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DoDEA School Health Services Manual 2942.0 Volume 1 Revised: 2016 DRAFT
d. The PA makes it a civil and criminal offense to knowingly disclose PII about an
individual without the individual’s consent, or a minor student without the consent of
the student’s sponsor/parent/guardian, to any third party.
As a result of these statutory provisions, it necessitates that nurses:
1) Exercise caution in creating records about or that contain information about
individual students (i.e., that contain PII), and
2) Properly file documentation about students in the appropriate files.
3) Explicitly understand the rules governing the PA (discussed below) so that
they do not release any PII in their possession or in agency files without the consent of
the student’s sponsor/parent/guardian or the student (if age 18 or over) pursuant to
one of the PA exceptions.
DoDEA recognizes that student health records are educational records and are
an especially personal set of records in the agency’s educational records and its
responsibility regarding the collection, maintenance and dissemination of such records
as well as the protection of the privacy rights of students as governed by the Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA).
Reference:
Defense Privacy and Civil Liberties Division; U.S. Department of Defense System
of Records Notices; DoDEA 26. Available at:
National Association of School Nurses;
C-3-2 Privacy Act Guidelines
The following guidelines regarding the protection and privacy of
sponsors/parents/guardians and students are consistent with the requirements of the
PA. Under this provision, a student’s health record is classified as private data and will
be distributed only to parties within DoDEA, or within the agency (DoD), only when:
• the requester of that information can establish a need to know in order to
fulfill an official duty, and,
• only if DoDEA collected the personal information for a use that is
compatible with the official purpose of the requester.
Thus, nurses are cautioned to provide only the minimal amount of student health
information to others in the same school when the requester can establish a legitimate
need to know in order to perform his or her duties (such as when a teacher seeks