I received the following question by e-mail:
Can you point me in the right direction or have you encountered issues regarding the sharing of classroom video with parents. A school district lawyer is arguing that sharing video with a parent of her child interacting in the classroom constitutes a violation of the FERPA rights of the other children in the tape. Seems goofy to me.
My response:
1. I’m not a lawyer. 2. You have to do what your administrator says.
I never turn a camera on in the classroom until I have permission from every parent for their child to be videotaped. You cannot film students with permission. I would think that getting permission to film students interacting would avoid violating any rights.
There is a minor loop hole if you are a secondary teacher (mainly high school) and you are creating media that is journalistic in nature. School journalists are protected under FERPA, in that they don’t have to obtain consent since it would make the creation of journalistic products too difficult to create. If you want to ask a real lawyer go to the Student Press Law Center (www.splc.org), even if this is not journalism and they have real lawyers who can answer your questions about FERPA and any other privacy issues with videotaping in the classroom.