Secure Shredding Of Student Records Is An Important Part Of Your Compliance With FERPA, FileShred Can Help.
When you dispose of educational records you are required to do so in a manner that protects the privacy of each student, that means document shredding.
Give us a call and one of our experts will go over all of your options to destroy documents associated with education records. We will work with your school to put together an effective and simple shredding program that meets your specific needs. We will then give you a great quote and schedule your FERPA shredding service. FileShred makes instituting a compliant FERPA document destruction program that easy.
Why FileShred
We are a local onsite document shredding company that has a personal interest in providing the best services possible because we live and work in the communities we service. We are also a NAID AAA Certified Shredding company which means our policies and procedures have been independently audited and they exceed the highest and strictest standards in the information destruction industry. Our staff is background checked and well trained so you can trust the helpful people that come to service the shredding of your educational documents.
The FERPA ACT
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law designed to protect the privacy of education records. It also provides guidelines for properly releasing student information and there disposition. The FERPA Act applies to any public or private elementary, secondary, or post-secondary school and any state or local education agency that receives federal funds. All public schools and virtually all private schools are covered by FERPA because they receive some sort of federal funding.
FERPA Disposal
Schools and universities collect and maintain large amounts of student information to provide a quality education. Some information like student transcripts may be retained indefinitely. Other student information will need to be preserved for a specific retention period to comply with legal or school requirements then will need to be securely destroyed once the retention period has been reached. But a large amount of student information, some of which may still contain private information, may become unnecessary or irrelevant immediately after use or the moment the student graduates or stops attending the school for any reason and those records can be destroyed right away. Secure onsite shredding with FileShred is an easy solution.
Any third party providing services to a school or conducting research or evaluations for a state or local educational agency are often authorized to receive and use student data are also required to destroy the student data when it is no longer needed for the specified purpose in a secure manner. The school that is the custodian of that information is required to insure that the third party is destroying that information when it is no longer needed. When drafting written agreements with third parties, include provisions that specify that all of the student information that was provided to the third party must be securely destroyed when no longer needed for the specific purpose for which it was provided. They should be required to provide certification that the shredding has been completed.
Other Important FERPA Shredding Considerations
- Document the destruction of student records by using certification forms which are signed by the Individuals or entities responsible for performing the destruction and contain detailed information about the destruction.
- When documents are no longer needed, destroy the files using secure means to render it safe for disposal or recycling. Require the method used be cross-cut shredding to ensure the information can no longer be recovered or reconstructed.
- Destroy CDs, DVDs, and any magneto-optical disks by cross-cut shredding.
- Create a formal document destruction policy within your organization and train all staff on the policy and have then sign a training acknowledgement. Also, require that any partner organizations or vendor do the same.
We would be happy to speak with you and help you with your FERPA compliant shredding so give FileShred a call today.
