The same things you do when they don’t do something else you tell them to - which is going to depend to a great extent on other circumstances. For example, my parents could not have forced me as an 18 year old high school or college student to disclose my grades - we lived in a house my grandfather owned and he would never have thrown me out, I had a job before I was 16, I was rarely home to eat meals and therefore generally paid for them on my own, they did not pay for my clothing and other personal needs, and I got around via either public transportation or later on , with a car that I bought, maintained and insured with my own money. Once I started college I paid my own tuition. They weren’t really giving me anything so there was nothing they could take away if I didn’t comply.
On the other hand, if I had been inclined to do so, it would have been very easy to require my kids to provide me with their college grades- no grades, no tuition check for next semester. And had they turned 18 in high school, it’s unlikely that I would have had to threaten eviction if they wouldn’t show me their grades* - it would have been as easy as not taking their preferences into account when deciding what to have for dinner or which shampoo to buy , not giving them rides here and there when public transportation was inconvenient and so on. I could have stopped doing all those little things that aren’t necessary for survival but make life more pleasant.
The thing is, I suspect the parents in this case wouldn’t have done any of those things. There’s a certain type of parent that refuses to acknowledge that the “kid” is an adult ( I’ve heard of parents who call their 20 something year old’s boss to discuss their evaluation) and there’s another type that prefers a third party to be the “bad guy” - they want the library to prohibit all kids from checking out books they don’t approve of rather than prohibiting their* own *kids from checking out those books and enforcing it , or they want the library to give them access to which books the child checked out rather than inspecting which books the child brought home. It’s my suspicion that the parents of this 18 year old fall into one or both of those categories - because 30 seconds of rational thought would have told them that they had no more right to access her information than my mother has to access mine.
*although that actually is an option for an 18 year old - you might not be able to put their belongings on the street and change the locks, but you can definitely go to court and get them out of your home if they won’t leave willingly.
There is parallel with medical information when children turn 18.
It is simple and expected to state that we cannot discuss test results (or even if a test has been done) or medical information to a parent of a child over 18 without the patient’s explicit permission. This is the case even when we know the family and know the patient would have no problem with mom or dad getting the results for them.
The parallel would be to simply state that we (the school) will need your daughter’s permission to discuss her grades or anything else about her current status with you because she is over 18 years of age.
That would have been the ethical course of action and ignoring the response completely was cowardly not ethical.
To say that the policy is somewhere in the student handbook so they have already been told is a bit silly.
If the parents then asked: “Not about my child then, but in general what does an ‘N/A’ on this report mean?” it would also be completely ethical to explain the various circumstances under which “N/A” would appear, as a general information.
It would depend on when she turned 18 and when she started to fail, if she was 18 and noticed her grades were falling, and then told the school, the parents may not have know, or they might not check every day.
The school’s could have said, “This student has requested that information is not to be released and as such we cannot release it.” The grade would have have been released, as per an adult’s instructions and the reason the school couldn’t do it would also be known. Then the ball would be in the parents court again.
As a University admin, I can tell you that the volume of emails we get sent to the wrong address, not asking a clear question (or even a question at all) is staggering. If the parents were so worried; pick up the durn phone and talk to a human being. This “we emailed you” crap, is not communication. If you don’t get a response, maybe just maybe, you haven’t actually communicated with someone. I find disturbing our culture’s expectation that our emails are a valid substitute for taking personal responsibility. And probably one of the signs of the coming of the apocalypse. Or hey maybe they should have emailed their kid.
Perhaps I’ve missed it, but after 85 posts I am still unclear on one issue:
Was it legal for the school to email the parents and say “Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), we are unable to provide the grades to parents of adult students (18) who have chosen to keep this information confidential.”
If this was legal, the school should have done that. If it was illegal the school did the correct thing, but I’d want the state (or fed) to consider if this law should be tweaked to allow for the note above.
Hell, if I called Bricker’s doctor and asked for his medical records, they would at least tell me that they couldn’t give them to me. Hard to believe that this system needs to be tighter than that.
Actually, without an ROI they’re more likely to tell you that they can neither confirm not deny that such a person has been a patient, or indeed even exists. But again, HIPAA is not the standard schools operate under.
Under my university’s current interpretation of FERPA, I can’t use a student’s name or initials in a conversation with one of their other instructors in the academic program, even though it’s a professional training program and we have legal and ethical gatekeeping responsibilities. While this is extreme (and I think will ultimately be shown to be an over-extension of FERPA), it’s the environment I work in, under the threat of a fine per occurence for violations.
If contacted by the parent of an 18-year-old, I would need to let them know that I can’t confirm or deny that the student is enrolled because of this policy, and encourage them to speak directly to the 18-year-old. This is true even if the person they’re asking about isn’t my student or isn’t enrolled. To decrease animosity, it’s good to acknowledge that this might be frustrating and direct the caller to other campus resources (such as the program director, dean, counseling center, etc.) as warranted by the specifics. If directed by administration or a supervisor to do so, I can report up–for example, if one of my deans asks, “Was Student X in class this week?” I may answer.
Yes but even then someone would answer the phone and tell you that.
The school could have and should have done that simple courtesy as spifflog suggests: “we are unable to provide the grades to parents of adult students (18) who have chosen to keep this information confidential.”
Even if it is written somewhere in the student handbook that of course every parent has read cover to cover and memorized … remind them.
The parents withdrew their daughter from another high school in the same district just before her senior year. It’s not stated but strongly implied this was because she was struggling academically:
Was she on an IEP at her old school? We don’t know. Was she struggling academically before she developed anxiety and depression? We don’t know. Was her failure directly due to her qualifying conditions? No clue.
And to emphasize the point one last time, we only have the parents’ word as to what happened. Did they email a school counselor twice? If so, when? It could have been two days or two weeks or two hours before daughter fessed up. Were the emails sent to the right counselor? Most schools assign students or grade-levels to specific counselors. (And if you don’t think a high school guidance office isn’t insanely hectic the last two weeks of school, you haven’t been in one then.) Did the parents email the student’s Sped case manager? Often that’s the first stop for parents with kids on IEP’s that affect a particular class.
Again, it’s not the worst thing in the world if the daughter has to go to summer school or put in another semester. In fact, it might be the very best thing for her.
I was lucky. My parents cared, they did their best to help me when I needed it, and they respected me without turning that into something ridiculous. And at 18 I had no need or desire to keep them out of my school records or anything similar. I don’t even know how the rules worked that long ago.
Not every kid is so lucky. Abuse of various sorts is far too common. A significant number of kids need to be protected from their parents, instead of by them.
(NB: None of this post has anything to do with the girl in the OP.)
The few “Well, I’ll just coerce my own kids to hand over their login information, so it doesn’t matter anyway” responses seem a bit too blithely unaware of reality, too willing to pretend they know better, too ready to say “who, me??” with a disingenuous expression of feigned concern.
I’m not accusing people of abusing their kids, but I am pointing out that being willing to abuse the privacy process, deciding to handle this usually relatively minor issue in precisely the way an abusive parent might handle it, is probably not a good precedent to set - for anyone.
In response to protests that this is not abuse, I already know that and already said it myself. I’m saying there’s never a good reason for any parent to ignore (or to kick against) privacy rules concerning kids.
How is that any different than if you or I were to call up and ask them for information on a student? The response is, 1) I can’t give you that information, 2) because of this specific law.
What if the parents made the request in person? Would the administrators just have to stand there stone-faced, not providing an answer and not explaining why they’re not providing an answer?
Couldn’t they at least have the reply say that “we are unable to comply with your request. That could mean that the student in question isn’t enrolled at this institution, or that they have requested that their records not be released.”
It’s difficult to believe that ignoring a letter or email is the school’s only recourse. If the parents called the school and asked the question, would the school have just hung up on them without explanation?
At some point, wouldn’t they have to check their records to see if she’s there, and then see if there is a letter on file allowing access?
“I’d like to know if my child is failing a class.”
“We can’t tell you that unless we know if she’s allowed that info to be shared.”
"OK, her name is . . . "
“Excuse me, we can’t do any type of search on her, because it violates her rights.”
“But you can’t see if she’s allowed us to see her grades unless we tell you who she is, and you won’t let us do that?”
“Exactly. You fully understand the system. Have a nice day.”
Sounds like the lost chapter out of “Catch-22.”
I’ve called to ask about my mother’s health care information, and was told that I couldn’t have any information without her written consent. They didn’t get into if she was a patient there, or how I knew to call that doctor’s office. Once I get the letter I was good to go. But I don’t see how stating that we can’t discuss any information without approval is all that invasive. There has to be some balance, right?