Thanks Scott. We were just questioning that here in Spencer... >>> "Scott Fosseen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 1/19/2007 9:20 AM >>> This is an article that appears in the January 2007 School Leaders Update. The author of the article is Carol Greta with the DE.
Records Retention Recently there was an article on December 8 in eSchool News that was VERY confusing. It referenced a recent "U.S. Supreme Court decision" about schools retaining email. Several schools (and AEAs) have raised questions about this. THERE IS NO SUCH SUPREME COURT RULING. What happened was that federal rules of civil procedure were approved by the Court, and certain of the rules dealt with production of email correspondence during litigation. The article in eSchool News not only implied, but also outright stated that schools would be regulated by the rules. Here's what the education community needs to know: The federal rules are NOTHING NEW. AEAs and LEAs have always been required to retain certain documents, and the electronic nature of the document is determinative of NOTHING. For instance, if the email is a complaint, treat it as if it was sent by the Post Office. While there are very few federal or state laws that govern this, the DE's Uniform Administrative Procedures manual has two full pages (in Chapter 14) of suggested retention periods for various records. The link to the UAP is: http://www.iowa.gov/educate/content/view/129/358/. Remember that electronic records are records also. An email from a parent or taxpayer or staff member is to be treated no differently than if the communication came from the Post Office. A selected few examples from the UAP are as follows: Correspondence: * Personnel correspondence, 7 years after termination * General correspondence, 3 years or as long as administratively useful or of historical value Legal Documents: * Written contracts, 10 years beyond end of contract * Insurance policies, 3 years after expiration Payroll: * Payroll journals, 60 years * All income tax forms (W-2s, W-4s, 1099s, etc.), 5 years _____________________________________________________________________ Scott Fosseen - Systems Engineer - Prairie Lakes AEA http://www.aea8.k12.ia.us/tech _____________________________________________________________________ This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the subject mentioned above. - memo sent by Microsoft Legal Affairs Division _____________________________________________________________________ --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus on the server aea8.k12.ia.us] --------------------------------------------------------- Archived messages from this list can be found at: http://www.mail ( http://www.mail/ )-archive.com/info-tech@aea8.k12.ia.us/ ---------------------------------------------------------
