FERPA - The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

In December 2006 amendments were added to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FERPA) in the United States which mandate email archiving in some circumstances for school districts. The intent of the law was to provide documentation of network abuse and misuse. Specifically, the law was intended to prevent the intentional destruction of documents relating to ongoing litigation. The Enron debacle highlighted the need for electronic documents to be preserved for use in legal proceedings. According to FERPA, school districts should and must according to the law make good faith efforts to archive electronic communications on the district’s email server. Districts are NOT required to archive every outbound packet of data which is created by students, teachers, and other district staff members in-district.