62% of School Administrators do not Have District Policy Regarding Email Communications

Waterford Technologies, provider of eMail and file archive management solutions, revealed the results of a survey among K-12 school administrators, teachers and parents where 62% of school administrators admitted they did not have a district policy regarding eMail communications between them and teachers or between them and parents (68%). Further, 36% indicated they did not have, or did not know if they had, a software solution in place to archive and manage eMails.

 
Federal and state laws require schools and businesses to retain all eMail, instant messages and other digital communications produced by their employees, including the Supreme Court ruling that amended the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to include eMails as being subject to legal discovery.
 
Among others, the State of Iowa Code – Chapter 22 on Open Records, states that “A public record includes e-mail messages sent and received by a school district employee on his/her school-owned computer.” Colorado Statute 24-72-204.5. on electronic mail policy says that "the state or any agency, institution, or political subdivision thereof that operates or maintains an electronic mail communications system shall adopt a written policy on any monitoring of electronic mail communications and the circumstances under which it will be conducted”, and further that “the policy shall include a statement that correspondence of the employee in the form of electronic mail may be a public record under the public records law and may be subject to public inspection.”
 
At some schools, the IT department takes on responsibility for eMail management and storage issues, and has an interest, although is not responsible for regulatory or legal compliance. “I called the Minnesota State Attorney General’s Office to get verification on eMail archiving requirements, and they said the law says that records of official business need to be retained,” said Scott Ripley, district technology coordinator, Montevideo Public Schools, MN. “The solution we purchased from Waterford Technologies allows us to have an archive of all of the eMails that come into and leave our system. We don’t proactively investigate eMail correspondence, but if we needed to, I am totally confident that we could respond quickly to any request,” said Ripley. “We also notified district employees that we are retaining eMails, which I’m sure will save us money because people will limit the number and size of personal eMail files (saving storage costs) and the time they spend doing personal eMail correspondence, because they know eMails are now discoverable.”
 
“Not only should superintendents be knowledgeable of eMail standards and exposure risks, but also equipped with tools and guidelines on how to effectively and proactively manage compliance related to eMail correspondence,” said Tom Politowski, president of Waterford Technologies. “We have published a free eMail Sample Policy Kit to help school administrators gauge their current legal exposure and understand why and how an organization should and can implement an eMail policy, including a sample eMail Acceptable Use Policy Statement/Employee Agreement that schools can customize for their own use.”  “And once the policies are established, we can help them with easy to use and very cost effective eMail management and archiving solutions that support those policies,” said Politowski.

To get the eMail Sample Policy Kit