language: en · status: in-force · last checked: 2026-09-19

New Jersey — student records and remote instruction (N.J.A.C. 6A:32-7, 6A:32-13)

New Jersey's student-privacy layer is a State Board of Education regulation, not a statute: N.J.A.C. 6A:32 Subchapter 7 is where FERPA is implemented for New Jersey districts, and it is considerably more prescriptive than the federal floor. Subchapter 13 governs a district's programme of virtual or remote instruction. Chapter 32, Subchapter 7 included, was adopted as new rules by R.2005 d.298, effective 6 September 2005 (37 N.J.R. 1982(a), 3322(a)); Subchapter 13 is much newer, adopted as a new rule in the 2022 readoption (R.2022 d.081) with effect from 5 July 2022, so in_force_from is the date of the earlier, Subchapter 7.

There is no New Jersey SOPIPA. Nothing here binds an operator directly; the duties land on the district, and reach a supplier through the district's contract and through what the district is permitted to let a system do.

Applicability to EdTech

Ten days, not "a reasonable period". §6A:32-7.1(g)1 requires every district's written policy to guarantee access to authorised persons within 10 days of a request. FERPA allows 45. A records system that cannot serve a parent request inside that window puts the district out of compliance.

Electronic storage is expressly contemplated and expressly conditioned. §6A:32-7.4(b)1 requires proper security and backup procedures for electronically stored records, and §6A:32-7.1(g)9 requires the district's policy to provide for the access and security of records held in an electronic system. That is the hook a New Jersey district's security schedule hangs on.

Health records must be physically separable. §6A:32-7.1(l) requires the student health record to be maintained separately from other student records, and on graduation or termination the health history and immunisation record moves into the mandated record. A single undifferentiated student profile cannot satisfy this; the data model has to keep health apart and support that move.

Publishing a student's personal information on a district website is barred outright — §6A:32-7.4(f), giving effect to N.J.S.A. 18A:36-35. This is the provision the corpus previously carried only as an unverified citation.

The 100-year record. §6A:32-7.8(f) requires the district of last enrolment to keep a defined mandated record — name, date of birth, parents, gender, health history and immunisation, assessment results, grades, attendance, classes, grade level and years of attendance — for 100 years. Retention design that assumes a deletion window will be wrong in New Jersey for exactly these fields.

Annual deletion is mandatory, and must leave no trace. §6A:32-7.1(i) requires an annual relevance review, deletion of what is no longer descriptive, and that the deleted information "not be recorded elsewhere" with no record of the deletion made. That is the opposite of an audit-logged soft delete, and a system that keeps deletion history conflicts with it.

Key obligations at a glance

Records and access

• Records contain only information relevant to education and objectively based on the originator's observation or knowledge — §6A:32-7.1(c); every entry dated and signed by its originator — (h).
• Annual written notification of records rights, in the parent's dominant language where practicable — (d), (k).
• Mandated records enumerated — §6A:32-7.3; access conditions and the authorised-person list — §6A:32-7.5, §6A:32-7.6.
• A right of appeal for parents and adult students, with the statement of disagreement travelling with any disclosure — §6A:32-7.7.

Retention

• Federally funded programme records: five years after graduation or termination, or to age 23, whichever is longer — §6A:32-7.4(e).
• The 100-year mandated record — §6A:32-7.8(f).
• A currently enrolled student's record is "incomplete" and outside the Destruction of Public Records Law — §6A:32-7.8(b).

Virtual or remote instruction (§6A:32-13.1)

• Available on the chief school administrator's authority when a health authority closes schools for more than three consecutive days — (b).
• Students with disabilities get the same opportunities so far as appropriate and practicable, and related services may be delivered over a virtual or online platform — (b)1i, (b)1ii.
• Virtual days count toward the 180-day requirement only on the stated conditions — (c).

Contents

Licence

The reproduced text is N.J.A.C. 6A:32, rules adopted by the New Jersey State Board of Education and published by the Department of Education on nj.gov. Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., 590 U.S. 255 (2020) was decided on judges and legislators; its rule is that "officials empowered to speak with the force of law cannot be the authors of—and therefore cannot copyright—the works they create in the course of their official duties" (slip opinion, p. 1, read 2026-10-01), and a board adopting binding rules is such an official. The Supreme Court has not applied the doctrine to agency rules in terms.

The State's own terms point the same way. The chapter PDF carries no copyright notice (checked in full), and the NJ.gov Legal Statement & Disclaimers page (read 2026-10-01), Section F, "Copyright and Trademark Limitations", says: "The State of New Jersey has made the content of these pages available to the public and anyone may view, copy or distribute State information found here without obligation to the State, unless otherwise stated on particular material or information to which a restriction on free use may apply." Nothing on the chapter states such a restriction. The page adds that "the State makes no warranty that materials contained herein are free of Copyright or Trademark claims", which matters for third-party material, not for the State Board's own rules.

The official N.J.A.C. is also published commercially by LexisNexis; the corpus takes nothing from that edition.

Public-domain text carries no conditions. The corpus attributes it all the same: the {.meta} provenance line on each section names the publisher, the Sources section links the official text, and the Meta section describes what the builder changed (markup, anchors and the dropping of page furniture). Nothing here suggests that the New Jersey Department of Education endorses the corpus.

Related

• FERPA — the federal regime Subchapter 7 implements
• New York 8 NYCRR Part 121 — the neighbouring state's regulation-level regime, which does bind contractors directly
• Indiana student records — the closest analogue: a records regime on top of FERPA, no operator statute
• Illinois SOPPA — the operator-duty regime New Jersey does not have

Sources

• New Jersey Department of Education — N.J.A.C. Title 6A, Chapter 32
• New Jersey State Library — N.J.A.C. Title 6A, Chapter 32, official Code supplement of 15 September 2014 — chapter front page: "Source and Effective Date: R.2005 d.298, effective September 6, 2005"; Subchapter 7 is in the chapter table of contents and the historical note records no later adoption of it
• New Jersey Department of Education — Notice of Adoption, N.J.A.C. 6A:32 (R.2022 d.081) — adopts Subchapter 13 as new rules; "Effective Dates: June 6, 2022, Readoption; July 5, 2022, Amendments, Repeals, and New Rules"