Public Progress Trackers and FERPA

FERPA is a federal law that protects K-12 student academic privacy while granting parents the right to access their records. Teachers who are considering using public progress trackers should understand how FERPA governs this classroom feature.

The Modern Classrooms team has reviewed the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) along with our legal counsel. We believe that a public progress tracker which does not display grades is permissible, as it is not an official record maintained by the school and does not display student grades.

With that said, we would advise any teacher who is concerned about FERPA to consider using alternatives (including using emojis rather than student names if using student-facing progress trackers). The practice of public trackers itself has not, to our knowledge, ever been ruled on definitely, so our view is that teachers can use it if they are comfortable with it, but should absolutely consider alternatives where they are not.

We advise teachers who opt to use a public progress tracker to frame it positively with their students, emphasizing that this is a tool to encourage hard work, clarity, and collaboration. We remind teachers that the public progress tracker never displays grades or scores; it communicates progress through a specific unit.

For more guidance on the framing and messaging of public progress trackers in the classroom, see this resource.