Re: [Phys-L] Fwd: FERPA

[Ze'ev Wurman <zeev@ieee.org>]

Actually not, Brian. You seem too conceited to grasp my response. But , 
then, I am unsurprised by such misinterpretations in view of the 
recently exhibited behavior on this list. As I have already said here, 
when it comes to anything but physics, physicists and physics teachers 
are no more rational or insightful than the next guy.

As far as I understand it, FERPA allows communication about students 
above 18 as long as they are dependents on parents' tax returns.  
Colleges tend to have this information as they most often have access to 
those returns as a part of student-aid paperwork. Some use it directly 
and will communicate with such parents when they call. Others will 
insist that each student signs a waiver first -- perhaps because they 
rather not deal with the student-aid paperwork, perhaps because they 
would rather minimize parental involvement -- whatever. As opposed to 
you, I am not clairvoyant. Yet others basically refuse to deal with 
anyone but the student.

Incidentally, essentially all those who refuse to communicate with 
parents, for whatever reasons, will hide behind FERPA. Just a fact of life.

Ze'ev

On 7/13/2012 3:14 PM, brian whatcott wrote:
> So when Z Wurman says "...FERPA does not prohibit parents from being 
> given info about their children, even after 18..." in his usual direct 
> manner, he means "...FERPA *does* prohibit parents from being given 
> info about their children, even after 18, unless there is an explicit 
> written, signed agreement from the student on file to that effect...". 
> Have I grasped the nubbin of the response now, Dan?
>  Brian W
>
> On 2012, Jul 12, , at 12:06, Zeev Wurman wrote:
> > As long as the child is a dependent on parental tax return FERPA 
> does not
> > prohibit parents from being given info about their children, even 
> after 18.
>
> > > Some colleges take a defensive posture and put obstacles in front 
> of such
> > parents. Others don't.
> > Sent via BlackBerry And On 2012, Jul 12, ,
>
>  at 11:33, Daniel L Macisaac wrote:
> >
> > Yup, it's called FERPA. Parents get to trust what their kids tell them,
> > and if helicopter parents don't consider their own children 
> trustworthy,
> > such parents commence reaping what they have sown.
>
> Yes, the last I heard responsibility is bi-directional. e.g. a parent 
> must support a child's ed. to the child's ability and the parent's 
> wealth. i.e. a well to do parent must pay the tuition to Harvard, OTOH 
> the child must obey reasonable (as defied in the particular court 
> case) demands by the parents. I've forgotten to what age. bc thinks 
> the college is in loco parentis. By far the most common usage of in 
> loco parentis relates to teachers and students. For hundreds of years, 
> the English common-law concept shaped the rights and responsibilities 
> of public school teachers: until the late nineteenth century, their 
> legal authority over students was as broad as that of parents. Changes 
> in U.S. education, concurrent with a broader reading by courts of the 
> rights of students, began bringing the concept into disrepute by the 
> 1960s. Cultural changes, however, brought a resurgence of the doctrine 
> in the twenty-first century. In loco parentis legal definition of In 
> loco parentis. In loco parentis synonyms by the Free Online Law 
> Dictionary.
>
>
>
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