<p>I recently discovered that my school's residence hall program releases midterm and term GPAs to the Resident Assistants in the dorms. Now, we have a very strong residence life program and there is a strong effort placed on helping everyone and making sure everyone is getting the help they need, but I can't help but feel this is an unauthorized invasion of privacy. </p>
<p>I did a little looking through our academic policies and noted that the school technically won't release our grades without our consent, but I don't know if I ever mindlessly signed a paper that authorized that release. </p>
<p>Do you think I should go talk to our coordinator or anyone about this? I feel extremely uncomfortable knowing that a select group of people, most of whom I don't know, have access to my grades.</p>
<p>This is what FERPA (the federal law on student record confidentiality) says.</p>
<p>"Generally, schools must have written permission from the parent or eligible student [eligible student = 18+] 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:
[ul]
[<em>]School officials with legitimate educational interest;
[</em>]Other schools to which a student is transferring;
[<em>]Specified officials for audit or evaluation purposes;
[</em>]Appropriate parties in connection with financial aid to a student;
[<em>]Organizations conducting certain studies for or on behalf of the school;
[</em>]Accrediting organizations;
[<em>]To comply with a judicial order or lawfully issued subpoena;
[</em>]Appropriate officials in cases of health and safety emergencies; and
[li]State and local authorities, within a juvenile justice system, pursuant to specific State law."[/li][/ul]
I’m not sure that RAs count as school officials. Even though they are appointed by the school, they are still students. And even if they do qualify, it’s highly doubtful they could be considered to have an educational interest. So unless you did sign some kind of consent, they are definitely in violation. You should speak to a school official about this issue.</p>
<p>Make sure you have a basic understanding of FERPA. You’re now an adult with rights, and you need to know what those rights are.</p>
<p>You may have signed something at some point which allows for this. It’s really easy be overwhelmed with everything when starting college, so you might have agreed in a blanket-style statement. I think this is worth a call to the school. RA’s are students too, so they really have no business seeing your grades unless you specifically want them too.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s something the RAs really need, and as a former RA (and someone who will be managing RAs this year as a grad student) I can’t imagine why they’d need to know. You don’t need to know which students are struggling to do a program around academic success.</p>
<p>I would talk to your RA first and bring up your concern. They can bring it to their supervisor or the correct officials without it seeming like you’re just trying to cause trouble or stir the pot (not that I think you are). If your RA doesn’t do anything, then I would look higher up.</p>
<p>it depends. as an RA for 2 years I never got them. however, sometimes we would be told someone is having academic trouble without a wholel ot of specifics so we could talk to a person. part of our job was to try to help them strive in all areas of live. with that being said, it didnt bother me knowing until i needed to or they told me</p>