Operating a school in the State of New Jersey is not an easy task. Apart from managing other administrative responsibilities to ensure the proper functioning of the school, the admin staff must also keep their documents, records, and paperwork well-organized and updated.

Schools that have more than 500 students find it very difficult to maintain and manage their archives, discard their old student and staff records, and declutter their office spaces because most of these documents contain information about the students, the staff, and the school.

Schools in New Jersey need the services of a secure shredding partner or on a monthly or quarterly basis as it could help them with the following:

Make the School Clutter-Free

Saving old assignments, publicity materials, educational resources, and other paperwork for years will only make the school unorganized, cluttered, and inefficient. Once the school’s administrative staff has taken the necessary measures to digitalize all the old records and save them on a database, all the other old and unneeded documents should be shredded, and the shredded paper waste should be sent for recycling.

Most often, things like student assignments, very old educational resources like worksheets, lesson notes, lesson planners, and publicity materials like old brochures, annual books, newsletters, notices, and posters pose minimal threat to the privacy of the school admin, staff, and students. However, people with sinister intentions can use documents as generic as these to cause harm to the school and to those who are connected to it. This is why just disposing of the old documents is not the best solution for decluttering your school. You must seek a secure shredding partner to ensure that all the copiable paperwork remains out of the reach of your competitors.

To Protect the Identity of Staff and Students

Old student and staff records such as the application forms and curriculum vitae hold personal and sensitive information about each staff member and student. These documents contain their name, address, date of birth, place of birth, information regarding family, such as their father’s and mother’s occupations, and even information regarding siblings.

In the wrong hands, this information could be just what they need to steal your identity, pretend to be you, and rob you of thousands of dollars. Moreover, after the student or staff member has left the school, there is no need to save their original application forms or CVs if the data has been backed up digitally and can be used to access old records.

Hence, to protect the identity and privacy of its staff and students, the schools should use a trusted paper shredding service to safely get rid of the records.

To Protect the School’s Reputation

Private as well as state-run schools form partnerships with many organizations, institutes of higher learning, and even businesses to promote, market, and sponsor the various events and activities that take place at the school. These companies and organizations may even be donating a certain amount to the school every year but for personal reasons, may choose not to declare these donations or other such charitable interventions.

However, for tax filing purposes, bank assessments, and other such financial audits, the school may be maintaining a record of these transactions or other non-monetary deals for the initial 5 to 10 years. But after this, the data becomes irrelevant.

Instead of just disposing of this data and chucking the files in the recyclable bins, the school must have these documents shredded. Document shredding of these irrelevant but confidential files will permanently erase the record, and the probability of these files getting into the wrong hands, especially the school’s competitors, will become almost zero. The school will never have to worry about the details of such donations or deals getting leaked and damaging the reputation of the businesses/ organizations as well as their own reputation.