New year brings new policies at Northmor, Ohio schools

By Randa Wagner -

Three new poli­cies were adopted at Northmor’s Dec. 20 meet­ing that reflect changes in records poli­cies required by the Ohio School Board Association.

Per­son­nel records, stu­dent records, and data and records reten­tion were the three pol­icy top­ics imple­mented that con­sider the Ohio Sun­shine Law (public’s right to know), the Ohio Pri­vacy Act and the Ohio Revised Code. The con­tent of these poli­cies were, in part:

Per­son­nel files

Per­son­nel files for dis­trict employ­ees con­tain records and infor­ma­tion rel­a­tive to com­pen­sa­tion, pay­roll deduc­tions, eval­u­a­tions and such infor­ma­tion and is main­tained in the Dis­trict office.

State law requires that all pub­lic records be made avail­able for inspec­tion to any mem­ber of the gen­eral pub­lic at all rea­son­able times dur­ing reg­u­lar busi­ness hours at cost. The pub­lic has access to all records in the per­son­nel file with the fol­low­ing exceptions:

med­ical records; records per­tain­ing to adop­tion, pro­ba­tion or parole pro­ceed­ings; trial prepa­ra­tion records; con­fi­den­tial law enforce­ment inves­ti­ga­tory records; Social Secu­rity num­ber and records of which the release is pro­hib­ited by State or Fed­eral law. (Addi­tional excep­tions are listed in Ohio Revised Code Sec­tion 149.43.)

The dis­trict is also required to keep reports of inves­ti­ga­tions of employee mis­con­duct in the employee’s per­son­nel file (unless the State deter­mines that the report does not war­rant tak­ing action against the employee., in which case the report must be moved from the employee’s per­son­nel file to a sep­a­rate pub­lic file).

Each employee has the right, upon writ­ten request, to review the con­tents of his/her own per­son­nel file. (If a doc­u­ment is not dis­closed to the employee because it is deter­mined by a physi­cian, psy­chi­a­trist or psy­chol­o­gist to be likely to have an adverse effect upon the employee, the doc­u­ment will be released to the des­ig­nated med­ical author­ity.) Requests are made to the Super­in­ten­dent and sched­uled for a time con­ve­nient for the par­ties involved.

Per­son­nel records should be reviewed only within the con­fines of the Superintendent’s office or the Board’s office.

Stu­dent Records

The Dis­trict main­tains exten­sive edu­ca­tional and per­sonal per­ti­nent infor­ma­tion about stu­dents avail­able to appro­pri­ate school per­son­nel, acces­si­ble to the student’s parent(s) or the stu­dent in com­pli­ance with law, and guarded as con­fi­den­tial information.

Upon request, all records and files included in the student’s cumu­la­tive file are avail­able to parent(s) or the stu­dent (if he/she is over 18 years of age). This request must be in writ­ing and is granted within seven cal­en­dar days. The Dis­trict uses rea­son­able meth­ods to iden­tify and authen­ti­cate the iden­tity of par­ents, stu­dents, school offi­cials and any other par­ties to whom the agency or insti­tu­tion dis­closes per­son­ally iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion from edu­ca­tion records.

No records are to be removed from the school. A prin­ci­pal, teacher or other qual­i­fied school per­son­nel must be present to explain any of the tests or other material.

The Dis­trict des­ig­nated the fol­low­ing per­son­ally iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion con­tained in a student’s edu­ca­tion records as “direc­tory infor­ma­tion:” student’s name, address, tele­phone number(s), date and place of birth, par­tic­i­pa­tion in offi­cially rec­og­nized activ­i­ties and sports, achieve­ment awards or hon­ors, weight and height, if a mem­ber of an ath­letic team, major field of study, dates of atten­dance, date of graduation.

The above infor­ma­tion is dis­closed with­out prior writ­ten con­sent, except when the request is for a profit-making plan or activ­ity. Stu­dent records that con­sist of “per­son­ally iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion” gen­er­ally are exempt from dis­clo­sure. Stu­dent direc­tory infor­ma­tion, how­ever, is released unless the par­ents have affir­ma­tively with­drawn their con­sent to release in writing.

Data and records retention

Elec­tronic mail sent or received by the board and/or dis­trict employ­ees may be con­sid­ered a pub­lic record sub­ject to pub­lic dis­clo­sure or inspec­tion under Ohio’s Sun­shine Law.

All board and dis­trict elec­tronic mail com­mu­ni­ca­tions are mon­i­tored in accor­dance with the attached reg­u­la­tion to ensure that all pub­lic elec­tronic mail records are retained, archived and destroyed in com­pli­ance with State law.

Dis­trict employ­ees are sub­ject to dis­ci­pli­nary action for vio­la­tion of this pol­icy and regulation.

All records are the prop­erty of the Dis­trict and are not removed, destroyed, muti­lated, trans­ferred or oth­er­wise dam­aged or dis­posed of, in whole or in part, except as pro­vided by law or under the rules adopted by the Dis­trict Records Com­mis­sion. Such records shall be deliv­ered by out­go­ing offi­cials and employ­ees to their suc­ces­sors and shall not be oth­er­wise removed, trans­ferred or destroyed unlawfully.

The Records Com­mis­sion is com­posed of the Board Pres­i­dent, the Trea­surer and the Super­in­ten­dent and meets at least once every 12 months.

Under new busi­ness, the board entered into a Per­sonal Ser­vices Con­tract with Tim Kruger, Cer­ti­fied Water Sup­ply Oper­a­tor, to pro­vide ser­vices as needed at the rate of $27.50 per hour; re-appointed Tim Eichorn to a seven year term on the Perry Cook Memo­r­ial Library Board; and appointed Amanda Cox to fill the unex­pired term of Sara Smith to the Perry Cook Memo­r­ial Library Board.

Superintendent’s Employ­ment Recommendations

The board accepted the request for res­ig­na­tion from Dayle Lam­bert, cook, effec­tive Decem­ber 28, 2012.

Employed were: Dayle Lam­bert, cook, for a part time posi­tion effec­tive Decem­ber 31, 2012; Tanya Morn­ingstar for the posi­tion of a dou­ble route bus dri­ver; accepted the Mater­nity Leave Request for Kara Wright and Melissa Radel; accept the res­ig­na­tion of Caleb Neer as the Junior Var­sity Co– Wrestling Coach for the 2012–2013 school year (due to a change in employ­ment); employed Jere­miah Howe for the full Junior Var­sity Wrestling Coach­ing Con­tract for the 2012–2013 school year; and, for the 2013–2014 school year: employed Mark Hunter as the Boys’ Cross Coun­try Coach; Mark Yaussy as the Girls’ Cross Coun­try Coach; B.J. Trainer as the Var­sity Foot­ball Coach; Karen Barth as the Co-Golf Coach; John Barth as the Co-Golf Coach; Kara Wright as the Var­sity Vol­ley­ball Coach; and Tim­o­thy Jones as a sub­sti­tute custodian.

The Jan­u­ary Orga­ni­za­tional Meet­ing and the reg­u­lar Jan­u­ary Board Meet­ing will be held on Thurs­day Jan­u­ary 3rd at 7:30 p.m. in the Board Meet­ing Room.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Jan 1 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.