Supreme court

Journal of Law and Education, Jul 2002

Final Decision

DOCKET NO.: 00-1073

NAME: Owasso Independent School District No. 1-011 v. Falvo

DATE: Feb. 19, 2002

Respondent sued the school district under 42 U.S. C. (sec) 1983, claiming that when a teacher allows for peer grading, this violates the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA). The respondents (parents of a child in the school district) complained that the practice of allowing students to score each other's assignments while the teacher reads out the answers violates the FERPA requirement that a student's education records cannot be released without a parent's consent. The respondents argued that the grades that students put on each other's assignments falls within the FERPA definition of education records. Therefore since each student is able to see the grade of another student, this practice violates FERPA. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals held that peer grading rose to the level of creating education records and thus since the parents were not asked to consent to such release, this method of grading violated FERPA,

Held: The Supreme Court found that at the point that students marked grades on each others assignments, the assignments were not educational records, and thus no violation of FERPA occurred.

The Supreme Court found that peer-graded classroom work and assignments fall outside the statutory definition of education records (20 U.S.C. (sec) 1232g(a)(4)(B)(i)). The Court found that although the papers do contain information related to the student, they only become education records when and if they "are maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a person acting for such agency or institution." (20 U.S.C. (sec) 1232g(a)(4)(A)) The Court looked at the word "maintain" and decided that at the point when peers grade each other's assignments they are not maintaining the records in the same way that a registrar maintains a student's folder in a permanent file.

The Court went on to note that a further requirement of the definition of an education record is that the person who holds the record must be acting for an educational institution. The Court found that this meant something more than what a student does in peer grading. The person must be acting as an agent for the school such as a teacher or administrator. The mere fact that one student puts a mark on another student's assignment does not give rise to the student acting as an agent for the school district.

As this case only dealt with peer grading, prior to any permanent recording of grades in a teacher's grade book, the Court left open the question of whether or not a teacher's grade book is an education record protected under FERPA. Owasso Independent School District No. I-011 v. Falvo, 122 S.Ct. 934 (2002)

Review Denied

Decisions without published opinions in the lower court:

DOCKET NO.: 01-1025

NAME: Parents Against Testing Before Teaching v. Orleans Parish School Board

DATE: February 25, 2002

CITATION: cent. denied, 122 S.Ct. 1174 (2002)

DOCKET NO.: 01-1268

NAME: In re Rettig

DATE: April 15, 2002

CITATION: cert. denied, 122 S.Ct. 1595 (2002)

DOCKET NO.: 01-1330

NAME: Anderson v. Ohio State University

DATE: April 15, 2002

CITATION: cert. denied, 122 S.Ct. 1545 (2002)

DOCKET NO.: 01-1236

NAME: Norton v. Catanese

DATE: April 29, 2002

CITATION: cert. denied, 122 S.Ct. 1790 (2002) DOCKET NO.: 01-1254

NAME: Bernhardt v. Santa Monica College

DATE: May 13, 2002

CITATION: cent. denied, 70 U.S.L.W. 3693 (2002)

Decisions with written opinions in the Court of Appeals:

DOCKET NO.: 00-916

NAME: Miller v. Houston Independent School District

DATE: March 04, 2002

Teacher was terminated because she failed to show up to work for three months pending a protest of her transfer to another school. Before terminating the teacher an independent hearing officer recommended that the teacher not be terminated for her failure to show up to work for three months. The school board rejected this recommendation and the Commissioner of Education upheld the board's decision. Teacher claimed that she informed the school board that due to the severe psychological problems her daughter was having she could not transfer to a school located further away than the one at which she currently worked. Held: Court of Appeals upheld the Commissioner's decision. The Court found that the teacher's failure to show up to work was good cause for termination. The Court also concluded that a court should not reverse the Commissioner's decision unless it was not supported by substantial evidence or unless its legal conclusions were clearly erroneous. Miller v. Houston Independent School District, 51 S. W.3d 676 (Tex. App. 2001), cert. denied, 122 S. Ct. 1203 (2002).

DOCKET NO.: 00-945

NAME: T.S. v. Independent School District No. 54, Stroud, Oklahoma

DATE: Mar. 18, 2002

Student claimed that the school district violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) when they failed to grant him an exit meeting to determine whether his graduation was appropriate. The student proceeded to graduate and did not contest his graduation. Held: Court ofAppeals found that upon graduation the student's claims became moot. The Court ruled that upon a valid uncontested graduation a student will be deemed to have received a free and appropriate public education as required by IDEA. Thus, in order to continue with a claim based on some issue under IDEA a student or parent must claim some substantial loss. In this case the student did not contest the validity of his graduation, thus the school district had discharged its duties under IDEA and no valid claim remained for the courts to hear. TS. v. Independent School District No. 54, Stroud, Oklahoma, 265 F.3d 1090 (10th Cir. 2001), cert. denied, 122 S.Ct. 1297 (2002).