General Statement of Purpose
This Policy outlines the guidelines for the development of Administrative Regulations governing the retention, management and destruction of District records. The Superintendent or the Superintendent’s designee shall work with appropriate administrative staff and the District’s Solicitor to develop such Administrative Regulations which are necessary and appropriate to ensure compliance with applicable federal and state laws and regulations.
Definitions
Electronically stored information includes but is not limited to emails, voicemails, draft documents, metadata, pictures, video footage, audio clips, and Auto CAD drawings. The possible sources/locations of electronically stored information are individual hard drives, local and remote servers, telephones, laptops, and PDAs.
“Records” includes recorded information, regardless of form, that is created or received or retained in accordance with the District’s official business. Email messages do not constitute “records” unless the function and content of the message warrants retention under applicable law, policies or regulations.
Particular Records
The Board shall retain, as a permanent record of the District, minutes, annual auditor’s reports and annual financial reports.
All other records shall be maintained in accordance with state and federal law and regulation and the Administrative Regulations promulgated in accordance herewith.
The determination of whether a particular document or particular information will be retained as a “record” of the District depends not upon the format of the document or information, but on the content contained therein, whether the information is retainable and whether the maintenance of that information is necessary for the District’s operations.
General Requirements
The Regulations regarding record retention shall address the manner in which records are to be maintained and purged and must differentiate between those records that are maintained in manual form and those records maintained in electronic form.
The Regulations must set forth the purpose and guidelines for any “back up” or “archiving” system used.
In general, appropriate hardware and software shall be used to ensure that records that are retained in electronic form are reasonably accessible; however, to the extent that information is “backed up” or “archived” for the sole purpose of restoring the system in the case of an emergency, such information is not being “retained” by the District and need not be reasonably accessible. Electronic information that has been deleted in accordance with this Policy and the Regulations promulgated hereunder shall be deemed not reasonably accessible.
The Regulations shall provide procedures and guidelines for implementing a “litigation hold” on records relevant to a particular matter when there is a reasonable likelihood of litigation regarding the particular matter.
The Regulations shall set forth periodic security measures to ensure the enforcement of this policy uniformly across the School District. |
