Owasso Independent School District No. I-011 v. Falvo Ex Rel. Pletan
The Court ruled that peer grading in schools -- where students score classmates' homework or quizzes before handing them back -- does not violate the federal student-privacy law known as FERPA.
The decision means teachers nationwide can keep using peer grading as a teaching tool without fear of jeopardizing their school's federal funding, at least until scores are recorded in a teacher's permanent grade book.
“The word "maintain" suggests FERPA records will be kept in a filing cabinet in a records room at the school or on a permanent secure database, perhaps even after the student is no longer enrolled.”
Explaining why briefly-handled peer-graded papers aren't 'maintained' education records.
How it got here: A federal trial court ruled for the school district; the Tenth Circuit reversed and held peer grading violated the law; the school district asked the Supreme Court to review.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A mother of three schoolchildren in an Oklahoma school district objected to her children's teachers having students grade each other's tests and assignments in class, arguing it embarrassed her kids. She asked the district to ban the practice; when it refused, she sued, claiming peer grading violated a federal law that protects student education records from being shared without parental consent.
The question before the Court
When students grade each other's classroom assignments and call out the scores, does that violate a federal law protecting student education records?
The Court's answer
No -- the Court ruled that peer grading does not violate FERPA. The privacy law only protects records that are 'maintained' by the school or someone acting for it, and a classmate briefly holding and scoring a paper during class doesn't meet that standard. A student grader also isn't acting as an agent of the school the way a teacher or administrator would be.
The Court limited its holding narrowly: grades on student papers aren't covered by FERPA at least until a teacher collects and records them in a grade book. It left open whether grades become protected once they reach that stage, and did not decide whether grade books themselves are education records.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Teachers across the country can continue letting students exchange and grade each other's papers, a common classroom technique for reinforcing lessons and giving quick feedback. Had the Court ruled the other way, schools risked losing federal funding for a widespread and long-standing teaching practice, and teachers would have faced pressure to grade every assignment themselves.
What changes now
The case returns to the lower courts for further proceedings consistent with the Court's narrow holding. The ruling does not decide whether grades become protected education records once they are recorded in a teacher's grade book, so that broader question remains open for future litigation. Schools can continue peer grading without violating the federal privacy law at the peer-grading stage.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly limited its holding to the moment before grades are recorded in a teacher's grade book. It did not decide whether a teacher's grade book itself counts as a protected education record, or whether grades become protected once turned in to the teacher.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Scalia
Justice Scalia agreed peer-graded papers aren't education records while held by the student grader, because a grading student isn't 'acting for' the school. But he objected to the majority's separate suggestion that education records must be kept in a central school repository, arguing this theory contradicts the statute's exception for records solely possessed by instructional personnel and needlessly muddies the decision.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court read the statute's requirement that a record be 'maintained' by the school to mean records are actually kept in some lasting way -- like in a filing cabinet or database -- not merely handled briefly as students pass papers back and forth during class.
- Because a peer grader only holds a classmate's paper for a few moments while scoring it, the Court found that neither the paper nor the grade on it is 'maintained' at that fleeting stage in the sense the statute requires.
- The Court also considered whether a student grading a classmate's paper is 'a person acting for' the school, a phrase the statute uses to describe school agents like teachers or administrators. It concluded that a student following a teacher's instructions to grade a quiz is no more acting for the school than a student following instructions to take the quiz in the first place.
- Looking at other parts of the statute -- such as the requirement that schools keep a single record listing everyone who has accessed a student's file -- the Court found further evidence that Congress meant education records to be centralized, official files, not the moment-to-moment handling of daily classwork.
- The Court weighed the practical consequences of the broader reading: if peer-graded homework counted as protected records, teachers nationwide would face heavy administrative burdens and would have to abandon common teaching methods, a result the Court found no clear sign Congress intended.
- The Court concluded that grades on student papers are not covered by the privacy law at least until a teacher collects them and records them in a grade book, leaving open whether grades become protected records at that later point.