Board approves policy guidelines for keeping, deleting records

A new policy adopted by the Howard County Board of Education Tuesday, Oct. 4, provides guidelines for the retention and destruction of records — right down to electronic communication like email.

The policy, approved 7-1, has been almost a year in the making, and took effect immediately upon its approval Tuesday night.

The school system had been operating without such a policy; it had been following a schedule last approved by the state archivist in 1961. That practice had come under fire from board member Allen Dyer, who sued the board in October 2010 over the procedure of deleting emails.

Dyer contended such messages were public records and should not be destroyed. The suit, still open, is inactive.

Dyer was the only opposing vote on the policy, citing opposition to the authority granted the superintendent.

Under the new policy, Superintendent Sydney Cousin will designate an official records retention officer. The officer will be in charge of creating a record retention and destruction schedule, in coordination with the state archives and the Maryland State Department of Education.

According to the new policy, emails will be treated the same as any other form of communication, and any emailed non-records are to be deleted immediately. Non-records include anything not needed for current or future business in the school system or is not required for historical reference. Confidential records are those protected by law, and include individual student test scores, employee personnel files and attorney-client privileged material.

"Records are treated as public documents unless they are confidential," said Lisa Boarman, coordinator of school counseling and related services and co-chair of the committee to draft the policy.

Boarman said staff had been contacted by the Maryland State Archives to use the Howard policy as a model policy for other school systems in the state. Howard County is one of only two counties in the state to have such a policy, Boarman said.