Guidelines for Student Records: An Approach to the Problem of Privacy.

This presentation discusses information that resulted from a conference on school record keeping. Several of the principles recommended by the conference report are: (1) no information should be collected about students without the informed consent of parents and, in some cases, the student; (2) only the highly stable information collected should appear on the permanent record card; (3) schools should establish procedures to verify the accuracy of all data maintained in their student records; (4) parents should have full access to and the right to challenge the accuracy of data on their children; and (5) no agency or persons other than the parent or school personnel who deal directly with the student concerned should have access to student data without parental or pupil permission, except in the case of a subpoena. This paper discusses some of the reasons why these principles were thought necessary, with one general reason being that counselors wanted and needed both a codification of the knowledge base of their profession and an aid to ethical practice. (TA)