FERPA Notice
Effective May 6, 2026.
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA, 20 U.S.C. § 1232g) protects the privacy of student education records. ServePanda is built to operate within that framework. This page summarizes our commitments.
School-official designation
When your school enables ServePanda, we operate as a "school official" under FERPA's school-official exception (34 CFR § 99.31(a)(1)). That means:
- We perform a service the school would otherwise use its own staff to perform.
- We act under the direct control of the school with respect to the use and maintenance of education records.
- We use student records only for the purpose for which the school engages us — tracking graduation requirements.
What we don't do
- We don't share student records with third parties.
- We don't disclose records to law enforcement or government bodies absent a valid subpoena or court order — and we will notify the school promptly if such a request arrives, where the law allows.
- We don't use student records for marketing, advertising, or model training.
Data minimization
We ask for the minimum data needed to track graduation requirements: student ID, name, graduation year, advisor, enrollment date, and log entries (date, amount, description, verifier). We don't collect grades, demographics, disciplinary records, health information, or family contact details. We recommend your school upload only the columns we need and omit any others.
Parent and student rights
FERPA gives parents (and students 18+) the right to inspect, request correction of, and consent to disclosure of education records. Those requests should go to your school directly, not to us — the school is the records custodian. We will support the school promptly in fulfilling such requests.
Breach notification
If we become aware of unauthorized access to your school's records, we will notify your account contact within 72 hours of confirming the incident, with the scope and our containment steps.
Questions
FERPA questions can go to your school's records officer or to us via the request-access form.