Family Education Rights & Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA)
Laredo College is committed to protecting the privacy of traditional and online students by adhering to a Board approved Student Records Policy. The College President or designee shall develop and maintain a comprehensive system of student records and reports dealing with all facets of the College District program operation and shall ensure through reasonable procedures that records are accessed by authorized persons only, as allowed by this policy. The data and records shall be stored in a safe and secure manner and shall be conveniently retrievable for utilization by authorized school officials. Laredo College shall make a student's records available to the student. The records custodian or designee shall use reasonable procedures to verify the requestor's identity before disclosing student records containing personal identifiable information. Online students can review their records in person during regular business hours without charge upon written request to the records custodian. For in-person viewing, the records custodian or designee shall be available to explain the record and to answer questions. The confidential nature of the student's records shall be maintained at all times. As part of this confidentiality, LC complies with the provisions of protecting the privacy of educational records, establishes the right of a student to inspect and review his/her educational record, and provides guidelines for the correction of inaccurate or misleading data. LC complies with the provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) and informs students of their rights by publishing the general policy in the
LC College Catalog, the eLearning & Instructional Innovation Center Student Handbook, and the
FERPA General Guidance for Students all these documents are available on the eLearning Center webpage under the Student Resources link. Students enrolled in online courses are required to communicate with instructors via email using the LC student PASPort Portal and the messaging system within the LMS which ensures privacy associated with the unique login and password assigned to the student. In order to keep student's grades confidential, online faculty utilize the Canvas Gradebook without the need for emailing student's progress reports to external email services. Furthermore, eLearning Center staff informs students during "live" LMS orientations to accept responsibility for the security of their personal username and password, likewise not to share login credentials with anyone, and to always terminate their personal PASPort sessions after each use.