usually use my own discretion. Anything “official” I run by my admin first. We definitely can’t release info about students to anyone other than their parents. When it comes to discussing the child with other teachers, I think as long as they are a part of the child’s education there is no problem. Here is the Department of Education’s explanation of FERPA requirements: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/students.html