FERPA & Student Data Notice
Last updated: May 1, 2025
Important: SmartIEP is a tool used by educators, not an educational institution. You — as the educator — are responsible for ensuring your use of this tool complies with FERPA and your school or district's data privacy policies.
What is FERPA?
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. It applies to educational agencies and institutions that receive federal funding. FERPA gives parents (and eligible students) the right to access, review, and request corrections to education records.
SmartIEP's role
SmartIEP is a software tool — not an educational agency or institution. We do not maintain education records on behalf of schools or districts. We store the student information you enter for the purpose of generating and saving IEP drafts for your use.
Under FERPA, when a school or district uses a third-party service provider to perform functions that would otherwise be performed by school officials, that provider may have access to education records without prior consent under the "school official" exception (34 CFR § 99.31(a)(1)(i)(B)). This typically requires a formal agreement.
Your responsibilities as an educator
- Check whether your school or district has a policy on using third-party tools with student data
- Obtain any necessary approvals before entering identifiable student information into SmartIEP
- Consider whether a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) between your district and SmartIEP is required
- Ensure parents have been appropriately notified of your school's use of technology tools
💡 Best practice recommendation
To minimize privacy risk, consider using student initials rather than full names, and avoid entering more personal information than necessary to generate a useful IEP draft. The AI generates equally useful output with partial information.
How we protect student data
- Student data is never shared with third parties for marketing purposes
- Student data is never used to train AI models
- Each teacher's student records are isolated and inaccessible to other users
- Data is encrypted in transit and at rest
- You can delete any student record at any time from within the app
- You can request deletion of all your data by emailing privacy@smartiep.co
Data Processing Agreements
If your school or district requires a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) or a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) before using SmartIEP, please contact us at hello@smartiep.co. We are happy to work with districts to establish appropriate data governance agreements.