For the Record
Feb 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Van Carlisle
Education instititions should consider the importance of protecting vital records when planning for emergencies.
Other drivers of VRP
In addition to smart disaster-recovery planning, several regulations, laws and best practice policies drive VRP. For instance, the Oklahoma State Department of Education requires student records to be in fireproof file cabinets. In New Jersey, when a public district is involved in litigation, the records must be retained and accessible for 20 years after the final settlement. The New York State Office of Elementary, Middle, Secondary and Continuing Education provides a School Safety Audit Checklist that clearly states: “School files and records are maintained in locked, vandal-proof, fireproof containers or vaults.”
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C.-1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) is a federal law enacted in 1974 that protects the privacy of student education records. Under FERPA, schools are required to keep personally identifiable information secure and limit access to it. The law applies to all schools that receive funds from the U.S. Department of Education. If a school is found to be in violation of the act, it risks losing federal financial assistance.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule establishes regulations for the use and disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI). A school or school system is covered under HIPAA if it has a healthcare provider (school nurse) who transmits health information electronically in connection with a HIPAA transaction.
More recently, the No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to maintain and report large volumes of student data.
As the number of school-age children continues to rise, the need for K-12 and university systems to better manage vital records will increase.
Carlisle is president/CEO of FireKing Security Group, a security and loss-prevention company headquartered in New Albany, Ind.
Records survive disaster
In 2005, floods ravaged the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Pass Christian School District in Pass Christian, Miss., was hit with a 30-foot storm surge that swamped the entire region — as far as 15 miles inland in some places.
Pass Christian High School was submerged under 18 feet of water, and the district's middle school and one of its elementary schools were destroyed. The school district reopened several weeks after the storm on October 17, 2005. Once the recovery process began, staff members especially were concerned about the district payroll.
“The district central office was at one point under 30 feet of water, and when I returned to Pass Christian immediately after Hurricane Katrina, the only thing still standing inside was the district's UL-rated fireproof file cabinets,” says Patty Myriek, a specialist in the district's human resources department.
“All the schools' payroll records were kept safely inside the specially designed cabinets, so we were able to get our payroll system back online right away and get our people paid. As you can imagine, getting funds to our employees — who were in many cases drastically affected by the flood — was a very important factor in the overall recovery process.”
WEB 101
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