Does FERPA permit the sharing of education records with outside law enforcement officials, mental health officials, and other experts in the community who serve on a school’s threat assessment team?

Yes.  Under FERPA, a school or school district may disclose personally identifiable information (PII) from education records without consent to threat assessment team members who are not employees of the school or school district if they qualify as “school officials” with “legitimate educational interests.”

In establishing a threat assessment team, the school must follow the FERPA provisions in § 99.31(a)(1)(i)(B) concerning outsourcing this function if team members will be privy to PII from students’ education records.  While not a requirement of FERPA, one way to ensure that members of the team do not redisclose PII obtained from education records would be to have a written agreement with each of the team members specifying their requirements and responsibilities. 

Schools are reminded that members of the threat assessment team may only use PII from education records for the purposes for which the disclosure was made, i.e., to conduct threat assessments, and must be subject to FERPA’s redisclosure requirements in § 99.33(a).  For example, a representative from the city police who serves on a school’s threat assessment team generally could not give the police department any PII from a student’s education records to which he or she was privy as a member of the team.  However, if the threat assessment team determines that a health or safety emergency exists, then the police officer may disclose, on behalf of the school, PII from a student’s education records to appropriate officials under the health or safety emergency exception under §§ 99.31(a)(10) and 99.36, as discussed below.