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Stafford staff asks VSBA to seek longer response window for education records after FOIA advisory change
Summary
Staff proposed asking the Virginia School Boards Association to support amending state law so school divisions may treat education/scholastic records requests under a 45‑day FERPA window rather than the five‑business‑day FOIA timeline, citing large volumes of emails, redaction burdens and recent FOIA Advisory Council guidance.
Staff presented a proposed new legislative position for the Virginia School Boards Association that would ask the state to allow school divisions additional time to produce education or scholastic records in response to public records requests.
“What we're proposing here for consideration is for the VSBA to support amending the Virginia code that specifies how we would execute those requests — provision to permit school divisions to provide those education records… within 45 days, rather than the 5 days that is permitted under FOIA,” said a staff presenter (staff member).
Staff said the change is driven by operational constraints: many parent requests that touch education records include thousands of pages of emails and other communications that require staff time to review, determine relevance and redact other students’ names. Staff noted FERPA already allows parents 45 days to review records when the request is processed under FERPA, but a recent FOIA Advisory Council opinion has led some parent requests — including broad, AI/ChatGPT‑assisted requests — to be treated as FOIA requests subject to a five‑business‑day timeline.
Board members raised multiple concerns. Dr. Chase questioned whether the change could slow routine, time‑sensitive needs such as transcript requests for transferring students; another member asked whether the proposed language could be clarified so ordinary transcript or time‑sensitive requests are not delayed. Staff responded that many transcripts are handled directly by schools in short order, and the proposed change is intended for large, document‑heavy FOIA requests that include education records and large email chains. Staff suggested clarifying the rationale in the proposal and that the division could ask requesters for specificity in order to narrow requests.
Members also asked whether other divisions are handling these requests differently. Staff said the FOIA advisory guidance was issued recently and that the division is seeing more ‘broad’ requests that, when processed as FOIA, impose significant short‑turnaround burdens on staff. Staff noted the division can seek clarifying information from requesters and, if the item were adopted by VSBA, legislative committee review would follow.
No formal action was taken; staff said the item will be discussed by the division’s legislative committee and returned for further consideration at a May 26 work session.
Provenance: first discussed in the board’s VSBA legislative positions item (topic introduction SEG 010); discussion concluded with next‑step direction (topic finish SEG 319).
