About a year ago or so, I tried to obtain a copy of my dreaded “Permanent Record” from the public school districts that I attended.
They said that they are gone - destroyed years ago. I can get a high school transcript, though, but it only lists classes and grades - no information on how many detentions I got, no evaluations, no “sample” work, nothing.
I’ll never be able to bring back the date or year that I got a disciplinary penalty, or the rules section that I was “charged” under.
Does anyone have a copy of their permanent record? What’s on/in it?
The Permanent Record is your Cumulative File. It follows you from year to year and it’s how the teacher knows your IQ, performance on standardized tests, grades and teacher comments from previous years. Your school picture is in there for each year. It will also list any disciplinary action, such as suspension or expulsion, but detentions vary by school district - some keep track of them and some don’t. Some districts include a sample of the student’s writing or other work for each year. I believe it also has your Immunization Record, Emergency Contact information and address, but those might be in a separate file.
It’s considered confidential, kept under lock and key. Only a teacher, school counselor or other educational professional who is directly involved in your child’s education can look into it - they can’t just go rifling through the files for shits ‘n’ giggles.
Parents can request access to it, and, much like medical records, will generally only be allowed to look at it with a teacher or other school personnel present to help them “interpret” information therein, and not allowed to remove contents from the school premises. In most schools, you cannot demand immediate access to the file, but the school has some time period (usually 30-45 days) after the request to grant access.
The State Board of Education mandates how long such records must be kept, so it will vary by location. I believe Illinois sets it at 50 years after graduation, but I’m not certain of that. I don’t think any school keeps them on premises that long, but rather they send them to a warehouse location. Of course, warehouses have been known to burn, flood, or otherwise be destroyed.
At 17 I wasn’t evening allowed to look at my own record without one of my parent’s giving written permission (& I think one had to show up in person to). Then after I turned 18 I made an appointment with the guidence office to come in and look at it during a free period where one of the counselors sat down with me and explained everyhing. She also offered to make a copy of anything I wanted. It had one disciplinary report from high school, grades going back to kindergarten (same school district from K-12), immunization records, official school photos, every not put into my file by a teacher, a bunch of stuff related to my ADD from grade school, a copy of a written complained my mother filed against my 2nd grade teacher, school physical records (K,3,7, 11), annual height, weight, & hearing test data, emergency contact info, standardized test info, honor roll awards, overnight permission slips from HS, a photo copy of my passport, and finally copies of letters I had my mother write instructing the school no to release my info to military recruters and excusing me from the ASVAB (I was he only one in my grade not to take it. I was told all of this would be destroyed after 7 years and only my academic transcripts from HS would be retained indefinatly.
I was able to look at mine, without parent permission, once I turned 13. No one sat with me to explain it.
I read through it and found out that my mother had denied the school’s request to have me skip a grade. I also found out that the reason I had 2 years of speech therapy was because my dentist sent a letter to the school stating that my lisp was manageable (and it was - it only comes back when I get really tired or really pissed). I also found out the result of the IQ test I had when I was 11. There were a couple teacher notes about how I was very intelligent but not focused or dedicated to my work. There were a lot of notes about how helpful and friendly I was and there was one note from a teacher saying that I was helpful to the point of hurting myself (spending so much time helping classmates with their work but never doing my own).
I graduated in 1998. My guidance counselor was in the process of trimming it down when I stopped in to say hi, shortly after graduation. She gave me my birth certificate and said most of the stuff in it would be going to storage but that my grades, test scores, and immunization records would stay on site. As of August 2010, they still have all that stuff, which was helpful when I started college since my doctor no longer has my immunization records.
Yeah, I didn’t think of them much. When I went to college right out of high school, they didn’t ask for them. When I went back last year, it was a potential deal breaker if I couldn’t get them. Apparently MA laws about college students being immunized have changed. I contacted the doctor’s office I went to through most of school and the one I had most of my adult life and neither of them had them (though one had a couple titres that I had done a few years ago). As a last resort, I went to my high school and asked the main office receptionist if she had them. In less than 5 minutes, I was back in the car with my record in my hands.
