Governing body that dictates how private schools store student records

Steven,

There is information about record retention in Maine here:

Note that it may not apply to you as an independent school. I also don't see anything prohibiting a mix of digital and paper, which is something that's always going to happen in any transition process.

Also note that FERPA only applies to you if you accept federal DOE funds.

I attended a workshop several years ago called “Lawfully Managing Student Records Without Violating Privacy Rights” and the presenter early on acknowledged where I was from and said “of course, none of this officially applies to you, but it's a good guideline.” As a result, we have crafted a data retention policy that we believe is consistent with the requirements of Ohio but doesn't overpromise.

Why your academic folks still want to use paper for anything is a mystery to me; we haven't had paper files in 6 years, the file cabinets literally don't exist. When another school sends me a paper file, it goes into the copier/scanner and then the shredder - I wish people would just email records every time. Admissions was later than us on converting to digital and kept paper contracts and physical admission files going until perhaps 2-3 years ago. Accounts payable/finance is nearly converted over, so paper health records in the nurses' offices are perhaps the only remaining area in the school.

Dave