The Impact Of School Records On The Administration Of Senior Secondary Schools
[A CASE STUDY OF LORIN SOUTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF KWARA STATE]

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act  (HIPAA) also governs the release of non-student medical records. The student health center will release protected health information (PHI) to designees upon receipt of written authorization. Health records are records of the names of students who were ill and sent to local health center, school sick bays or the hospital for treatment. These records indicate the nature of the sickness and the treatment administered.
2.3.3    Disciplinary Records
    The family Educational Rights and privacy Act (FERPA) defines the records of a student engaged in a disciplinary process as private, information about the disciplinary process may only be shared with the student found responsible, his/her parents if a dependent, his/her academic college dean or adviser and school officials with a legitimate educational interest.
    An individual student’s disciplinary record is considered education record under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy (FERPA) as a result, these records are kept confidential in accordance with this law.
    Student organization disciplinary records are not considered on educational record with FERPA protections. Disciplinary records will be field in the student’s or student organization’s disciplinary file in the office of student conduct consisting of a statement of charges, summary of the information presented at the hearing, findings and sections of the administrative hearing officer or hearing body, records of appeals and rationale for the decision.
    Student disciplinary records are normally maintained in the Dean of students office for a period of seven years, after which the file records may be purged. Records may be maintained for a longer time at the discretion of the school except that the tape recording of any hearings may be destroyed one term/ semester following the exhaustion of all appeals.
    Individual student disciplinary recorded are confidential; nothing from them appears on a student’s academic transcript.    If the student is suspended or expelled, a notation will appear on the transcript that the student has been dropped due to disciplinary action and is not eligible to enroll. A disciplinary file is only one form of information maintained by the school related to student records.    The office of student conduct maintains a disciplinary record for every student found responsible for a violation of the school / university code of student conduct. This file is automatically destroyed ten years after the final resolution of the student case, unless the student was expelled. Records of expulsions are maintained permanently.
    Disciplinary records are kept to protect students from arbitrary punishment from teachers and to exonerate teachers from unwarranted criticisms by parents or students. In most cases, the head teacher approve of any disciplinary action before it is administered to a student or students. Records concerning the disciplinary action and its approval are documented for future reference.
2.4    Effect of Record in School Management
    The effect of school records keeping cannot be over emphasized. This is because record keeping in the school system acts as information bank through which data, record and events of school can be viewed by the school ministries, PTA members and school community in general.  In every social organization like educational institution, school records are very vital tool which can be kept in the school to provide useful information on both staff and student personnel administration.
    Specifically the effect of school records management can be expressed in the following categories:
2.4.1.     Authentic Source of Information
 The 21st Century is seen as the information age. Information about the school system is important to the government for financial planning and to study the nature and the structure of the school (Elele 1958), it is argued that if school records are properly kept, they serve as an information base from which the principal and staff can recall or retrieve stored information when needed. Therefore, records serves as accurate and authentic information regarding school activities.
2.4.2    Control of Information
 Record keeping helps teachers and students to excise control over the distributions, utilization, retention, storage and retrieval of information that concerned the operation of the school. Therefore, school record could be served as a good reference point of whoever intends to know the happening in the school management.
2.4.3    Useful Information of Person (Staff and Students)
 The term date (records) and information are used interchangeably but the two words have different meaning. Data have to undergo some processing before they become useful information, it therefore means that data are in form of raw materials that goes into the processing system after which, the useable information come out as the output. Hence data can be defined as a set of unorganized facts often representing quantities measure things (Ikpe 2000). Such things as the number of telephone cause, staff address, student’s grades and involvements are data items where as information is the data / records that has been processed in a way that is beneficial to the recipient.