Speak out: Should school board members be required to save their emails?

Last week, the Jeffco Public Schools board members learned they need to adopt a policy that governs how long they must keep their emails.

State law requires local bodies, like school boards and city councils, to develop such a policy. But the law stops short of saying for long those emails need to be kept. Jeffco school board attorney, Brad Miller, correctly pointed out the policy can “be as simple as ‘they are not required to be maintained.’”

Miller’s presentation to the board came two months after a Chalkbeat investigation that found inconsistencies among board members in how they manage their emails, which are public records.

That brings us to our question of week: Should school boards be required to keep electronic correspondence for a certain amount of time? If so, how long and why?  

Each week, we ask readers a question about a timely or timeless question about their experiences in education. Readers who want to share their opinions should leave a response in the comment section below, tweet us @ChalkbeatCO, send an email, or leave a comment on our Facebook wall. Every Friday we round up the responses. Here’s last week’s.