Procedure to Inspect Education Records

Parents of students or eligible students may inspect and review the student’s education records relating to their children without unnecessary delay and before any meeting regarding an IEP or hearing involving a student with a disability. Further, parents shall have the right to a response from the school division to reasonable requests for explanations and interpretations of the education record.

Parents or eligible students should submit to the student’s school principal a written request which identifies as precisely as possible the record or records he or she wishes to inspect.

The principal (or appropriate school official) will make the needed arrangements for access as promptly as possible and notify the parent or eligible student of the time and place where the records may be inspected. Access must be given in 14 days or less from the receipt of the request.

When a record contains information about students other than a parent’s child or the eligible student, the parent or eligible student may not inspect and review the portion of the record which pertains to other students.

When disciplinary action is taken by the school division in regard to an incident upon which an adjudication of delinquency or a conviction of acts specified in § 16.1-305.1 of the Code of Virginia, 1950, as amended, the parent or guardian must be notified of the action, the reasons therefore and his/her right to review and to request amendment of the student’s education records. Every notice of adjudication or conviction received by the Superintendent and information in the notice which is not a disciplinary record, shall be maintained by the Superintendent and other school personnel separately from all other records concerning such student unless the division takes disciplinary action based on an incident which was the basis for the adjudication or conviction.