VCU College of Health Professions

This ACPE CPE center/program guarantees to its students the rights to inspect and review education records, to seek to amend them, to specified control over release of record information, and to file a complaint against the program for alleged violations of these Family Education and Privacy Act (FERPA) rights. See also VCU academic FERPA information, https://rar.vcu.edu/records/family-educational-rights-and-privacy-act

Directory Information. Directory information is intended for public distribution. Directory information includes name, address, email, telephone number(s), and dates of attendance in the CPE program, enrollment status, CPE program matriculation, photo, activity participation, and religion. [See restrictions below imposed by Code of Virginia § 23.1-405(C)]. Current students can restrict the distribution of directory information at any time during attendance by providing written notice to the ACPE Certified Educator and the Director of Education either through their VCU email account or via a written, signed document. Restrictions will be honored after the student's departure. Former students cannot initiate new restrictions after departureⁱⁱ. 

▪ Code of Virginia § 23.1-405(C) [formerly known as HB-1 or House Bill 1]. In the Commonwealth of Virginia Directory Information is governed both by the Code of Virginia § 23.1-405(C) as well as by FERPA. 

▪ The code forbids the sharing of student’s university assigned email address, personal email address, phone number(s), or other addresses with any individual who is not a university employee or other school official under the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) unless the individual student has provided affirmative written consent for the disclosure. Sharing information with people off-campus is not allowed. This law only permits disclosure of a student's VCU email address, physical address, or telephone number to other members of the University community for educational purposes or University business and operations or their clinical placement in VCU Health or another approved site. This prohibition applies to everyone in the University community: students, faculty, and staff. 

▪ CPE Residents are employees of the VCU Health System, and their contact information is not protected by FERPA or restricted by Code of Virginia § 23.1- 405(C) except that VCU may not provide their information in response to a request under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) without consent. 

▪ Faculty continue to have access to contact information for all students in their courses. They may share student email addresses, physical addresses and phone numbers with other students for educational purposes unless the student has opted out by requesting confidentiality (see above for how to opt out). If a student who has requested "Confidentiality" provides written consent, faculty will be able to share that student’s email addresses, physical addresses and phone numbers with other students for educational purposes. 

▪ Faculty and staff will be able to share this information with other faculty or staff members for University-related purposes. 

▪ Group email to multiple students are allowed for educational purposes or for University operations and business, as long as no student intended to be included on the group email has requested "Confidentiality." To avoid having to determine whether students have requested "Confidentiality," faculty, staff and students are advised that it is a best practice to add the students' email addresses in the blind copy (bcc) field, or email the students through a listserv such as Blackboard. 

Since 2013ⁱⁱⁱ, the Official Student Record consists of the following: 

   ▪ The ACPE Application of students admitted and matriculated, 

   ▪ The end-of-the unit self-evaluation(s) written by the student, if submitted, 

   ▪ The Certified Educator’s end-of-unit evaluation(s) of the student, and 

   ▪ Any addendum/addenda to the educator’s end of unit evaluation(s) provided by the student. 

   ▪ Since 2019, the Official Student Record also includes the Use of Clinical Materials Consent Form and the signed Agreement for Training form. 

The CPE Certified Educator may keep process notes on a student. These process notes are for the exclusive use of the writer and are not considered a part of the student’s record. They are kept separately from the student record, and are not available for inspection. Certain exceptions concerning the release of information exist to protect the health or safety of students or others, and for the purpose of accreditation or complaint review, or as required for legal processes. The ACPE Executive Director or the ACPE Accreditation Manager is consulted before releasing material in any of these circumstances. Beginning in 2018, the program migrated from a paper student document to an electronic filing system (See also the Student Records Policy below in this section of the Student Handbook.) IV. Right to Object: A student has the right to object to record content. If not negotiable, the written objection will be kept with and released with the record. Grades are exempted from this right. Specifically, if the record content is not amended to the satisfaction of the student, the student may submit a written objection, which will be kept with and released with the student record. (See also the complete VCU/VCU Health CPE Student Records Policy.)

Within the center, these people may have access to student records without student consent. 

▪ Educational Officials and Legitimate Educational Interests. The prior written consent of an applicant, student or former student for access to all or part of a student record is not required for educational officials of this CPE Program with a legitimate educational interest. 

o Legitimate Education Interests: The following list constitutes legitimate education interests: administrative activities assigned to the program secretary for the maintenance of student records in accordance with the CPE Policy for Maintenance of Student records, review of contents of student records related to program administration by persons authorized by ACPE, review of records for ACPE accreditation process, and review of student records by this CPE Program for the purposes of the supervision of Certified Education students and peer/consultation review. Access to these records by the above referenced officials does not require student consent when there is a legitimate interest. o Educational officials of this CPE Center are those individuals designated by the Director of Education or Department Chair to perform such tasks as application screening, admission interviewing, educational consultations, and administrative (secretarial) functions. Educational officials, other than the ACPE Certified Educators and the educational program administrator, do not ordinarily have access to the student’s end-of-unit self-evaluation or to the Certified Educator’s end-of-unit evaluation (including any addendum written by the student). The Department Chair, Director of Education (both ACPE Certified Educators) and designee(s), including the CPE administrator, will have access to all student records in the VCU/VCU Health CPE programs.

o Third Party Contractor. Departments may disclose student information to a third party contractor as a "school official" if the University has

   1) a contract with the contractor

   2) has delegated a University function to the contractor, and

   3) then maintains control over the contractor's use and disclosure of the information. VCU employees using third-party resources should confirm that the University has a relationship with the contractor that satisfies FERPA's "school official" exception or seek student consent. Example: CPE students in clinical placements such as VCU Health or other placement sites for which an education agreement is in place would qualify for the sharing of student information. But contractors may not then share the information to outside parties.

ACPE
One West Court Square, Suite 325, Decatur, GA 30030.
Telephone: (404) 320-1472.
FAX: (404) 320-0849.
Email: acpe@acpe.edu. 
Program Manager: Marc Medwed.
URL: www.acpe.edu 

See also the Student Records Policy, which is attached to the Annual Notice that is sent to students with their acceptance letter, and which, for matriculated students, is also found in the CPE Student Handbook. 

i ACPE requires that items in bold must appear in the Annual Notice. 

ii Each student is required to enroll in each CPE unit that they take at this Center through the ACPE. In those instances, the student will have provided ACPE with the demographic information required. For further information, see the following:

ACPE FAQ

iii The content of the Student Record prior to 2013 can be found in the Student Record policies of prior years.