The DOE Office of Curriculum and Instructional Design created a Guidance Document for School-Sponsored Student Media.
The Hawaii Scholastic Journalism Association and the Student Press Law Center approve of this document. The bulk of the document provides guidance for complying with the Hawaii Student Journalism Protection Act and BOE Policy 101-9 and putting into practice what was shared in a series of informational webinars created via a partnership between the Hawai‘i State Department of Education and the Student Press Law Center in School Year 2024-25.
The last part of the document, however, addresses one part of HR105. This resolution was adopted in April 2025, meaning the House agrees that student journalists are not bound by FERPA and recommends the DOE modify the Student Publication Release form by Dec. 31, 2025, to reflect that.
The DOE guidance document ends with “The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that affords parents the right to have access to their children’s education records, the right to seek to have the records amended, and the right to have some control over the disclosure of personally identifiable information from the education records. “Education records” are records that are directly related to a student and that are maintained by an educational agency or institution or a party acting for or on behalf of the agency or institution. Articles authored by student journalists for publication in school-sponsored media are not education records. As such, they are not subject to FERPA.”
This addresses the first half of our goal with HR105. The Office of Strategy, Innovation and Performance maintains the student publication release forms. Their student privacy lead, Jessica Honbo, is working with the OCID team regarding review and updates to the forms. Assistant Superintendent Elizabeth Higashi said that when they have an update ready to be shared or if assistance is needed they will reach out to us.
