Student Data Privacy, Accessibility, and Transparency Act, parental and student review of the education record

A parent has the right to inspect and review his or her child's education record maintained by the school or local board of education. A parent may request from the school or local board of education the student data in the child's education record, including student data maintained by an operator, except when the local board determines that the operator's data cannot reasonably be made available to the parent.

Since House Bill 268 of 2025, a local board of education must immediately provide an electronic copy of a student's complete education record to any parent, legal custodian or other person or entity legally authorized to receive it, and in no case later than 5:00 p.m. on the third business day after the request.

Where part of the record is not kept in electronic format, the board must provide the electronic part on that schedule and, by 5:00 p.m. on the third business day, tell the requester when the rest will be ready for retrieval. A board may decline an electronic copy to a parent or guardian only where it does not maintain the record in electronic format and reproducing it that way would be unduly burdensome.

Senate Bill 431 of 2026 counts the business days in this Code section as school business days. A parent or eligible student has the right to request corrections to inaccurate education records maintained by a school or local board of education. After receiving a request that demonstrates an inaccuracy, the school or local board of education that maintains the data must correct the inaccuracy and confirm the correction to the parent or eligible student within a reasonable amount of time.

These rights extend to eligible students seeking to access their own education records.

The Department of Education must develop model policies that support local boards of education in notifying parents each year of their right to request student information, in providing student data securely and only to authorized individuals, and in producing education records to parents and eligible students, and that help schools and boards adopt technologies that let a parent view online, download and transmit data from the child's education record.

The Department of Education develops model policies and procedures for a parent or eligible student to file a complaint with a local school system about a possible violation of rights under the Act or other student data privacy and security laws, with a designated complaint contact, a written response, and appeals to the local superintendent and then the local board of education.

Each local board of education must adopt policies and procedures that include at least those model policies and procedures within six months of their adoption by the department. The section authorizes no additional cause of action beyond the process it describes or as otherwise authorized by state law. The section took effect with the rest of Part I of Senate Bill 89 on July 1, 2016.