001okay did you guys start I can't hear anything hello hi Margo we were we were still muted wait Andy is on his way in so we should oh okay I thought it was my equipment thank you Thursday okay you're unmuted I um afd governance committee at 10:35 on Thursday towards the middle of January is that um um first Mr chair yes I was wondering if we could add old business to the agenda because I was hoping if we had time we could talk about the ones that got um that this the first F oh the paration no it was the the the ones that regarded the ceremonies were table to this meeting I remember taing a parent notification and specifically W it to be first and I appreciate thank um I can't recall um can
002you repeat I'm sorry could you repeat the request it's hard to kind of hear request is for some tabled motions regarding pardon me observances um ceremonies several other things and I guess we did it is the Constitution Day declaration independence in June 19 Jun and Veterans St at 911 yeah I yeah U I was going to say I do remember we tabled until the next meeting this isn't the regular meeting it is a special meeting um specifically no this is regular this is regular I'm not Mr I was looking at my notes from the last meeting on 7th and it said that the national anthem item was tabled until a March 24 response by Administration oh March okay sorry so actually all of them were taed so that we could go and do a study
003and figure out exactly what we have we're going to give an update on March 24th um with the understanding that it's probably a big project that was probably going to be finalized into June thank youw that has been started in motions right thank you very much thank you I remember that clearly um we've got several holidays between um so the first item on the agenda is the parent notification um proposal by member Donley and um I believe we're still waiting for a second on that um but I would say I I I think there's some structural flaws in it I don't well I'll second it for purposes of discussion um and my copy right so one of my one of the things I I think is well open the FL for discussion first of all
004um you to speak what it would do is reverse the existing presumption against notifying parents of changes to stud legal name or pronouns to a presumption in favor of notifying parents unless the superintendent believes there's some articulable reason not to notify the parents so it just would be reversing the existing presumption against telling parents about it for secondary STS um I have a question um there was an interesting article I think yesterday or the day before in the New York Times about um some of the laws that have been implemented I think in Florida and it's hard for nurses to give a Band-Aid right now this is not that this is not this um that is not this but when in the second in the first sentence of the second paragraph I'm just wondering what
005happens if a student communicates they wish to be addressed differently than their legal name but not a change of the pronoun right now there's an and linking to two student desires it should be and or so I just wondered what your yeah on that yeah I I you're right that conjunctive is probably requires both and it should be an because it it could apply in either case where they wanted just a different name than their legal name or pronoun it's different than their sign pronoun we take that as atic change to the proposal um Mike I've got a couple of problems and one of them is that if a student approaches a teacher or staff member and that person feels like confidentiality it's important think kind somehow work a request of the chain of command
006to the superintendent who then has to bring it to the board and I'm not sure if this would be something we consider an executive session I know want um and technically it's student information so possibly it would be but then the board would have to meet make a decision and then it would have to work its way back down to the staff member and of course if student have said something and and the decision comes back a few weeks later that we're not going to keep confidential it just to me creates an incredibly awkward situation for staff and for the student um and I'll say I think in vast majority of cases where this is happening parents are aware but there are some cases where they're not and and in some cases it's bad behavior
007by a student in other cases it's so legitimate here I I really feel like that kind of thing has to be considered at the at the school level um and and considered really quickly um the um I'm going to say that's one of my critical things right at the moment did also think I asked at the last meeting May Patricia wants to be called Pat or Patrick wants to be called Pat does that need parental approval it's one thing if they want to Swit to something presly the other gend that they want to switch to something that's ambiguous um I was a student I'm already going by Andy rather than Andrew but I spell it with an i is my mom need to say that's okay I I I just think this put a very
008complicated complicate something that's complicated enough already um and I also do want to take exception I I don't think the existing policy encourages people not to report it simply opens the Avenue of recognizes so in some cases you would not for all those reasons I would not support this any other discussion any comments from staff or uh Mr chair oh there's my anyway um thank you uh so first of all the guidelines are administrative guidelines it's not our policy um the intent is to provide guidance uh and I and I do believe that the administration um we'll we'll review and once we get the uh in the new guidance I guess from the um I don't know if it's the office of civil rights uh uh education or whatever but I know that that's going
009to be that's coming uh and and it could influence these these administrative uh guidelines um but I do I share similar uh concerns as have already been mentioned um my given name is Margaret I prefer Margo um because I'm comfortable with that and um to to to create a a situation where um where where that's going to be handled in I I think all the information is is available to parents in the system they can check it at any time and I guess that's one of the things I'd like to hear from Administration uh what is it that is hit is there anything hit this is what are the uh have we had challenges regarding uh this um partic the these particular points um have there been um I guess issues with families with kids
010I'm I'm just trying to see understand uh why why we keep coming back to this every uh year if not twice a year uh regarding the administrative guidelines and how to how to work with uh f with with our transgender and gender non-conforming students um so I I I I I for for reasons I already stated I I I can't I won't I can't support it although I don't have a a a vote on this committee because I think the committee people are already in the room or or or online so uh but I would like to hear from the administration what is what is what what kinds of concerns complaints have you gotten um you know I I I I I I just uh I'm just not sure how why we have to complicate
011this any more than what it is for right now so if anyone from the Administration has any any uh highlights super sure a few points number one I'm not personally aware of any situations that have bubbled as a result of this policy as they affect transgender students personally I'm not aware of any but I I want to give an opportunity ien I have right so this this is not a widespread issue pragmatically speaking so that that's the first point um number two I don't intend to make any adjustments to the administrative guidance lines until we do hear from the Department of Education the federal level their office of civil rights because I do think that we should give a thorough review of what they have to say before we make a call one way or
012another um and I think my third point would be um with regard to technology I think that's a really good question um my understanding is that parents have access to all records at all times is that correct M yeah yep uh through both Burpa as the law and then online um we also make that demographic information available so whether it be um their preferred pronouns or um things like a cell phone number the parent actually has to put that information in to the system the child can't do that and so they are aware if that's in the system they are aware that it's it's there have access to it from a parental handpoint so in other words parents have 24 hour access to records as they relate to their child so that's the third point
013I want to clear up and four um it it's correct by uh member Donley and others that right now this exess as an administrative regulation it's of course the the will of the board to create policies that address this that would supersede the the administrative guidelines however um I do want to remind the board that I provided on November 10th uh legal review of all the pinning litigation on this topic if you have copies if for members would like to re-review that but it all of that to say that this is a situation that's being discussed nationally and I would put a lot of thought into any policy changes on this topic just because um one some are being dismissed some are not being heard but most likely it will end up in the Supreme
014Court so any policy change on this topic is something that the board would need to very have way any other comments for clarification Mike um he said it's up to parents to put in the system um so does the district use a pronoun or a nickname that's not put in the system by the parents so um there are two really two entities that can change that demographic data at a school level one is the parent and the other is the front office and so uh so the the principal front office staff can make uh changes to that um that system but a student can't for instance go in and put put a cell phone number in the system that everybody can see a parent actually does that at uh can can put that demographic information
015in or change it and um front office staff the reason they can make those changes is for multiple reasons but but um a parent might call they identify the parent um they may send it an email and say we want to change this particular information for a child but they don't go online and do it themselves but could a front office make that change without telling the parents that certainly yes certainly they could but then the parent would immediately see it if they go and so it's transparent for the parent any other questions comments verifications thing none I'll call for a vote on it um those in favor say I I I believe member Jacobs is online yeah Mr chair I would um I'd propose we table this until such a time as we receive
016updated um guidance from our federal Partners since that's what these regulations are based on my understanding is that should be coming within the next few months um any decision on this topic as the superintend alluded to is probably premature given the legal landscape um I would take that as a move to table um is there a second hearing none the move to table fails um did you want to vote y or nay on the motion um if the committee isn't interested in tabling then I'm a no vote I would vote no as well I I think there are things that need to change regardless um so seeing that the motion fails and question um would you know if these guidelines are based on existing federal guidelines I've never heard that argument before and I just
017I don't know my understanding is that these were based off of interpretations at the time back in 201 15 based off of Title 9 guidance at the time or title n conversations at the time was my understanding but I I'm not Ware as to what documents were used and the initial guidelines were adopted by ASD and other districts yeah right if I can speak to that um B yes that this would have been uh the 15 16 school year I don't I don't think our guidance uh our guidelines came out until uh probably 2016 uh they were vetted through legal um and again they and and they were also presented to the school board at that time uh because I I that was my office that did that worked on these uh with other um
018legal and uh other staff uh so yes uh you can go back and look I mean I don't know I mean this is not something that was just made up out of the blue uh as I recall there were there were uh there were it was a template uh you will see similar policies or or guidelines uh throughout districts um and that cover the same items um so yeah so they weren't made up and they were weren't arbitrary they were according to the guidance at the time was it a federal guidance or or what the source in it it was the Federal it's from the uh Department of Education Office of civil rights thank you any other questions discussion if not on to item two access to District records and someone from the is yes
019so this came from the administration we wanted to propose um some poal vision of support policy as it relates to uh requests for public records so I'll hand it off to Mike fleckenstein and uh good morning uh Mike fleckenstein I'm the district's Chief Information officer and the ASD administration's here to submit uh proposed revisions to three board policies uh we're seeking revisions to board policies that facilitate Public's timly access to ASD documents while also reducing administrative and financial burdens on ASD revisions are proposed to three policies but they really fall into two buckets one is email retention and the other are public records requests ASD asked the board to update its policies regarding email redention to adopt a modern efficient method of retention ASD asked the board to update his policy regarding public records requests
020to permit ASD to reduce the burdens these requests impose on ASD and to promote quicker and more valuable responses to the public we'll begin with the public records policy and then turn to the records retention and email uh used policies please allow me to introduce uh Mr Lee Baxter you guys I think most of you guys know Lee Lee's worked with us and this team to help craft the changes uh we're asking you to move to the full board today we will Begin by walking through the relevant laws that surround both of these subjects and then we'll look at the actual policies and the changes to the policies that we're proposing with that I'll turn it over to thanks mikee um chair Hollman and members of the board president bamy online um as as U
021Mr fleckenstein mentioned we are um we've been working for some time on updating a policies of the board proposing revisions to board policy regarding email retention to public records unlike some topics like academic freedom or something like that that are Timeless uh technology change and access to records uh we think that access to records and how that how we go about that needs to change as well um these changes are meant to promote efficiency and to expedite responses to both legal subpoenas and public records requests as Mr F mentioned we'll start with 1340 and our two our proposed revisions fall into two buckets public records and um archiving of ASD email uh Communications so we're starting with the public records um issue and that is the board's policy is board policy 1340 but quickly we'll
022go over what the the state of play is for the law so that we we can have a discussion if you'd like about how these changes what we're what we're speaking to and how they fall into uh the legal framework um like the federal system uh we throw these terms around quite a bit uh people you you hear Foya Foya stands for Freedom of Information Act um that actually applies to federal agencies if you were going to send in a request say to the Department of Education civil rights division that would be a foyer um for State entities and Municipal entities we have state law and that is Alaska's public records act um Alaska public record act has been on the books essentially uh since the early 70s and has remained largely unchanged since then
023it broadly it broadly allows anyone any member of the public to um have access to State and local government records um unless those records are specifically Exempted by the Alaska public records Act um as I mentioned uh this has been in place since the late 7s but it actually predates this we've had Alaska had has had a public records act since since statehood it was just in the form of legal case law and not in the statute when when discussing this it's important to remember that the legislature Alaska's legislature has expressed a uh a bias in favor of disclosure of Records so as as we're discuss you know as ASD Works its way through public records and produces them we always keep that in mind and we should keep that in mind for this discussion
024as well the right to public reference however uh is not absolute or does not mean that someone is entitled to them within a certain amount of days or um absent any charges and in fact ASD is one of the uh very very few and ities that I have seen that tries to produce almost all records at no cost um there are state regulations that apply to State agencies that require um absent extraordinary circumstances for records to be produced within 10 days that does not apply to school districts that does not apply to municipalities that applies within the department I'm sorry within State administrative agency that's important to remember one of the one of the express exemptions of public records is furpa protected um information so the family educational rights of privacy act of 1974 cified
025uh the right to keep educational records private which students attend student identities student educational like grades anything mentioned student is not to be produced to members of the public that's for pretty obvious reasons that we're we're dealing with minors here so I mentioned that there's a legislative bias in favor of disclosure unless it's unless something is specifically Exempted by the act one of those explicit exemptions listed by the statute is any record covered by fura um that's to say that federal law and state law require ASD to make sure that that information is not disclosed in response to a public record act our proposed revisions to the board policy generally do a couple things number one it makes explicit what the mun and what I've seen other state agencies do which is make it clear
026that ASD can charge if you if we receive a broad untarget public record request um you'll see when we go over the specific language if it's a small targeted um appropriate and non- burdensome request we're not going to charge anything and that's based on on a timeline of how long it would take to produce the records however if it exceeds and becomes very burdensome uh we urge that ASD like all other U public entities should recoup some of these costs um so I think with that Mike unless there's more to be added to that I think we should go to the specific uh red lines perhaps of of board policy 1340 so in the packet uh that you should all have there is a a white paper legal memorandum that outlines the uh the law
027at issue here that must guide our either revision or nonre vision of board policy also is the a Redline version I believe of the there's is the redline version in packet Redline version of what our proposed changes are so anything that's highlighted looks like it's in blue anything highlighted in blue is a proposed revision and anything that's in Black text is uh what's currently in the board policy so let's go to um unlike email uh archiving we have all of our board policies for um public uh record requests in one board policy this so this was a little bit easier to deal with um we are not going to propose any we don't propose any changes to the first paragraph um that is a reflection that's the first paragraph is a a truism is what
028the state of law is which is we recognize that there's a state policy that provides broad public access to District records um and Public Access shall not be given to records that are Exempted uh or required to kept confidential by state or federal law uh the next paragraph which we are proposing to add um uh is going to be is a codification of both What U what we believe should guide District public records um responses which is that uh we should do them as quickly and efficiently as possible uh the the school district is a public public entity we have obligations to the public and we need to produce records as expeditiously as we can and so that's reflected in the first maybe I'll just maybe I'll read through this and then we'll go through
029that's a better way to go about so it is the policy of the anchor School District to provide the fullest and most rapid public access to District records and information so that the right of the people to remain informed is protected the district shall consistent with the orderly conduct of District business make a good faith effort good faith and diligent effort to provide a rapid and intelligible response to any public records request within a reasonable time period while protecting from disclosure records Exempted from Disclosure by federal state andal law there is no specific number of days from the date of the of a request in which the district must produce responsive dockings the time it takes for the district to complete a request and provide responsive records will vary depending on complexity of the request
030and any backlog of requests already pending at the district however within two business days of receiving a record request the district shall confirm in writing to the requestor that the district has received the request so that that proposal language does a few things we've we've seen the Administration has seen a lot of the people that repress records uh Target them at multiple entities and so they get used to uh getting records from say the state and the state has a certain timeline that they're supposed to uh the state agencies have a certain timeline that they're they're are required to produce records in that that timeline is 10 days that does not apply to the that does not apply to Municipal entities and it does not apply to the Anchor School District specifically um and that
031we believe should be put into board policy that so people understand that and so we don't get into this back and forth when we receive a public record request what we should be what we should not be arguing about is the the details of of how long we have to respond and when we need to get records out if the more of that that's in board policy the more of that we can put behind us and work on actually um providing the responsive materials um we recognize we believe the board should recognize and adopt a polic this language of the policy that says that we will work uh diligently and expeditiously within a reasonable time period to provide those records because that is what state law requires and um we T we the two day
032two business days uh language at the end um is is something that's both in the state statute and something that is important to do as to be a responsive public entity um that last line how within two business days of receiving a record request the district shall confirm in writings that a request that the district has received the request that's a that's a prudent thing to do because when we receive a request it's like sending an email and no one responds you don't know if they got we owe it to the public to let them know hey we got your request working on it um and that lets them know that we have received it so that's um that paragraph does a few things but it makes explicit uh specifically it makes explicit that there
033is no day day specific amount amount of days that we have to respond however we have an obligation to do a good faith and expeditious disclosure and um and it also explains to the public that the time it will take is based on practical concerns how many how many public records requests we have in the backlog how how big of a scope you youve requested requested six years of of Records they requested one month of record so the complexity of the request and also makes clear that we will uh that we the the Administration has an obligation to let the request two days that we received your request and are working it the bottom the bottom part of this and I work for a couple different school districts and just asn't as side the school
034board policies are always interested you know unlike statute they have you know a and then one two 3 under a and then B and one two three you know organiz that organized by topic and subject matter um policies are kind of they they kind of state thoughts As you move down so the reason I'm saying that is we are not wedded to any particular order that these proposed revisions go in there's there was uh there was not deep thought put into uh well this one should go for this one um any discussion like that so why this is at the end no reason other than it was a new area for the board policy and we thought that it should go at the end so this part makes clear when um this part if adopted
035by the board lets the public know and guides the administration on when it can charge uh for copying and um production costs um as I mentioned earlier we are uh Administration believes that for small targeted uh requests there should be no costs and that we should produce those without having any kind of cost passed on to the requester however um we and we are seeing um just in just in my time working on these we are seeing a vast broadening of these public records requests and they are becoming um extremely burdensome if you want to hear about some of those examples we could talk about that yeah I had a question I'm not a member of the commit but I do have a question so if somebody were to read this and say okay I've
036got five person hours this month I can ask a similar question next month for five hours and the month after that that's that's 60 hours of time over a year I just wonder if the district should be a little bit more defensive than 5 hours a month because somebody could say could create a a broad query and then strategically dice it up into smaller pieces over the course of the year which still takes 60 hours or more of Staff time which is expensive that's true um that's something that the the board should certainly consider would be I not um I have not seen well defer to Mike he sees more of these than I do but I have not seen someone do that kind of of um gamesmanship yet but um I will say there
037are people that will um do records requests and then from that records request do another and then from that one do another and then from that one do another and then from that one do another so they'll stack them up and continually do them um that does happen uh over time um many of those are very broad requests and so they end up being not just 5 hours but thousands of hours hundreds of hours and so um there are yes that absolutely does happen um what I'd be curious about Lee and I think um something we should look into is from a statute perspective I think the the five hours ties to the request and so that's that's a that would be a piece we would have to to to review that's that's right so
038I would be interested in knowing whether um there's a way to tie a limit to a person maybe on a calendar year basis I don't know or and that's if is that for one request total I me it's the production of record I don't know maybe I just I think I want a little bit more of a specific delineation of what can be offered to an individual to respond to their interest in a reasonable way but putting some boundaries y on it Beyond five hours a month which could be 60 hours a year yeah I think I think my my question was the state has a op a delay provision specific you know they give the notice they can delay for another 30 days or something like that I was thinking that relate to member
039lence quiry but no I don't think it because certain requires really based on the concept of a serial Rec request remember if I could go back to that quickly I will say that um limiting each request and and and it Bears on this discussion that nobody's saying that you can't do aad public record request you just have to chip in and and provide ASD is providing education to Alaska's you know anchorage's youth not supposed to be sitting there um spending a month trying to sort through five years of emails for I don't know what purpose um so um five limiting each request you're to happy to go back and look at that and see if there's a um if there's a way to make it more specific and typed each requester but I'll say that
040limiting every requestor every requesters free time for public records request to 60 hours a year being approved because we are working more hours than that on several several requests many and and you have to remember sort of in in in the law at the state level there isn't a reasonableness clause to um the request it doesn't say your request have to be reasonable in any way the reasonable sort of the piece that makes things be able to be reasonable is the dollar amount that you type in and so that's that's really sort of the the mechanism that we have to use to help people be reasonable and and we want to do that right we want to help folks Target their specific um Rec requests I end up uh I I end up handling most
041all of the email ones with the team and so I I literally reach out to folks on the phone and have long discussions with them about what are you what are you looking for how can we help you get that so that we can Target it down to a reasonable amount of records that gets them the information that they want but doesn't unload um 48,000 pages of information on them which is sort of um at the end of the day useless to everyone involved and so this really is an effort for us to try to help um have that conversation um especially if folks don't want to have that conversation how do we have this conversation to help you get what you're after would we need to add a provision um say the super felt
042like it was in the public interest to wave these or that's a very good idea I can think of I can think of several scenarios where that that may be appropriate so that would that's a that's probably a wise Priss to to include that the if the superintendent uh determines it's in the ASDS ASDS or the public interest in any circumstance um he or she can do so that would probably be wise Escape valve to have in there any other questions online anybody have questions hands raised um yeah personally I I see this that's beneficial I think it's remarkable that we haven't been tagged with massive requests from people that are just frustrated or irritated with us um I I'm inclined to vote Yes on this with the idea there a couple of ideas to
043modify it further and those modif modifications could be made in the future but um I I see no reason not to support this as it's presented today see a problem with it any other questions or comments seeing hearing none I'll put it to a vote all those in favor say I I any opposed shouldn't be since there only three people um that is passed and we're on to item three remember has joined oh thank you very again to the same pleas pleas go hand in hand I went back and looked um just just for some color here on on on the on the history of these proposed revisions I went back and looked at when we started looking at this and I I I don't have the exact day in month but it's the the
044first legal memorandum that that uh her I work for provided on this on the these issues uh was 2017 so we have been working for a for a while uh on these issues and um what's we've pushing this for a while Co interrupted that um but these these two issues are interrelated so we're about to go into email archiving um this is this is directly corresponds to the public records request because what we're seeing mostly for public records requests at least the ones I'm involved in Michael Mike handle Mike handles a lot by himself but uh the ones I'm involved in are for emails and um currently uh ASD is archiving every email sent to or from an asdk12.org email address uh dating back roughly 13 years back to it's actually pushing 14 I wrote
045this memo back in 2013 so it's pushing 14 years now um Mike could you could you give us a scope of how many emails are sent to and from before I start into this yeah so over that time period over that time period from 13 to now we average 400,000 a day um uh now many days we push over a billion a day and so just to put that into a little bit of context that might be relatable right um just first part maybe not we we we hold 304 terabytes worth of email at the data center that's duplicated so what does that look like um if if somebody were to request all of that email and we had to go through and redact it it would take 307 people their entire lifetime to look
046through it um it's it's 208 million hours of of work and if you were to sit down and have your your full job be watching Netflix movies um uh it would take you 137 work years of movies without a break to watch the amount of data that we store from um from our e Netflix only has 3600 movies online um and uh you're going to have to watch 201,000 of those so it's going to get a bit old after the first couple of years so that's sort of the magnitude of the amount of records that we have um uh in there that 2025 billion plus pages of of Records so you're saying everything older than 15 years is gone no there's still some stuff that's in there I mean there's there there's still because there
047are still people that were around longer than that that still have in their mailbox we don't Journal anything past that journal means that every email that comes in we take take a forensic copy of it that we could be used in court um uh that system didn't start until 13 years ago but there are people myself included that have worked here longer than that that still have email in their email boxes from before I didn't look at those numb so we've been journaling everything since yeah so this Capstone approach is there some computer program that leads out those yeah so we will generate um email policy IES that will um we already have all of this information in the system to make these decisions about so we will actually go in and create archiving policies
048is what they're called in in Microsoft system that says if uh you fall into this particular group of people you're retained for this amount of time if you fall into this group of people you're remain you're retained for this amount of time this people for this amount of time and it will be position aware so if we move positions if somebody moves from and you have to think about sort of some of these complexities they move from being a teacher or to a principal and then from a principal to an administrator and then a chief um those those those archival rules that fit for them will apply for the period of time that they are in that role so so if you are ever a superintendent under our proposal here um all of your email
049during that time frame your superintendent will be kept indefinitely if you're ever a school board member your time as a school board member would be kept indefinitely so that's how the the sort of physical mechanism or software mechanism Works how long sorry um Mr race how long are do we archive educator anybody who's contacting students parents our proposal is three years um uh and and we'll go through that as we go through the proposal it actually spells out the the retention schedule the reason I asked the reason I wanted everyone to have a the members and and everyone else to understand is we're dealing with a world of data here that is uh basically unimaginable um sitting out there in a server somewhere is maybe hundreds of millions of ASD emails we're paying for that
050and uh we're also having to search through year after year a million emails to poll public records requests that um has become so burn some that I think that for one of our requests you couldn't even do it um so this feeds in this this is this the reason we brought these together is because they're the email archiving implicates uh our responses to public records because so much time St so um we we'll jump back into the the Practical considerations but real quickly to go over the state of the law here we have an Alaska state statute that requires uh government entities uh state government entities and state agencies to um follow a there's a there's a big long Manual of of how to retain um how to retain records um the law specifically says
051that school districts must promote the principles of efficient record efficient records management that efficient word isn't doing a lot of work uh today for local public records kept in accordance with state law school district shall as far as practical follow the program established for management of State records and there's an important caveat in that section so it's as far as practical I work for some rural school districts I'll say ASDS record retention is head and shoulders of above what some of those uh districts are able to do that's a that's a matter of practicality these School some of these rural school districts don't have the capacity they don't have a Mike flanken Stein or a Jack Johnson um they they've got a superintendent who wears I call them the CEOs they do everything from uh
052fighting contractors on site or you know fighting um arguments with contractors uh for construction to uh contacting OSHA to doing all those things so state law recognizes that school districts are not like state agencies they have we are our main um purview is to is to educate the youth and so um our archiving um our archiving shall follow uh state record management policies as far as practical um that that's important so records um records that have to be archived is a little bit of a circular um definition frankly um every everything that um the definition what must be retained under the state model is essentially records that are uh that have archival value you shall archive records that have archival value there will be difference of opinions about what is an what is a record
053of archival value between different people um um but the main take away from the law is that state law requires us to F to follow as far as practical what state model retention schedule provides the state puts out a big booklet of of of different records and um how long they should be retained for um this model retention schedule does not have a section for emails uh which is very unfortunate um instead it's based on um what the substance of the email is so that becomes uh pretty difficult we provided some examples here so training program records they recommend you keep it for three years then destroy Insurance claim records risk management type things seven years and Destroy um risk factor evaluations four years and destroy the only time email is actually mentioned in the
054model retention schedule uh specifically where it's it actually says the word email is um in the transitory or miscellaneous uh administrative information and um that provision talks about transitory records how those need not be retained at all because they are essentially like water but you would 15 20 years ago they're the there're the conversations that youd have in the hallway hey how's how's your how's your wife doing uh do you want me to order you lunch uh do you want to um you want to walk down to this um in service meeting together you know things that you would 20 years ago walk across the hall and talk about we now send emails about so those are what transitory records are so when we looked into this issue of how to get this giant weight
055off of ASDS um the Department's back and ASD generally there's two ways to go about keeping email records there's we'll call it the um each person does it themselves method uh or there is uh what's called the Capstone approach the Capstone approach has been adopted by the National Archives as the modern efficient way of Records management Capstone approach requires reten attention of Records based on who's sending and receiving them um the the originator of the record as opposed to going on a record by record basis and determining which bucket it should fall into as far as three four seven two years we looked at those two different um approaches and all of us came to this I will say the team all of us came to the same conclusion which is the uh everybody on
056their own approach was not feasible teachers already have most of the employees at the Anor School District are teachers uh they send a lot of emails um we see them those emails popping up in our public records requests in response to subpoenas um teachers probably don't have the time to sit down every day and go through the 50-page model retention schedule categorize um which you know um which which category the email falls into uh so we looked at the Capone approach and the capson approach is what I I'll say all but the vast majority of of entities that are modernizing their record retention schedules and policies are adopting and like I said that that approach um archives records based on the originator and recipient of records and the higher up you go the longer records
057are retained um so we propose um to get rid of this um 304 terabytes of of emails dating back to 2010 uh the following we we we would ask the governance committee to pass out to pass this proposed board policy and have the full board consider adoption of a Capstone approach that Capstone approach uh has ASD Personnel falling into three categories the school board members and the superintendent you're on the hook forever you are the the board creates policy and the superintendent executes the policy I think there's a very good argument that there's um those records should be retained forever those have most value historically and current so that we thought permanent retention of of Records would be wise um for the Chiefs we will are helping the uh superintendent execute the board's policy six
058years and for all other employees three years the three-year Mark uh was was chosen um because of state law statute liation uh for tort matters it's two years for contracts it's three and um thought it was prudent to retain all emails at ASD for at least three years such that if we have any issue arise uh regarding a lawp or something like that we have three years of emails um completely also Factor you know practical considerations of parents you need to know things about their students history um do process complaints in this fed uh setting three years is a is a prudent amount of time to retain all years and uh or to retain all emails and um while that will still be a large large storage of archived emails it's a vast Improvement on
059what we have now which is everything always forever it Bears noting uh here that the our proposed new email retention uh is should have no effect on um it should not have any effect on what we're already doing for uh holes for legal claims so when um someone risk management receives notice from either principal or from a chief um superintendent uh risk management goes about saving records I've been personally involved in Saving the Vance emails things like that the record so um this email retention schedule which does not implicate risk Management's um uh procedures for um legal holds so that is the law and generally what our proposed revisions do walk through those red lines as well if that's helpful for folks 3580 red lines if you had Med question well I was going to
060say I have um suff like Community budget meeting that I am supposed to on to momentarily but I had one if I wanted to speak to this and I'm not a member of the committee so this would be um it's rare that my um prior background and School Board uh overlap but trained as a historian and um oh really yes so it's really exciting like I love that you're Nation the national archives in here that makes that makes so that said in the 1 2 3 4 five the fifth paragraph down where it says the board authorizes the destruction of Records having no legal or administrative value or historical interest I take Serious issue with the phrase or historical interest because historians are able to use archives in all sorts of wonderful and creative ways
061you could have some gungho graduate student working on relationships and mentoring among teachers who might find the ephemera of let's go out to lunch today actually a really valuable piece of information I making this up right now as I go along but telling you that there are there are academics who would find information of historical interest so I understand the fuer responsibility that I play right now as a member of the board and for that reason I would support retaining the phrase you know authorized to the destruction of Records having no le legal or administrative value but I would ask the committee to consider striking or historical interest um because I think that's a subjective uh designation yeah um and I did notice that the Seattle public schools actually has a trained archist as part
062of their staff on my first tour of the warehouse I was like oh there are the boxes of all the old records I thought it was very exciting there was an amazing podcast a few years ago uh from The New York Times called nice white parents that used like 60 years of New York City School uh archival Records so there's Great Value in the stuff um just don't call it no historical and I also think and I just just and I'm GNA St out um I think it's really great that Schoolboard member and superintendent um documentation produced materials will be saved indefinitely because anybody could look at say prior administrative perspectives on something like the Bas student allocation and see how that has or has not changed over time so I'm thinking about like everything
063as metadata basically so you can search for anything and if you wanted to know how administrators since the BSA was conceived have discussed it you could probably get a terabyte of information about that so anyways I think it's really exciting just somebody stri a word no historical interest 358 I will say as someone working in technology with the district back turn as a century I spent a lot of time talking to staff members trying to convince them that they needed the different email address for themselves because people in the 90s working for the district had an email address and then it started to become much more widespread in use so there's a lot of letters to mom there's medical information literally thousands of teachers and other staff members use their ASD email address for everything
064they did on email for years one of our I'm sure still I say is this stuff because it's all Google is this like indefinitely like obtainable through Google anyways like um it's not it's not Google this is all a Microsoft's exchange application and um uh and so no I mean when if we stop paying them then we will uh pull all of this information out of that system and move it into whatever the new system is or into an archival system one of the two but these are these so everything since we've been with Microsoft that could be found I mean are they storing all this stuff as well then so yes yeah it's redundant right yeah they multiple yeah actually multiple spots where they're at any other comments or questions yeah before say the
065amendment to strike historic um all those in favor say I I uh member Jacobs you have your hand up uh not regarding the amendment are we pass the amendment I believe there was another voice online that thought might be asking for the SP yes and not hearing it uh yes the amendment passes and we are back on the main motion yeah thank you Mr chair um how does the proposed retention schedule um for three years specifically for it seems like it covers most employees differ from the municipalities and if that was covered somewhere I apologize for missing it I do not know the municipality Anchorage is doing for its um uh email retention um Mike leckstein did talk to some maybe you could provide some color on what other school districts you've seen her yeah
066so I spent some time uh both looking at the states version of it um as we fall under their records um retention act and then I also went out to my peers at cgcs schools and asked them about um what they were doing on on on this front and U for the most part all of them asked if they could have copies of what we do once we get done because they're in a very similar boat to us and it's very burdensome and then I did find a couple of districts that have gone either way like with Capstone or with um everybody puts it in their own bucket everybody puts it in their own bucket has ended up uh at the district I talked to being um almost worthless because you could think about 10
067people on a single email chain um uh how they might classify it differently and so then when a request comes in well this person had it but that person didn't this person said it was this that person said it wasn't and uh then from uh uh a Capstone approach me uh I I did not uh put together a chart of what each of the groups used from a time period we instead looked at what we saw as law in Alaska and uh from our past uh both legal cases and public records requests that come up with a schedule that we thought was um brought enough to Encompass the large the largest amount of the types of requests that we get and covered the the legal aspects of the requests that we get from a um
068from a statute of limitations and that's how we determined this this schedule member sorry go ahead sorry Jacobs no I apologize I cut someone I do a followup but I I cut someone El please continue you have okay great um so I guess my followup to that is um you know I I did some some searching and the state seems to have retention schedules anywhere from 30 days to 22 months to 5 years for certain items um the municipal code has a requirement that a retention schedule be set but um didn't seem to have one readily available um or at least within quick reach anyway um I I feel like those pieces of information seem relevant um just for context if nothing else um so I guess I I'm hopeful we can get that information
069until we do I'm not sure that um I would want to move forward um but I I tend to like to see those contextual dots of data uh for reference um so that that would help me I think and so if we could re I guess my ask would be unless there's more information that can be read readily obtained very quickly here in the meeting my preference would be to continue the conversation here after knowing a bit more thank you um member Jacobs is that preference so strong that you would make a motion uh well I'm I'm interested in hearing how other um board members both on and off the committee feel if there's a I mean similar we we typically have these meetings fully staffed with board members so if there's a board member
070who wants to vote on this right away um the committee has a long-standing policy of not um getting in the way of the will of the majority of the board when that's been expressed and so if uh my opinion is a lone opinion then that's certainly fine um but I haven't heard too many folks way either way so thanks I think it's a fair request if if I could we could also provide you with that information in short order in board connect as well um so that you would have that um I don't want to speculate I did look at all of the munis um the way that they process their requests and they have a long schedule of um both how they charge individually for different types of records and um how much those
071things cost and so um I'm expecting they probably have something that mirrors that uh from an an email uh perspective but I'm not sure um that's certainly something we could reach out and get to them and get to you um uh by tomorrow yeah through the chair uh Mr Frankenstein thank you that that would be helpful um it just seems to be wise to to check with our city Partners as we try to mirror um policies that um both of our separate entities have um even thinking of the project labor agreements um as an example we try to mirror policies when it makes sense and uh for ours to deviate significantly from the cities something about that seems like it warrants further consideration if it does does um but I I don't know and I
072couldn't um find any additional information when I made a quick honest attempt to do so so that that would be that sounds good to me and appreciate the opportunity to speak Mr chair any other questions or comments um some I'm GNA ask the will the other two did you have some uh chair maybe maybe we should walk we walk do you want to walk through these changes real quick or does everyone come has anyone ever want to review them um I'm I'm comfortable with them M Jacobs do you want to go through them [Music] um the changes Mr chair yeah I've read the document um yeah my my primary question is regarding the information I've already raised okay um so my question to you member Donley is should we go ahead and pass this to
073the board uh with the possibility of working this out in a board meeting or do we wait and bring it back to another governance meeting and I would also ask um the administration is there any urgency to this speak to that yeah so uh the urgency for me is just um really a continued uh expense as we move forward and so um uh you know we've got a couple of sets of board meetings to get through um if if you were comfortable with with with us providing the information in in board connect tomorrow and then if you don't think that's enough or we need to get more we could um you know we could have it on the agenda as an item and we could always move it to uh the next meeting if we
074need to um I think there are options on that front to get you what you're after and still have plenty of of uh both notice and ability to to move it at the PO board but I I I yield to the you know the will will the board on the front two reads yeah two readings as well so some I'm going to ask member Jacobs and member Donley do you want to table this to another governance meeting or do you feel comfortable voting it to the board and then taking action there Mr chair if I might J yep um I guess my request as in turn is to ask those who are not on the committee for their thoughts if they're okay with having this added to a meeting agenda uh with additional information forthcoming
075or if they would feel more comfortable um and then kind of acting as a a conduit for that combined opinion thank you you know I kind of hate to see this policy being interpreted as cutting off an an existing request it might be appropriate to clarify in the policy it doesn't afflect any existing requests that were made under the existing you know current policy I would want somebody to feel they it it it's not so that do we have I'm guessing we probably do have pending request oh yes there always always yeah um and and just as a matter of practicality once the board if the board adopts these policies um then we have to do a bunch of internal um publication notification to people before we turn that on uh as well as um
076write the code to make all of this this happen and so we won't do that until the board has approved this so we'll do a bunch of pre-work hoping that things get um approved but we actually won't do all the communication to staff we won't we're going to provide them with some time to know that this is coming that sort of thing and so it's not going to be an immediate you're going to pass um a board policy and then it will all be in place um I'm comfortable putting forward the board I'll pause for a moment in case a Committee Member wants to table it m Grant um member Wilson oh uh member Wilson thank you I just wanted to say that I appreciate member Jacobs bringing up those points because I I think
077they're completely valid um in in what feels like a previous life u i was a records manager and so I understand the pain that you guys are going through literally um and the conversation about how to archive or to archive or you know that that that entire conversation about emails has been going on for for many many years um so I know this is not something that you guys have have come up with recently um I I at least I'm making that assumption that this conversation has been happening for many many years trying to figure out how to structure it so I appreciate the time that's gone into um the information that you provided but I I feel comfortable moving it forward to the board based on the the knowledge that if we don't have
078all of the questions answered that we want to um before the next board meeting or to have it on the agenda for the next board meeting that we would push it to the next to the following board meeting any other questions comments again I pause in case anyone wants to make a motion otherwise we'll put this to a vote um all those in favor of approving this to go to the board say I I I any oppos I um it is approved and sent home yes here hman and just just a reminder this um agenda item involves two revised proposed Revis policies the both the the archiving email retention board policy as well well as appropriate use of ASD email accounts 30 it includes 3580 and 35.3 anyone questions on either of them um that
079completes our agenda items is there any new business hearing a delightful silence um upcoming readings are listed on the bottom of the agenda entertain a motion to move to adjourn without objection we arej thank you