In April 2024, the United States Department of Education quietly resolved a 2013 privacy complaint from Wisconsin. The student involved has long since graduated, and the district has changed superintendents twice. Yet the case has suddenly become central to former President Donald Trump’s education agenda. At its core is a question reshaping debates over parental rights in schools: Should emails between teachers and staff about students be treated as education records that parents can access?
A decades-old law in a digital age
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), passed 50 years ago, gives parents the right to inspect and amend their children’s education records. It was designed for a paper era, with report cards, attendance slips, and files in cabinets. Today, parents argue that staff emails should be treated the same way. School districts, however, lean on court precedents suggesting that digital communications are not official records unless printed and stored centrally. “FERPA was originally intended to target records stored in file folders and cabinets,” said Andrew Manna, an Indiana attorney representing school districts, according to The 74. Searching years of emails, he added, is like “hide and seek.”
Trump officials and the parental rights lens
While the Wisconsin case began with a student with disabilities, Trump officials zeroed in on the broader privacy question. Education Secretary Linda McMahon argued in March that districts have turned “the concept of privacy on its head to facilitate ideological indoctrination … without parental interference or even involvement,” according to The 74. The administration has linked the issue to gender identity, accusing schools of withholding information about students’ transitions. In line with that stance, Lindsay Burke, author of the education section of Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for a second Trump term, was appointed deputy chief of staff for policy and programs in June. She has argued that FERPA should allow parents to sue districts, a right currently limited to filing complaints.
The legal grey zone
Court rulings have long muddied the waters. A 2002 Supreme Court decision suggested that emails are not student records unless physically stored in a file. A 2009 California district court ruling reinforced this, arguing that emails have a “fleeting nature” and only count if maintained in a central system. But the Department of Education has now rejected that interpretation. A Nevada Supreme Court decision in 2023 further signaled a shift, ruling that emails stored in online platforms are still subject to FERPA. “The idea that files continue to be physical paper defies reality,” Jim Wheaton, associate professor at William and Mary Law School, told The 74. He warned that by not counting emails, districts could sidestep important student-related records.
Parents take the fight to court
For many parents, email access has become a battleground. In Virginia, mother of five Tamara Quick spent over $30,000 challenging the Spotsylvania school district after it said it had no “maintained” records of her daughter’s special education plan. She argued that staff emails should have revealed why her child was not being adequately supported. Similarly, in Maine, parent Amber Lavinge sought emails after discovering a school social worker had given her 13-year-old daughter a chest binder. Represented by the libertarian Goldwater Institute, her lawsuit is now before the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. “Any form of communication pertaining to a student should constitute an education record,” attorney Adam Shelton told The 74.
The burden on schools
Districts argue that searching through email archives is both time-intensive and risky. Stephanie Jones, an Illinois attorney representing schools, told The 74 that email searches are “both an art and a science,” noting how common words, like a student named “Fridge”, can generate hundreds of irrelevant results. Schools also worry about reputational fallout. “Sometimes teachers or administrators say very negative things about a child or the parents in the email that they’re not saying publicly,” civil rights attorney Matt Cohen told The 74. That reputational risk is why legal experts often advise educators to apply what Jones calls “the grandma test”: If you don’t want your grandmother reading it, don’t put it in an email.
What’s next?
The Department of Education has promised further guidance on FERPA in the “foreseeable future.” For now, parents continue to press for more transparency, while districts warn of the administrative and legal costs of expanding access.The question is no longer whether schools should share student records with parents, but whether digital communication itself defines what a student record is. In a political climate where parental rights are reshaping classrooms, the answer could fundamentally change how schools, families, and students interact in the United States.TOI Education is on WhatsApp now. Follow us here.
