ASBSD Policy Alert will be your source for the latest updates, commentary and information on school board policy.

 

Senate Bill 63: protects the privacy of individual student records.

 

SB 63 prohibits the collection of student information not necessary for the calculation of funding for public education, the determination of student academic progress, state and federal reporting requirements, or other duties prescribed by law to a school district, the department, or the state board of education by law.

 

SB 63 deals with protecting the privacy of the records of individual students.

 

The Secretary of Education is required to establish a uniform system for the gathering and reporting of educational data for the keeping of adequate educational and financial records and for the evaluation of educational progress.

 

SB 63 also added a new statute in SDCL Ch. 13-3, which is almost identical to a federal law, the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment.

 

The new statute prohibits any elementary school or secondary school student being required to submit to a survey, analysis, or evaluation that reveals information concerning:

1. Political affiliations or beliefs of the student or the student’s parent,
2. Mental or psychological problems or aspects of the student or the student’s family,
3. Sex behavior or attitudes of the student or the student’s family,
4. Illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating, or demeaning behavior,
5. Critical appraisals of other individuals with whom respondents have close family relationships,
6. Legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians, and ministers,
7. Religious practices, affiliations, or beliefs of the student or student’s parent,
8. Personal or family gun ownership; or
9. Income (other than that required by law to determine eligibility for participation in a program or for receiving financial assistance under such program), without the prior consent of the student (if the student is an adult or emancipated minor), or in the case of an unemancipated minor, without the prior written consent of the parent. The term, parent, includes a legal guardian or other person standing in loco parentis.

 

The list of information in (1) to (9), inclusive, is not an exclusive list and the Secretary of Education may add to the list of information that is of a similar nature

 

Following the passage of SB 63, ASBSD amended the following sample policies:                                                                

1. IL: Testing Programs 
2. ILB: State Required Assessments
3. JO: Student Records

Following the passage of SB 63, ASBSD drafted the following new sample policies:

1. JO-N: FERPA-Notice of Rights-Student Records
2. JOA: Student Directory Information
3. JOA-N:  FERPA – Notice – Student Directory Information
4. JOB: Student Surveys
5. JOB-E: Permission Form for Survey, Analysis or Evaluation
6. JOB-N: Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment Notice of Rights – Student Surveys

See more sample policies at the ASBSD Policy Reference Manual website.