FERPA in AmplifyED (operational)

At a glance

Who uses it: Admins and facilitators operating AmplifyED day-to-day.
Purpose: The operational counterpart to the procurement-facing FERPA overview — what you actually do inside the app to stay aligned with FERPA.

The short version

Treat AmplifyED as part of your student education record.
Use roles to enforce need-to-know.
Use note visibility to keep parent-bound text intentional.
Use the audit log when responding to parent or compliance inquiries.
Use the dossier export for FERPA-formatted record requests.

Day-to-day practices

Mind note visibility

Notes are Internal by default. Choose Teacher-visible only when the teacher needs the content for instruction. Choose Parent-visible only when the content is appropriate for a parent dossier — typically plan summaries and outcome statements.

Don't paste PII you don't need

If a note doesn't need a Social Security number, a diagnosis code, or a sibling's name, don't paste it. Anything written becomes part of the record.

Use the right form for the right submitter

Parents and students submit on the student intake form.
School staff submit on the staff intake form.

Both honor your district's branding and FERPA notice.

Respond to parent inspection requests via the dossier export

Don't email screenshots. Use Students → open student → Export record to generate a FERPA-formatted ZIP with PDF + CSVs. See FERPA exports.

Lean on the audit log

When asked "who looked at my child's record," filter the audit log to that student. The log shows every read, export, and edit.

What FERPA expects from the school (not AmplifyED)

Granting access only to staff with a legitimate educational interest.
Notifying parents of their rights under FERPA annually.
Handling parent requests for inspection and amendment of records.
Maintaining the school's record of disclosures.

AmplifyED provides the tooling (roles, audit log, dossier export). The judgment calls remain the school's.

FAQ

Do facilitators automatically have a "legitimate educational interest"? The platform scopes facilitators to their assigned caseload. The school decides which staff hold the facilitator role, and that decision is the basis for legitimate educational interest under FERPA.

What if a parent disputes a note? Use Note → ⋯ → Redact (admin only). Redacting clears the body and preserves authorship/timestamp in the audit log. Add a follow-up note documenting the amendment if your process requires it.