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Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
FERPA protects your student’s personally identifiable information, such as education records, from being disclosed without your consent.

The law allows Renton Schools to disclose “directory information” (listed below) without consent. We do not release mailing or other lists of contact information for commercial purposes. In addition, for students in grades 9-12, a separate “opt out of release of directory information” only for requests from United States military recruiters is provided by law, as explained on the Directory Information for Military Recruiters page.

What is Student Directory Information?

  • Student name, and telephone numbers (unless identified as unknown);
  • Any photographs/video of your student;
  • Participation in officially recognized activities and sports;
  • Weight, height, grade level of athletic team members;
  • Dates of attendance; 
  • Degrees, honors, and awards received; and
  • The most recent previous school attended

Where do we use this Directory Information?

Examples include:

  • Yearbooks;
  • District social media posts;
  • District websites;
  • Videos, including release of District-created videos to local media;
  • Sport teams news reports and other coverage, including rosters

What if I don’t want this information released?

All families are asked to confirm their student's enrollment information including photo release information as we start the new school year using their Skyward Family Access account.

Note: Renton School District’s practice regarding student photos follows the U.S. Department of Education’s guidelines under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a U.S. federal law that protects the privacy of student education records.  A photo or video should not be considered directly related to a student if the student’s image is incidental or captured only as part of the background (i.e., the student is facing away from camera or in a crowd), or if a student is shown participating in school activities that are open to the public and without a specific focus on any individual.