ELLIJAY, Ga – While the agenda wasn’t packed full at the first Gilmer County Board of Education meeting of the 2015 year there were still a couple of lingering questions that were answered that will directly effect the citizens of Gilmer County.

The meeting started off with superintendent of schools Jason Kouns inviting attorney Phil Hartley to address the board on the on-going conversation about the legality behind the archiving of emails. (To see the back story from where the conversation derived from read these stories: Where Are Superintendent Jason Kouns’ E-Mails?, 51 Million Reasons Kouns Should Release His Email, and Archiving a BOE Memebers Decision?)

Hartley made it very clear that, while there is nothing in Georgia state law that specifically pertains to emails being archived for open records, it’s not a matter of whether or not a document is in electronic format or in a printed/written format that determines if the item must be archived. Hartley said that it is a matter of the content of the message. If the email contains information that is required by law to be retained, then yes, the email must be archived.

After Hartley addressed whether or not emails had to be archived, he then moved into addressing the next question that board member Noreen Thomas asked; for the emails that do have to be archived, how long should Gilmer County keep them?

Seeing that Georgia has a 171 page Retention Schedule that lists everything that must be archived and for how long each item is to be kept, Hartley stated that different school systems use different time lengths to archive general emails.

“It’s really like a pendulum. Some schools delete their emails everyday (except the ones that must be archived according to the retention schedule) and then other schools never delete anything at all,”

said Hartley.

As of now, the board is still collaborating on how long they will keep emails and for what specific uses work emails will be used for.

With not much more on the agenda, Kouns moved quickly through the rest of the items until reaching the final discussion point, which was to calendar out the rest of the 2015 meetings for the school board.

The suggestion was made by the board to move the monthly workshop to the second Monday of each month and to have the regular meeting the following Thursday.

With all of the holidays that fall on Monday’s and Thursday’s the board said the week of the second Monday would cause less cancellation and rescheduling conflict.

Moving the meeting to the week of the second Monday wouldn’t be a problem except that the second Thursday of each month is the Gilmer County board of commissioners meeting. This in turn will cause overlap for many of the two meetings throughout the remainder of the year, therefore making it impossible for involved citizens to attend both of the meetings.

The board ultimately voted to move the workshops to the second Monday and the regular monthly meeting to the following Thursday.

Stay posted in the days to come for more information on how the school board will proceed with the archiving of emails.

See the full meeting video below: