Laws of Communication

Some simple common sense rules can apply to making sure you never violate FERPA:

1. Never send grades in an email, text message, answering machine, or anything that can be shared to parties that are not direct stakeholders of the child. The only time this can be done is through an official school document, i.e. report card, or through the student's online portal.
2. Parents and students have the rights to request grade and personal information of that child only. Some counties or districts offer an online option known as a parent portal. To protect the students through FERPA, the school offers a token code to parents to sign up in order to assess the parent portal
3. Never share grades with a third party outside the personal stakeholders of the child, this also includes fellow teachers unless in an official meeting about that child. If a third party asks for information on the child, refer them to an administrator, or better to the parent of the child.

"Generally, schools must have written permission from the parent or eligible student in order to release any information from a student's education record. However, FERPA allows schools to disclose those records, without consent, to the following parties or under the following conditions (34 CFR § 99.31):

• School officials with legitimate educational interest;
• Other schools to which a student is transferring;
• Specified officials for audit or evaluation purposes;
• Appropriate parties in connection with financial aid to a student;
• Organizations conducting certain studies for or on behalf of the school;
• Accrediting organizations;
• To comply with a judicial order or lawfully issued subpoena; 
• Appropriate officials in cases of health and safety emergencies; and
• State and local authorities, within a juvenile justice system, pursuant to specific State law."                           - http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html For additional information, you may call 1-800-USA-LEARN (1-800-872-5327) (voice).

To protect yourself for violating copyright laws, following common sense steps is also important:

1. Use government created sites for information, like www.whitehouse.gov.
2. Use Creative Commons website to find licensed material that can be used free of copyright violations.
1. Four main types of Creative Commons types
1. Attribution: give credit to the source
2. Share-Alike: conditions of material is used in the same way as the original
3. Non-Commercial: used in a way for non-profit purposes
4. No Derivative Works: can share original material without alterations
3. Use the GNU Free Documentation download to obtain free software that is also free of copyright violations.

Not all things have to be original to be protected:

1. One thing teachers are known for is to share and borrow form other teachers. We don't like to "reinvent the wheel" when ever possible but, we also want our students to not plagiarize, or cut and paste directly. Sometimes, we can be hypocrites.
2. Borrowing from an artist, musician, or creator without permission can cost you a lot of money, lawsuits, or even your job. Just ask Vanilla Ice:

borrowed by MoreMusicVids channel on YouTube.com