U.S. Dept of Ed Took 12 Years to Investigate Parent Complaint, Commits to Addressing Owasso and Tulare

The 12-year timeline isn't the only jaw-dropping piece to the findings. USDOE finally committed to addressing Owasso and Tulare (A.K.A. outdated legal interpretations plaguing FERPA enforcement)

Twelve years after receiving a parent’s complaint against Middleton Cross Plains Area School District (MCPASD), SPPO issued its findings—far longer than any reasonable interpretation of “timely resolution” under federal law allows. The April 15, 2025, letter examines whether the district’s delays and denials in response to records requests violated FERPA.

Spoiler alert: SPPO didn’t find MCPASD in noncompliance. However . . . SPPO didn’t find MCPASD in compliance either. Instead, it walked a legal tightrope, and in doing so, showed just how badly we need updated, enforceable guidance.

A Request Met with Denial and Delay

The saga began in April 2013, when a parent requested to access and review her child’s education records—including emails and staff notes. According to SPPO’s Letter of Findings (LOF):

“Parent alleged that the District denied her April 12, 2013, request to view the Student’s education records by requiring her to pay $425 for copies of the 2,800 records maintained by the District and that the District denied her access to certain memorandums citing that such records were sole possession ‘notes’ as defined under FERPA.”

Over the next two years, the parent’s attempts to access her child’s records continued:

• April 4, 2014: Parent submitted a follow-up request.

• October 12, 2014: Parent alleged MCPASD denied her April 2014 request.

• August 31, 2015: Former Secretary Arne Duncan received a letter from the parent.

• October 30, 2015: SPPO opened an investigation.

• December 2, 2015: According to SPPO’s LOF, an attorney for MPCASD submitted a response for MPCASD, "explaining that it provided access in response to a request she made under Wisconsin Public Records Law §§ 19.31 - 19.39."

Insert 16 months of silence here.

• February 13, 2017: SPPO requested MPCASD's records retention and maintenance policies.

• March 2, 2017: MCPASD responded to SPPO’s request.

Insert almost a decade of silence here.

In its 2025 LOF, SPPO apologized, stating:

“Due to the complex factual and legal issues involved in this complaint, the volume of correspondence received by this Office, and our limited resources, we are currently not able to respond to all complaints in as timely a manner as we would like.”

Although polite, it doesn't address its failure to release guidance on the issues brought up by Owasso and Tulare more than a decade ago, when SPPO knew the holdings "may not be fully consistent with the position conveyed in [SPPO's] 2006 [Letter to Husk]" and/or when it knew "educational agencies and institutions across the country ha[d] adopted Tulare." Yet it issued no clarifications.

This is where things get interesting.

Delay, Not Decision

MCPASD relied heavily on Owasso and Tulare to defend its choice to deny access requested by the parent.

Pay close attention here.

SPPO doesn't state explicitly that it did not find MCPASD complied with FERPA. Instead, it said:

“We cannot find that the District violated FERPA as alleged.”

But critically, it added:

"Please note that in reaching this conclusion, the Department is not itself adopting the analysis of the Tulare case, but only finding that the District did not violate FERPA in doing so. Finally, and as we previously noted, we realize that this issue is of importance to parents, students, and school officials, and we hope to issue guidance or regulations in the foreseeable future that will address this matter. Moreover, we note that the Parent did ultimately receive the emails in question through the State’s open records law."

Translation: The district relied on Tulare and Owasso. SPPO doesn’t endorse those cases—but also won’t penalize the district for following them. That’s not clarity. That’s bureaucracy dodging accountability.

Why is this important?

Let’s talk about Owasso and Tulare a bit.

Owasso v. Falvo (A.K.A. An Outdated Case for a Digital Age)

In Owasso (2002), the Supreme Court ruled that peer-graded assignments were not “maintained” under FERPA. The Court likened digital communication—emails in particular—to those student papers, saying:

“Emails, like assignments passed through the hands of students, have a fleeting nature. An email may be sent, received, read, and deleted within moments. As such, Student's assertion – that all emails that identify Student, whether in individual inboxes or the retrievable electronic database, are maintained “in the same way the registrar maintains a student's folder in a permanent file” – is “fanciful.””

But this is a 20-year-old ruling. Today, email is foundational. What Owasso didn’t contemplate is the fact that digital records—particularly emails—are how students, educators, and parents collaborate, document student behavior, and communicate decisions. Personally, I’ve found more about the decisions regarding my own kids through FERPA requests than in meetings with their schools.

S.A. v. Tulare County Office of Education (A.K.A. Another Barrier to Access)

Tulare held that emails not in the student’s official file were not “maintained.” But that case, decided by a single district court, has been treated as national precedent. Worse, it ignores how schools manage records in 2025. Today, almost everything is digital, stored in central systems, and accessible with a few clicks. COVID closures made this impossible to ignore. When’s the last time you saw a student come home with a printed textbook?

This outdated interpretation creates a dangerous loophole. It allows districts to avoid FERPA compliance by simply changing where and how records are stored, rather than what they contain or how they’re used.

The Double Standard: Emails vs. PDFs

Today, nearly all school records—quizzes, test results, behavior reports, communications—exist in digital formats. And most of them are maintained on servers for years. Yet, districts have a different standard for emails.

Districts like Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) in Virginia argue that emails don’t count as education records unless printed and placed in a file—but their policies and manuals readily accept digital PDFs and other digital media as educational records, without the requirement that they be printed out and placed in a paper file, or that they be intentionally placed in a digital file.

FCPS, for example, provided email access to parents as recently as 2015—after MCPSAD was already employing Tulare and Owasso. After finding the two, FCPS latched on and reversed course.

This suggests that the content—not the medium—is the issue.

This selective exclusion of emails undermines the entire premise of FERPA and IDEA procedural safeguards. Parents can’t meaningfully participate in decisions about their child’s education without access to the full context—including what school staff are saying in real time, not just what gets memorialized after the fact.

The logic being used—“emails are fleeting” or “too hard to collect”—is an excuse. It’s not consistent with how districts treat other digital records. It’s not consistent with how records are stored, archived, or used internally.

Young v. UPS: (A.K.A. Finding Connections Outside Education)

The Supreme Court’s decision in Young v. United Parcel Service, 575 U.S. 206 (2015), held that neutral policies can become discriminatory when selectively applied. That applies here.

If PDFs and digital test scores don’t require printing to be considered “maintained,” then singling out emails for extra scrutiny or exclusion creates a burden without justification. It’s format-based discrimination—and it disproportionately harms parents of students with disabilities, who rely on records access to advocate for services and protections.

FERPA makes no distinction between formats or file types. If it’s maintained and directly relates to a student, it’s covered.

A Hint of What’s to Come?

Just weeks before the Middleton LOF, SPPO released a letter—backed by Secretary of Education Linda McMahon—warning that many schools intentionally keep information out of student records to deny parent access.

From McMahon’s letter:

“Parents should not have to navigate a complex process to exercise their rights under FERPA or PPRA. . . . Meanwhile, states have taken advantage of this dereliction of government responsibility and installed policies that specifically instruct teachers and administrators to conceal student’s critical information in student records from their parents.”

From SPPO’s letter:

“It appears many LEAs may have policies and practices that conflict with the inspect and review provisions afforded parents under FERPA. Further, some of these informal and formal practices may be occurring at the direction, or minimally with the tacit approval, of their SEAs. . . . For example, schools often create [plans] for students and assert that these plans are not “education records” under FERPA, and therefore inaccessible to the parent, provided the plan is kept in a separate file and not as part of the student’s “official student record.” While FERPA does not provide an affirmative obligation for school officials to inform parents about any information, even if that information is contained in a student’s education records, FERPA does require that a school provide a parent with an opportunity to inspect and review education records of their child, upon request. Additionally, under the current regulatory framework, FERPA does not distinguish between a student’s “official student record” or “cumulative file.” Rather, all information, with certain statutory exceptions, that is directly related to a student and maintained by an educational agency or institution, is part of the student’s “education records” to which parents have a right to inspect and review.”

If SPPO is serious about stopping concealment, it must stop allowing selective enforcement. That includes holding districts accountable for excluding emails.

Final Thoughts

The parent who filed the complaint isn’t the only one to complain about the issues she raised, so why did SPPO pick this 12-year-old complaint to issue findings? Why not any of the others? Possibly because the student has aged out and a finding won’t impact services. That makes it a low-risk opportunity to acknowledge the need for reform.

But this decision—and SPPO’s acknowledgement that Tulare and Owasso are problematic—could mark a turning point. If SPPO follows through, it can close a loophole districts have used for more than a decade to hide critical information from families.

I can hear the counterarguments from districts already:

• Emails are too burdensome to review.

  • Then so are PDFs, digital assessments, and Google Docs, yet those seem to be ok. Burden is not an exemption under FERPA.

• FERPA only applies to records in the “official file.”

  • False. FERPA makes no distinction between formats or file types. If it’s maintained and directly relates to a student, it’s covered. This is one of the main issues at hand.

• SPPO didn’t find a violation, so the district must be in the clear.

  • Wrong. SPPO explicitly stated it is not adopting Tulare’s reasoning. The outcome was procedural. It was not exoneration.

Twelve years is a long time to wait. Here’s to hoping SPPO’s decision on Owasso and Tulare will be provided within less than a decade.