What is a Student Education Record?

A student education record is defined by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) as “all records that schools or education agencies maintain about students.”

These records can consist of:

  • Date and place of birth, parent(s) and/or guardian addresses, and where parents can be contacted in emergencies
  • Grades, test scores, courses taken, academic specializations and activities, and official letters regarding a student’s status in school
  • Special education records
  • Disciplinary records
  • Medical and health records that the school creates or collects, or maintains
  • Documentation of attendance, schools attended, courses taken, awards conferred, and degrees earned
  • Personal information such as a student’s identification code, social security number, picture, or other information that make it easy to identify or locate a student

The Challenges of Storing Student Records

The biggest challenge that school districts face when managing their student’s records is that there are no formal retention requirements for maintaining them. FERPA suggests that school districts keep temporary student information for a least 5 years after the student no longer attends. In addition, FERPA also suggests that permanent student records should be kept for a minimum of 60 years!

With the need to maintain these records for such a substantial amount of time, there simply may not be enough storage space within the facility. If the district can store the documents on-site, rarely are the storage conditions suitable for the long term. Older records can be badly damaged if stored in facilities without temperature or humidity control. Some districts turn to off-site storage where they are locked into long-term contracts that end up much more costly than initially anticipated.

The Solution

Shoreline works with schools, higher education institutions and universities of all sizes, both public and private, to convert their physical student records to digital images. Scanning and digitizing student records provide solutions to these challenges.

With our Student Records Scanning services, you can:

  1. Save valuable time and money searching for records
  2. Eliminate the need to store records on-site, which allows for better utilization of the space
  3. Cut the cost of storing records in a storage facility
  4. Allow you to access every document with a simple search
  5. Reduce the element of human error