This is one of those topics where the general impression — “grades are private, full stop” — is roughly right but wrong in the specifics that actually come up in a classroom. Below is what the rules say, with sources.
Updated August 2026. General information, not legal advice — your school’s policy and your state’s laws may add protections.
What FERPA actually covers
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act governs education records at schools that receive funding through applicable US Department of Education programs — which is most public schools and many private ones, though a private school taking no such funding may fall outside it.
Protected records include grades, transcripts, disciplinary records, attendance and other personally identifiable information held by the school. Rights belong to parents while the student is a minor and transfer to the student at 18 or on entering a postsecondary institution.
Two limits worth holding onto. FERPA is about records the school maintains, not every mention of a grade. And it is a condition attached to federal funding, not a criminal statute — which shapes everything about how it is enforced.
Can a teacher call out grades in class or have students swap papers?
This is the question the law is clearest on, and the answer is not the one most people expect.
In Owasso Independent School District v. Falvo (2002), the US Supreme Court held that peer grading does not violate FERPA. The reasoning turned on the word “maintain”: student-graded papers are not education records until the teacher records the grade in the grade book. Papers briefly handled by classmates are not being maintained in institutional files, and students marking each other’s work are not acting as agents of the school in the relevant sense.
Who can see a student’s grades without consent
The most common misconception is that every disclosure needs a signature. It does not. FERPA permits disclosure without consent to school officials with a legitimate educational interest — the regulation covers disclosure “to other school officials, including teachers, within the agency or institution whom the agency or institution has determined to have legitimate educational interests.”
The school must use reasonable methods to ensure officials only reach records they actually have an interest in, and must publish how it defines both terms in its annual FERPA notice. So a colleague teaching your child next year, a counsellor, or an administrator reviewing placement generally does not need parental permission — but idle curiosity is not a legitimate educational interest.
| Who | Consent needed? |
|---|---|
| School officials with a legitimate educational interest | No |
| Other parents, the public, an employer | Yes |
| Posting identifiable grades publicly or on social media | Yes |
| Health or safety emergency | A recognised exception |
| Peer grading in class | Not a FERPA matter (Owasso) |
Posting grades publicly or on social media
Publishing an identifiable student’s grades — a named list on a noticeboard, a photo of a graded paper on social media, a class ranking with names — is the clearest case of a disclosure requiring consent. Good intentions do not change that; a teacher proudly posting a student’s excellent result is still disclosing an education record.
Schools handle this with anonymised identifiers, private portals and consent forms. Note that a general media-release form covering photographs is not the same as consent to publish academic records — many parents have signed the first and would be surprised by the second.
Directory information — the exception parents miss
Schools may designate certain categories as “directory information” and disclose them without consent, provided they give annual notice of what they have designated and a reasonable opportunity to opt out. This is what makes yearbooks, sports programmes, honour rolls and school newsletters possible.
Designations vary by district, but they typically cover things like a student’s name, dates of attendance, participation in activities, and honours or awards received. Academic grades are not treated as directory information — the exception is about identifying a student’s presence and participation, not disclosing their academic performance.
Two practical consequences. First, an honour roll published in a newsletter can sit inside the directory-information exception, which is why a school may publish that while refusing to confirm a specific grade. Second, if you opted your child out of directory information, you may have inadvertently removed them from the yearbook and team lists too — the opt-out is usually all-or-nothing per category, and it is worth reading which categories your school lists rather than ticking a single box.
Common classroom situations
| Situation | Where it usually stands |
|---|---|
| Students swap and mark each other’s quizzes | Not a FERPA violation under Owasso; district policy may still restrict it. |
| Named ranking posted on the classroom wall | A disclosure of recorded grades to anyone passing — the clearest problem case. |
| Anonymous score distribution shown to the class | No identifiable student, so generally not an issue. |
| Handing back papers face-down or in a folder | The standard cautious practice. |
| Honour roll in the school newsletter | Often permitted as directory information, subject to the opt-out. |
| Discussing a student’s results with another parent | A disclosure to a third party requiring consent. |
How FERPA is actually enforced
This is where the internet most often gets it wrong, including in the earlier version of this page. FERPA does not work by making an individual teacher personally liable in court.
Complaints go to the US Department of Education, in writing, and within 180 days of the alleged violation. The Department investigates, notifies the school of its findings, and where it finds non-compliance sets out the specific steps the institution must take and a reasonable period to take them.
If a school will not comply voluntarily, the remedies run against the institution: withholding further federal funding, a cease-and-desist order, or terminating the school’s eligibility for funding.
What that means practically: a teacher who mishandles grades faces employment consequences from their district, and the school faces the federal exposure. The remedy is not a personal lawsuit by the family under FERPA. Separate state privacy laws or other legal theories can apply — which is exactly why the useful move is to raise it with the school first rather than to reason from a general impression of the law.
If you think a student’s privacy was breached
- Write down what happened — the date, what was disclosed, to whom, and whether the student was identifiable.
- Check the school’s annual FERPA notice. It defines who counts as a school official there and what it treats as directory information.
- Raise it with the school first — usually the principal or the district’s records officer. Most incidents are resolved here.
- Mind the 180-day window if you intend to complain to the Department of Education.
- Ask about the record itself. FERPA also gives you the right to inspect education records and to request correction of information you believe is inaccurate.
Why some schools display grades anyway
Publicly posting results is still common in much of the world, since FERPA is a US statute and other countries vary widely in what they protect. The usual arguments:
Competition and motivation
Visible rankings are meant to spur effort by showing students where they stand. The evidence is mixed — it tends to motivate students already near the top and demoralise those near the bottom, which is the group most in need of motivating.
Transparency about standards
Seeing the spread helps students calibrate what a strong answer looks like. This benefit is achievable without names attached, which is why anonymised distributions are the common compromise.
Why displaying grades causes problems
It exposes students to bullying
Published rankings identify targets at both ends — high achievers pressured to share work, struggling students mocked for their results.
It can suppress performance
Where achievement carries social cost, some students deliberately underperform to avoid the attention. A system meant to drive effort ends up penalising it.
It reveals more than a grade
A low mark can reflect a learning difficulty, a chaotic home situation or an illness. Displaying the result publicly discloses a fragment of something private, without context.
What this means for teachers
If you teach, the practical takeaway is narrower than the anxiety around FERPA suggests. Almost everything routine is fine: discussing a student with a colleague who teaches them, passing records to the counsellor, returning work face-down, showing the class an anonymised distribution, or letting students mark each other’s quizzes.
The things worth being careful about are few and specific. Publishing anything that identifies a student alongside their performance — a named ranking, a photo of a graded paper, a social post celebrating a result — needs consent. So does discussing one student’s results with another student’s parent, which is the disclosure most likely to happen by accident in a hallway conversation.
When you are unsure, the question that resolves most cases is simply: could someone reading or overhearing this identify the student and learn how they performed? If yes, treat it as a disclosure and check before proceeding. And check your own district’s policy rather than FERPA alone, because a district is free to set a stricter rule than the federal floor — and it is the district, not the Department of Education, that will be having the conversation with you.
Frequently asked questions
Are teachers allowed to show grades to other students?
Disclosing an identifiable student’s recorded grades to classmates generally requires consent. But the Supreme Court held in Owasso v. Falvo that peer grading itself does not violate FERPA, because papers are not education records until the teacher records the grade.
Can a teacher say your grade out loud?
FERPA does not clearly prohibit it, given the Owasso reasoning about records the school maintains. Many districts nonetheless discourage or forbid it under their own policies, which they are free to make stricter.
Is it illegal to post student grades on social media?
Publishing identifiable grades without consent breaches FERPA obligations, but “illegal” is the wrong frame — FERPA is a funding condition, not a criminal law. The consequences fall on the school federally and on the teacher through their employer.
Can other teachers see my child’s grades?
Yes, where they are school officials with a legitimate educational interest, and no parental consent is required for that. The school must publish how it defines those terms.
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Josh Hutcheson — Editor, PriorityLearn
Josh researches, writes, and updates the answers on PriorityLearn, checking each one against current tools, official sources, and real school policies — and flagging what varies by state or district. About PriorityLearn →