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Maintenance of Special Education Records

Section B – Maintenance of Special Education Records

Location of Special Education Records

Special education records are considered education records under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (34 C.F.R. § 99.3). FERPA requires that education records remain confidential and that access be limited to education officials and teachers employed by the local educational agency (LEA) who have a legitimate educational interest.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) also limits access to special education records to educational officials responsible for meeting the requirements of special education law. IDEA further requires LEAs to:

  • Maintain a record of everyone who accesses special education records (34 C.F.R. § 300.614).
  • Provide parents, upon request, with a list of the types and locations of education records (34 C.F.R. § 300.616).

Desert/Mountain SELPA Policy

Desert/Mountain SELPA is committed to protecting the confidentiality of personally identifiable information collected or maintained for students with disabilities while ensuring appropriate access for educational professionals who require the information to provide services.

Storage of Special Education Records

Many LEAs choose to maintain special education records in a centralized location due to the unique confidentiality requirements associated with special education records. However, LEAs may also maintain these records separately from a student’s cumulative file.

Title 5, California Code of Regulations, § 433(b):
“Records for each individual pupil shall be maintained in a central file at the school attended by the pupil, or when records are maintained in different locations, a notation in the central file as to where such other records may be found is required.”

If special education records are maintained separately from the cumulative file, the cumulative record must include a notice indicating that additional special education records are maintained elsewhere.

1995 U.S. Department of Education Letter to Copenhaver:
“FERPA does not generally address what education records a school may or may not maintain or where the school maintains such records. Thus, under FERPA a school would not be prohibited from placing a notice in the student’s cumulative records which states that the student receives special education services and that another file exists in another office.”

Student Records Retention

Most California special education records are classified as Class 2 documents, also known as Mandatory Interim Pupil Records.

These records must be maintained until:

  • The student leaves the LEA, or
  • Their educational usefulness has ended.

Once no longer needed, the records may be reclassified as Class 3 records.

Although Class 3 records may generally be destroyed after the third school year following the end of their usefulness, SBCSS Policy and the Participation Agreement of the Local Plan require special education records to be retained for five years after they are no longer educationally useful.

Examples of records that may require retention include:

  • Special education forms
  • Access logs
  • Health records
  • Test protocols
  • Assessment reports
  • Case studies
  • Authorizations
  • Property, personnel, and financial records related to special education

Standardized Test Records

Under California Code of Regulations § 16027, standardized test results that are more than three years old are considered Class 3 records and may be destroyed during the third school year after the year in which they were created.

If test protocols are referenced in an assessment report, they become official school records and are governed by the California Education Code, regardless of whether they are stored in LEA files or maintained by an LEA psychologist.

Destruction of Student Records

Under IDEA 2004, LEAs must notify parents when personally identifiable information is no longer needed to provide educational services.

The notification should include:

  • The records that are no longer needed
  • The timeline for destruction
  • Information about the parent’s opportunity to retrieve the records before destruction

This process helps ensure that unnecessary information about a student’s behavior, performance, or abilities is not retained longer than necessary.

Permanent Records

The following information may be maintained indefinitely:

  • Student name
  • Address
  • Telephone number
  • Grades
  • Attendance records
  • Classes attended
  • Grade level completed
  • Year completed

A destruction notice should generally be provided five years after records are no longer educationally useful.

Purging IQ Information from Student Records

Following Judge Peckham’s 1986 Larry P. decision, IQ testing may not be used for African-American students in California for purposes related to special education.

As directed by the California Department of Education (Campbell, 1987):

Before an African-American student receiving special education services is re-evaluated or transfers to another district, all IQ scores and references to IQ testing must be permanently sealed.

These records may only be opened for:

  • Litigation
  • Official state or federal audits
  • Parent request

Parents must receive copies of sealed records upon request. The sealed records must be retained for five years.

Parents must also be notified before records are sealed. Before sealing records, a qualified professional must identify information that can be retained after removing:

  • IQ scores
  • References to IQ tests
  • Related IQ testing information

The remaining information may then be transferred to the student’s current educational record.

IQ test information must never be made available to the IEP team for educational decision-making.

Purging IQ Information Received from Other Agencies

Because California’s prohibition applies only within California, records received from out-of-state agencies or other organizations may contain prohibited IQ information.

Desert/Mountain SELPA recommends the following process.

Recommended Procedure

  1. Review the student’s file to identify prohibited IQ information, including test protocols and assessment reports.
  2. Create a copy of the assessment report and remove:
    • References to cognitive assessment instruments that produce IQ or cognitive standard scores.
    • Test summary scores.
    • Narrative discussion describing the student’s performance on IQ tests.
  3. Place the cleaned, purged report into the student’s educational record and destroy the working copy used during the editing process.
  4. Notify the parent or guardian that the original report and any related protocols will be sealed.
  5. Place the original records and a copy of the parent notification into a sealed envelope labeled with:
    • Student name
    • Destruction date, five years from the purge date
    • Instructions stating the records may only be opened for litigation, official state or federal audits, or parent or guardian request
  6. Add the student’s name to the LEA’s master list of records purged under the Larry P. ruling.