At the start of the 2026-27 school year, the U.S. Department of Education’s Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) issued a Dear Colleague Letter reiterating the legal requirements for local education agencies and state education agencies around education records under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA). This is a required notice under federal regulations, yet this Letter also emphasized particular points of potential noncompliance and reiterated that noncompliance can result in the loss of federal funding.
Legal Readiness for the Upcoming School Year: School District Summer Checklist
As another school year comes to a close, summer provides an important opportunity for districts to review compliance obligations, finalize personnel decisions, and prepare for the upcoming school year. Reviewing deadlines, updating policies, and coordinating with administrative staff now can help avoid issues later in the year.
ODEW Issues an Update on the Autism Scholarship Program
Recently, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce’s (“ODEW”) Office of Nonpublic Educational Options issued “Scholarship Program Updates” on the Autism Scholarship. In the update, ODEW emphasizes that scholarship providers are not required members of a scholarship student’s IEP team and should not should not “participate” in writing goals, objectives, present levels of performance, etc. for the IEPs developed by the public school districts.
Ohio Enacts Parents’ Bill of Rights
This week, Governor DeWine signed House Bill 8 (“HB 8”), also known as the Parents’ Bill of Rights, which, among other things, requires public school districts to adopt a policy that promotes parental involvement in the public school system by providing parental notification on student health and well-being and instructional materials that contain sexuality content as well as reaffirms a parent’s right to make decisions regarding their child’s education. HB 8 also includes provisions related to release time for religious instruction.
The bill will take effect within 90 days of the Governor’s signature – on or about April 8, 2025.