Law / United States / 
Indiana
Personal analyses, evaluations or surveys of students by third party vendors
Ind. Code §§ 20-26-21-1 to 20-26-21-9
In force since .
A sensitive categories rule binding public and private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Prohibition, Consent, Disclosure, Contract terms
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- If a school corporation or qualified school uses you to provide a personal analysis, evaluation or survey that reveals, identifies, collects, maintains or attempts to affect a student's attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs or feelings, do not record, collect or maintain the responses or results in a manner that would identify the responses or results of an individual student (Ind. Code 20-26-21-3).
- Accept a contract term stating that your failure to comply with section 3 is a breach of contract; a school corporation or qualified school that contracts with you after for such an analysis, evaluation or survey must include it (Ind. Code 20-26-21-9).
- If you are a school corporation or qualified school, before you administer such an analysis, evaluation or survey, give the student's parent, or an adult or emancipated minor student, a written request for consent that accurately summarizes its contents and nature and states the right to review and inspect all related materials (Ind. Code 20-26-21-4(b)).
- If you are a school corporation or qualified school and the parent or student does not respond to your request for consent within 21 calendar days, send a written notice asking whether they consent or decline; if there is no response within ten days after that notice, the student receives the analysis, evaluation or survey unless the parent or an adult or emancipated student subsequently opts out (Ind. Code 20-26-21-4(c)).
- If you are a school corporation or qualified school, post a copy of the analysis, evaluation or survey on your website, send an explanation of the reasons you are administering it with each notice, and give a student who does not participate alternative academic instruction during the same time frame (Ind. Code 20-26-21-4(b) and (d)).
- If you are a qualified school, maintain a grievance procedure for complaints a parent or an adult or emancipated minor student submits about a violation of the chapter (Ind. Code 20-26-21-5 and 20-26-21-6).
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
What record it asks for
Logging duty
Chapter 21 bars keeping survey responses in a form that identifies an individual student and sets consent, posting and contract duties. It requires no log or record of processing, sets no retention period and gives no regulator a right to a record.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Chapter 21 reaches a school maintained by a school corporation, a charter school, a laboratory school and the Indiana schools for the blind and visually impaired and for the deaf, each a qualified school.
Section 20-26-21-3 bars a third party vendor, and the school corporation or qualified school, from recording, collecting or maintaining the responses to or results of a personal analysis, evaluation or survey that reveals, identifies, collects, maintains or attempts to affect a student's attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs or feelings in a manner that would identify the responses or results of an individual student.
Section 20-26-21-9 requires a contract made after between a school corporation or qualified school and a third party vendor for such an analysis, evaluation or survey to state that the vendor's failure to comply with section 3 is a breach of contract.
Before a school corporation or qualified school administers such an analysis, evaluation or survey, section 20-26-21-4(b) requires it to give the parent of the student, or an adult or emancipated minor student, a written request for consent. If the school receives no response within ten days after a follow-up notice, the student receives the analysis, evaluation or survey unless the parent or an adult or emancipated student subsequently opts out.
The chapter does not apply to a survey or evaluation a third party vendor administers to gauge student satisfaction with the school's programming, technology platform or approved curriculum. Nor does it apply to an academic test or assessment that measures a student's academic performance in a curricular subject as the department prescribes, or to a career aptitude or career interest survey.
It also leaves out an assessment, screening instrument or evaluation survey that a licensed psychologist, social worker, marriage and family therapist or mental health counselor employed by a third party administers on a referral in a crisis or after receiving consent for services. The consent procedure in section 4 does not apply to a survey for which IC 20-30-5-17(c) already requires consent.
A parent of a student, or an adult or emancipated minor student, enrolled in a qualified school may submit a complaint for a violation of the chapter under the grievance procedure the qualified school maintains. Public Law 234 of 2023 added chapter 21, and Public Law 204 of 2025 amended section 4.
When LexLint raises it
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