Coronavirus and Schools: Parents Joining Video Conferences
CORONAVIRUS UPDATE
We have a teacher conducting an online Zoom class session (multiple students). The student will be home but the parent will be at work. The parent wants to also log in to see what’s happening...what are the FERPA considerations here? Can mom go to ”school” with kid?
The short answer is “no.” When providing group synchronous learning opportunities, school districts should direct the links for video conference access directly to the students themselves, who are the direct participants in the class. Parents who are nearby may overhear what takes place in the classroom, or may need to assist a student with access for younger learners, but the parent is not a direct participant in the video conference. The parent here seeks full access as a separate participant in the video conference, and you should politely decline the request. Such requests for direct observation of the learning environment should be handled in the same manner parent requests to observe physical classrooms are handled. Those requests are often subject to school board policy which provides limitation on how frequently and how long such observations can last.
Whether the parent requests a formal observation as indicated above, or whether the parent overhears the classroom instruction, we do not believe that FERPA is implicated because no student records containing personally identifiable information are being disclosed.
Teachers should be encouraged to check the participant list whenever they conduct a video conference to ensure that they know the identity of all of the students in the conference. In the case that a parent or other individual shows up in such a conference unexpectedly, they should be asked to leave. If they refuse to leave, the teacher (as host of the meeting) should remove the unauthorized observer from the video conference).