What is a Record?
Records are any document produced, received, owned, or used by the San Diego Unified School District, regardless of physical for or characteristics and required by law to be prepared or retained or which are prepared or retained as necessary or convenient to the discharge of official duty. Library and museum materials kept solely for reference or exhibition are not defined as records. Supplies of publications and printed blank forms are also not defined as records (California Code of Regulations - Title 5, Section 16020)

Who is responsible for Records at my Site?
Before January 1, the superintendent (or a person designated by the superintendent) shall classify and review every record originating during the prior school fiscal year.

Records Custodians are staff within schools and departments who have been designated the responsibility for managing the unit’s official records. Records Custodians will do the following:

• Assure the intellectual and physical control of active and semi-active electronic and paper-based records
• Conduct a review of records for disposition on an annual basis
• Prepare all records for storage in a professional and orderly manner
• Maintain an index of all records stored on-site and/or at off-site locations
• Prepare destruction authorization forms and record accession requests

Each district Branch, Division, Department, and School Site is required to designate a Records Custodian annually. Each site is required to notify the Office of the General Counsel when the name of the designated Records Custodian has changed by completing the Records Custodian Designee form  and faxing it to: Office of the General Counsel Attn: Records Management, (619) 725-5639.

What Records should be retained?
Records of a continuing nature, i.e., active and useful for administrative, legal, fiscal or other purposes over a period of years, shall not be classified until such usefulness has ceased. A pupil's cumulative record is a continuing record until the pupil ceases to be enrolled in the district. It is then classified as a Class 1- Permanent Record. See the list of sample records .

Classification of Records - The school district's chief administrator or his designee shall be the person responsible for classifying school district records into the following classifications (California Code of Regulations - Title 5, Sections 16020-16028):

• Class 1 – Permanent Records (as listed in Section 16023) - The original, or one exact copy, unless electronically duplicated, shall be retained indefinitely.
• Class 2 – Optional Records - Not required by law to be retained permanently but deemed worthy of further preservation as specified in Section 16024.
• Class 3 – Disposable Records – required retention periods and procedures for destruction or transfer of records as specified in Section 16025-16027.

The retention period for Class 3-Disposable records should be designated and such records should be physically segregated by the fiscal year in which they are scheduled for destruction. In the inventory process, those carbons or other copies which are no longer useful to the district (except one copy of an original required by law to be filed with another agency) may be destroyed without making an inventory record.

While the required retention period for some records is dependent upon the date of the applicable audit, varying audit practices of federal, state, and other agencies must also be considered (California Code of Regulations - Title 5, Sections 16026).

How long should records be retained?
The retention period for records depends upon their legal, fiscal, administrative, and/or historical value. There is not a single retention period for all records. Some may be destroyed after a short period; others must be retained for many years because they possess sufficient historical value to warrant permanent retention. The determination of the appropriate retention period is the result of the appraisal process that takes place during the development and approval of the records schedule.

Records pertaining to any pending investigation, legal action, administrative proceeding, litigation, audit, or program review, or if any of the preceding is about to be initiated, must not be destroyed. This is so even if the retention period or disposition date specified for the records has already expired. In the event of an investigation, please contact the Office of the General Counsel at (619) 725-5630.

Destruction of Records - All Class 3-Disposable records which have been held for the required retention periods and any permanent records which have been classified as Class 3-Disposable after having being electronically copied and held for the required retention period may be destroyed as per Title 5, Sections 16026 - 16027 of the California Code of Regulations. The governing board should be notified of pending action to dispose of records and such notification be recorded in the board minutes. Notification should also be given to the governing board attesting to the fact that the documents had been properly destroyed.

Disposal of records should be accomplished by burning, shredding, pulping, or other means to assure complete destruction and to prevent any reconstruction of the records to any degree. Read more.