9160

PERSONNEL RECORDS

Information about staff is required for the daily administration of the school district, for implementing salary and other personnel policies, for budget and financial planning, for responding to appropriate inquiries about employees, and for meeting Board of Education, state and federal educational reporting requirements. To these ends, the Board of Education authorizes and directs the Superintendent of Schools to develop and implement a comprehensive and efficient system of personnel records maintenance and control under the guidelines that follow.

1. A personnel file will be accurately maintained in the central administrative office for each present and former employee. These files will contain, but are not limited to, applications for employment; references; letters and dates of appointment, medical reports, and records relative to compensation, payroll deductions, evaluations and such other matters as may be considered pertinent to the purposes of this policy as cited above.

2. The Superintendent of Schools will be the records manager for personnel files and will have the overall responsibility for maintaining and preserving the confidentiality of the files. The Superintendent of Schools may, however, designate another official to perform the duties of records management on the understanding that this official is to be held responsible for granting or denying access to records on the basis of these guidelines.

3. Except for information required to be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Law, all personnel records will be considered confidential and not open to public inspection, and access to files will be limited to school and governmental officials authorized by the Superintendent of Schools to use the files for purposes of this policy as cited above. No other persons or agencies may have access to information in a staff member’s file except when the staff member has given written consent for the release of specific information to a specific person or agency, or when such information is subpoenaed or ordered for release by a court of law.

4. Lists of district employees’ names and home addresses will be released only to governmental agencies as required for official reports.

5. A present or former staff member may have access to his/her own personnel file at all reasonable times by appointment (i.e., during regular school hours) but with the exception that access will not be granted to references provided to the district on a confidential basis prior to employment. The right of access includes the right to make written objections to any information contained in the file. Any written objection must be signed by the staff member and will become part of the staff member’s file. In cases when file information is proved to be in error, correction will be made.

6. No complaint, commendation, suggestion, or evaluation may be placed in the evaluation section of a file unless it meets the following requirements:

a. the comment is signed by the person making the complaint,

NOTE: Examination of school employee personnel records by the Board of Education shall be conducted only at executive sessions of the Board of Education. Any school board member may request the chief school officer to bring the personnel records of a designated employee or employees to an open meeting of the Board of Education. The Board of Education shall then determine whether or not to conduct an executive session for purpose of examining such records. The chief school officer shall present such records to the Board of Education at the executive session., Such records shall, in their entirety, be returned to the custody of the chief school officer at the conclusion of the executive session.