Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

11. Department of Education · Minor

Make FERPA and PPRA complaint handling transparent

Partially done

358 11. Department of Education

“The Department of Education should be transparent about complaints filed on behalf of families regarding the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA).”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    The annual Dear Colleague Letter records what the office has been doing with the complaints it receives — "over the past year, SPPO has investigated districts for issuing sexually explicit surveys even after parents opted their children out", and "in some cases, SPPO has investigated state departments of education for pressuring districts to violate FERPA" — and warns that non-compliance can cost federal funding. Narrative disclosure, not a complaint record.

  2. Partially done

    The Department has become markedly more open about what it does with FERPA and PPRA complaints, without publishing the complaints themselves. Its Student Privacy Policy Office now announces individual investigations, findings and enforcement steps by name — California, Maine, four Kansas districts, Burlington, Kansas City (Kansas) — and it put new FERPA and PPRA e-complaint forms through the Federal Register's public comment process in 2026. What does not exist is any register or statistical release of complaints filed on behalf of families, so this is a piece delivered rather than the whole ask.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Two Unified Agenda entries would rewrite the complaint machinery: RIN 1875-AA15 (FERPA, proposed rule stage, NPRM 09/2026) expressly covers “the complaint and investigation procedures and remedies that apply to the Department’s enforcement of FERPA”, and RIN 1875-AA13 (PPRA, NPRM 08/2026) covers parental notice and opt-out. Neither had published as of 2026-08-28.
  • Related enforcement announcements read for this item: the 2025-03-28 Dear Colleague Letter (#906), the FERPA investigations of the California and Maine departments of education, and the 2026-06-30 ED-DOJ referral of Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools.
Action
other
Object
FERPA and PPRA complaint records
ID
905