Sorting through all of this is the hardest thing to do. I used. To work for an email company and it was easier to do bulk archiving regardless of content vs trying to create rules to figure out what to keep and what not to keep. Sometimes there is information in an email regarding the teacher's personal goings on which may come back and bite the district in the keaster. Prosecution will come in a years down the road asking for said documentation relating to something and they don't care it didn't have student info in an email. They care that it was an email which a child predator may have been confessing their soul to someone about the horrible things they had done while at school. But, because their was no direct student information in the email the rules don't keep it and the person was allowed to go on and do the same things elsewhere.
Archive everything which is emailed out! Storage space is cheap. I know archive companies are really taking advantage on the pricing side but think of the population your policy effects. Policies that save emails for 3 years minimum are ideal. Longer when possible. I think 5 to 7 years is probably best and no more than 10 years. I sat in a meeting once where the attorney recommended a minimum of 12 years. Life of the kid in a district. My father is an attorney who says, you should archive all documents period. He doesn't have a retention policy because he says, if you never get rid of it you shouldn't need to define that. You only define it if you plan on dumping the information! He has a lot of files, paper and digital, suffice it to say, but he has had to reference stuff in his line from as far back as the 30's in civilian law and probably further back when in the military. Unfunded mandate yes peace of mind (well maybe if you have an issue) but let's hope nobody ever has to deal with one of those issues again. -Heath Henderson On Oct 9, 2010, at 6:00 PM, hay...@sages.us wrote: > Just because an email is not personal in nature does not mean that it has to > be archived. Not all emails between parents and teachers are considered > "records" and therefore they do NOT need to be archived. Only those emails > that contain information that is considered to be part of the student's > records must be archived. (At least according to the document that our supt > gave me from the school board association's lawyers. I don't have that > documentation with me here at home. It is on my desk at school. > > > Quoting Dana Fellows <tech-l...@fellowstech.com>: > >> I would say that some of the emails for some users are 50% personal in >> nature. I've had conversations with the users asking them to not use the >> schools email for personal use. We only have about 25 accounts so I don't >> know what I would do if I had a hundred users. >> >> Dana Fellows >> Computer Technology Instructor / Network Administrator >> Whiteside Area Career Center >> 1608 Fifth Avenue >> Sterling, IL 61081 >> Email, dfell...@wacc.cc >> Website, www.wacc.cc >> Phone: 815-626-5810 ext. 206 >> Available via phone between 2:30 and 3:30 PM Central Time >> >> MCP, MCSA, MCSE, A+, Network+, CIW >> AAS - Network Administration >> BA - Information Systems >> MS - Instructional Technology >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: tech-geeks-boun...@tech-geeks.org >> [mailto:tech-geeks-boun...@tech-geeks.org] On Behalf Of hay...@sages.us >> Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2010 2:14 PM >> To: Tech-Geeks Mailing List >> Subject: Re: [tech-geeks] Email Archives >> >> Our supt just went to a session on the legalities of this very thing. >> You need to set a district policy on how long you are going to keep >> your archives and then deleted them when they get past that date. >> Also, you don't need to archive EVERY email. Set a policy on how you >> will differentiate between what needs to be kept and what doesn't and >> only keep the ones that need to be kept. Of course there is no good >> technilogical way to make this determination so most are taking the >> easy way out and archiving everything. But it is not necessary to do >> so. >> >> But at least set a policy on how long you will keep the emails and get >> the board - and supt - to approve the policy. We are getting ready to >> have those meetings and set such a policy. >> >> Archiving all messages for eternity is not an option. >> >> >> >> Quoting Dana Fellows <tech-l...@fellowstech.com>: >> >>> What are some of you techs doing when your email archives start reaching >>> terabyte(s) in size? I guess I'll put them on large hard drives and put >> them >>> in a safe or something. >>> >>> >>> >>> Dana Fellows >>> >>> Computer Technology Instructor / Network Administrator >>> Whiteside Area Career Center >>> >>> 1608 Fifth Avenue >>> >>> Sterling, IL 61081 >>> >>> Email, dfell...@wacc.cc >>> >>> Website, www.wacc.cc >>> >>> Phone: 815-626-5810 ext. 206 >>> >>> Available via phone between 2:30 and 3:30 PM Central Time >>> >>> >>> >>> MCP, MCSA, MCSE, A+, Network+, CIW >>> >>> AAS - Network Administration >>> BA - Information Systems >>> MS - Instructional Technology >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >> >> >> >> >> | Subscription info at http://www.tech-geeks.org | >> >> | Subscription info at http://www.tech-geeks.org | >> > > > > > | Subscription info at http://www.tech-geeks.org | | Subscription info at http://www.tech-geeks.org |
