Ding Ding Ding

My son has been having behavior problems that have gotten worse over this past school year. With 7 changes to his IEP & BIP, they are now pressuring me to transfer into a different school district. When the principal & AEA team, as well as the teacher toured the school, they provided a copy of my son’s IEP & bip to the other school without my permission. Is this violation of HIPPA?

Your situation will probably fall more under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) specifically.

"Generally, schools must have written permission from the parent or eligible student in order to release any information from a student’s education record. However, FERPA allows schools to disclose those records, without consent, to the following parties or under the following conditions (34 CFR § 99.31):
◦School officials with legitimate educational interest;
◦ Other schools to which a student is transferring;
◦ Specified officials for audit or evaluation purposes;
◦ Appropriate parties in connection with financial aid to a student;
◦ Organizations conducting certain studies for or on behalf of the school;
◦ Accrediting organizations;
◦ To comply with a judicial order or lawfully issued subpoena;
◦ Appropriate officials in cases of health and safety emergencies; and
◦ State and local authorities, within a juvenile justice system, pursuant to specific State law."
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html

That first bullet point is very vague and really can be interpreted loosly ….."School officials with legitimate educational interest", which is probably how they get away with releasing this information. For what it is worth, personally, I think they should have received consent personally from you before sending the information. After all it is your son’s personal information. Even if they "can"…..they still should at least have some courtesy in my opinion!