Don’t worry, you’re not alone.  It’s really an epidemic at this point.  Paper storage is an increasingly annoying, expensive, and inefficient way that many schools are still relying on when it comes to records management relating to current and former students. Having a poor records management process or system can lead to serious violations of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. These violations would almost certainly lead to a negative blemish on a district’s reputation that is sometimes impossible to recover from.

Reduce Storage Space and Save Time

Digital records management is not really a new concept.  For some ironic reason, most of the K-12 education industry is behind the other industries when it comes to record management.  By implementing a digital solution, you will not only be satisfying the FERPA and HIPAA compliance regulations that have been in place for many years, but you will also save precious real estate space, up to 20 square feet of space for each file cabinet you eliminate, and the time that is spent digging through years of paperwork trying to find something for John Smith from back in 1999. According to The Wharton Journal, it takes 8 times as long to file and locate paper records compared to digital records and an average of $120 in labor costs to locate a misfiled record.

Protection Against Lost Files and Natural Disasters

In addition to the simplicity, ease, and space savings, there is another seriously undervalued added benefit of digital records management.  Implementing a digital storage solution for your K-12 records will allow for backups!  Imagine there is a fire or some sort of natural disaster… or if you just plain lose a file.  If you’ve got a digital storage solution being backed up to another location on a regular basis, you never need to worry about losing a record again!  Backup and recovery of records can sometimes mean the difference between a compliance violation and not.  If you “lose” a record, it’s obvious you don’t have tight controls and you’re going to be in violation of the FERPA and HIPAA regulations, resulting in fines, audits, and a negative reputation for years to come.  Parents will not want to send their children to a facility found not to care enough about its students to provide the privacy expected and enforced by the government.

Reduce Your Environmental Impact

In addition to making your life of constant compliance vigilance much easier, digital school storage solutions are much more environmentally friendly.  You will be saving dozens to hundreds of trees over the next 30 years by going paperless when it comes to your K-12 records management. 

Access Control and Tracking Systems

Some of the side benefits of an electronic K-12 records management solution are what often get overlooked.  Digital solutions allow for documentation tracking.  Moves of files will be logged so that you can review who has been looking at what files and where they’ve placed them or whether they’ve been edited in some way. This not only complies with the government regulations but it actually can lead to catching something malicious before it compromises the compliance of your district.

The final piece to the successful compliance puzzle is the privacy factor.  If you’ve got your K-12 records managed in a digital solution like The YellowFolder Solution, only select users will ever be able to have access to the information.  Keep information organized, safe, and private to stay in compliance with The YellowFolder Solution today.