FERPA and ADA: Do you understand how the changes affect your school?

Madison, Wis.—March 24, 2009 — Two of the biggest acronyms in higher education – ADA and FERPA – have gone through some big changes of late.

In order to understand precisely what the recent amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act and new guidance on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act mean to colleges and universities, you could pore through stacks of complex government regs, or you could watch the online seminar Charting the Changes: FERPA AND ADA.

In this 90-minute seminar presenters Brett A. Sokolow, J.D., president of the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management (NCHERM) and Saundra K. Schuster, J.D., a partner at NCHERM, highlight the specific changes to each Act, and explain what those changes mean to the higher education community.

According to Sokolow, the changes fall into a good news/bad news sort of category. While many of the FERPA changes are largely college friendly, he says, ADA modifications have the potential to cause more lawsuits for colleges and universities.

ADA Changes
The ADA Amendments Act of 2008, which became effective Jan. 1, 2009, applies to both ADA and Section 504. Its focus is to clarify the definition of disability. Notable changes include expanding the definition of “major life activities” to include reading concentration, thinking, communicating and working.

“When I think in terms of concentration, and I think about the millennial issue, and the whole generation of students who have grown up being diagnosed with ADD and ADHD and are on various forms of medication … suggests to me that there will be more and more individuals who will legitimately qualify as being disabled and are likely to come to the Office of Student Disability Services to seek special accommodation,” says Schuster.

The new ADA also creates a new “major bodily function” category, which casts a much broader net in terms of what’s protected by the law, she says.

FERPA Changes
During his portion of the presentation, Sokolow stressed the importance of “seeing FERPA as a tool for communication rather than as a barrier to it.”

“Ninety-five percent of the time FERPA’s really not going to bar you from sharing information that you feel a need to share,” he says. “The other five percent of the time it probably does, and we need to know how it does and how we can effectively comply.”

Sokolow then explained and provided examples of 16 areas that have been changed or are new for FERPA. These 16 areas are: attendance, revised definition of directory information, directory information opt-out, disclosure, disclosure to parents, disclosure to subcontractors and outside parties, direct control (aka the database rule), transfer of educational records to a new school, ex parte court orders under the USA Patriot Act, registered sex offenders, recordation requirements, education research resource, personally identifiable information, de-identified records and information, notification of subpoena, and health and safety emergency.

If you missed the seminar and would like to purchase it for your institution, you can order the program in CD or print transcript format, both of which include the presenter's handouts.

Magna Publications is a leading publisher of newsletters and other information products in the higher education segment. Magna also manages onsite and online conferences on topics of interest to higher education.

For more information please contact David Burns, Publisher, Magna Publications, Inc., at 608-227-8109, or dburns@magnapubs.com.