The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requires that the St. James R-1 School District obtain your written consent prior to the disclosure of personally identifiable information from your child’s education records, with some exceptions.  However, the district may disclose appropriately designated “directory information” without written consent, unless you have notified the district in writing of your objection.   “Directory information: is information that the district has determined is generally not considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if it is released.

The primary purpose of directory information is to allow the district to include information from your child’s education records in district publications, including but not limited to,  a student’s name, jersey number, height and/or weight printed in a school athletic program; or a student’s name and photo included on district social media pages or in the school yearbook.

Directory information may also be disclosed to outside organizations without a parent’s prior written consent.  Some examples include the district providing a list of honor roll students to the local newspaper or the district providing student information to companies that manufacture class rings or publish yearbooks.

In addition, two additional federal laws require the school district to provide military recruiters, upon request, with the following information – names, addresses and telephone listings – unless parents have advised the district that they do not want their student’s information disclosed without their prior written consent.

If you do not want the district to disclose contact information to military recruiters or Directory Information from your child’s education records without your prior written consent, you must complete a written statement notifying the district that you do not want the information released and submit it to the building principal.   The statement must be dated and signed.  Please provide this notice in writing with three (3) days after enrollment.  Please note that if you opt your student out of Directory Information, your student’s picture will not be included in the district’s yearbook or other publications and your student’s name will not appear in district programs or the honor roll. 

General Directory Information: The following information about a personally identifiable student may be disclosed to the school community or to any person without first obtaining written consent from a parent or eligible student:

Student’s name; date and place of birth; parents’ names; grade level; enrollment status (e.g., full-time or part-time); student identification number; user identification or other unique personal identifier used by the student for the purposes of accessing or communicating in electronic systems as long as that information alone cannot be used to access protected educational records; participation in district-sponsored or district-recognized activities and sports; weight and height of members of athletic teams; athletic performance data; dates of attendance; degrees, honors and awards received; artwork or course work displayed by the district; schools or school districts previously attended; and photographs, videotapes, digital images and recorded sound unless such records would be considered harmful or an invasion of privacy.

Limited Directory Information:   In addition to general directory information, the following information about a personally identifiable student may be disclosed to: parent groups or booster clubs that are recognized by the Board and are created solely to work with the district, its staff, students and parents and to raise funds for district activities; parents of other students enrolled in the same school as the student whose information is released; students enrolled in the same school as the student whose information is released; governmental entities including, but not limited to, law enforcement, the juvenile office and the Children’s Division (CD) of the Department of Social Services:

The student’s address, telephone number and e-mail address and the parents’ addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses.