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Education records are some of the records that schools are required to keep archived for specified periods of time. When that period of time has elapsed, the school is free to destroy the records. It is crucial that schools take the steps necessary to ensure that the records being destroyed are destroyed in a way that keeps safe the confidential information of former students, as well as faculty members.

One way to get rid of unneeded papers is through mobile shredding. Houston schools and homeschool families might benefit from this type of shredding service. Mobile shredding trucks can handle 1,500 to 2,000 pounds of paper per hour, so this can be a short process for smaller jobs or a longer process for larger jobs.

Public and Private Schools

Public and private schools go through massive amounts of paper each year. If these schools tried to keep all of the paper that was used, those institutions would be overrun with paper. Since that isn’t feasible, public and private schools can use mobile shredding services to get rid of some of the paper.

Help the Environment

When you think of mobile shredding services, you shouldn’t think just of the protected documents that will be heading to the vehicle. Instead, you can shred all of the papers that your school uses. Not only is this helpful since you won’t have to try to personally dispose of all of that paper, but you can also help the environment.

Instead of sending large amounts of paper to a landfill to never be used again, papers that you have shredded with the mobile shredding service are sent off for recycling so that they can be used in a new form . Since what has been shredded is bundled into large bundles, the information on the pages is safe.

It might be possible for you to get the shredded paper back if your school needs it for projects, which could be helpful if students have arts and crafts projects, such as paper mache crafts. It is also helpful if your school is going to assemble care packages to ship to military members or other people since shredded paper is an excellent packing material.

Lower Storage Fees

Your school can save a lot of money in storage costs if you don’t have to rent a building or other place to keep documents that are no longer needed. If you are only using mobile shredding to get rid of documents that are past the date on which they must be kept by law, you can schedule an annual mobile shredding session so you can get rid of the documents that have aged out over the past 12 months.

If your school has moved toward digital records and is keeping digital files instead of paper files, you can schedule mobile shredding services at regular intervals to come and destroy the papers that have been scanned and saved digitally. This saves additional space and makes it easier to find paper documents that you need to keep in the original format.

Data destruction services can destroy the digital records when the time your school has to keep them is up. Even though you will have to keep copies of the digital records, these digital records take up less physical space than boxes upon boxes of actual paper documents.

Home Schools

Homeschool families can benefit from mobile shredding services. Just like traditional schools, homeschool families go through massive amounts of paper in a year. Keeping all of the paper isn’t always possible, especially for families with multiple children.

Mobile shredding services, which can come out monthly, annually, or on any schedule that meets your needs, can help you to get rid of any unnecessary papers. If there are multiple homeschool families in your area, you might be able to work out a shredding day on which all families bring their papers to have them shredded. This is a possible benefit that a homeschool co-op or partnership can look into for the homeschool families that are members.

Records to Keep

When you are going through records for homeschooling, you should carefully consider what you are going to keep. Texas doesn’t require you to keep any educational records, but keeping some records can be very useful. Teens who are in high school in a homeschool might need to keep records that could be necessary for college admission. This could include information that would be included on transcripts.

As is the case with traditional schools, you can always keep digital copies of records by scanning them. This might make it easier to put your hands on documents you need because you can just search on your computer instead of trying to go through file boxes.

Preparing for Mobile Shred Day

When mobile shred day arrives, the papers must be ready to go into the shredder. The shredding truck is self-contained, so it runs on its own power. The boxes that are brought to the shredding vehicle will be dumped into the shredder. You must remove anything that is hazardous from the papers. You can leave staples and rubber bands on the papers, but you need to remove anything else on the paper.

When the shredding is done, you will be responsible for the clean up. This includes picking up the boxes that were used to transport the papers to the mobile shredding truck.

 

Sources:

http://www.adeanet.org/adea/downloadcenter/NESIS/E-records-021065.pdf

http://www.thsc.org/homeschooling-in-texas/state-requirements/

Recordkeeping