Do you allow Student Leavers to retain access to email accounts?

[fiza]

After Y13 students leave in June we normally leave their G Suite accounts active until Oct half term to give them enough time to get what they need.

It is now the end of November and we are getting requests from ex-students to allow them access to their old email accounts because there is something in there that they MUST have access to otherwise the world will end.

 

What are your policies on this?

[FragglePete]

I usually disable all leaver accounts at the end of the Summer Vacation. I then don't delete the accounts until around Easter time. I too, have had requests from Yr13 students that used their school e-mails for their UCAS applications so need access and I will open up the account on a case by case basis. My understanding is that it's down to licensing. Office 365 is available to current students of the school, not leavers so I would imagine you would be falling foul of that. But, that's me just guessing really.

 

Pete

[PlantHead]

Pretty similar.

We disable the account as soon as they pupil leaves school and delete them at the start of the Christmas holiday

If they ask before that date to access their disabled account we enable it for 24hours.

 

If they aren't a member of the school they shouldn't be using a school account. If they did something malicious using their email account after having left I'm not sure how happy the school would be.

[FishCustard]

I agree that a policy of disabling at the end of the summer, deleting next Easter is entirely sensible.

 

Surely a Year 12/13 student applying to universities would have a non-school email account (they'd be 17/18 so old enough to have their own I think!) and be smart enough to use that rather than one linked to an institution they're imminently leaving?

 

Might be worth having a word with your Sixth Form team and get them to remind students of this - they're gonna need a "proper" email account for other life admin, so might as well get one! Can even link it to an e-Safety PSHE lesson.

[MYK-IT]

https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/manage-graduating-student-licenses-and-content-in-office-365-education-ba3142c7-fa7d-46d2-9efd-f1ee751cd400

 

The Exchange Online (Plan 1) for alumni is available for free, via the Office365 Admin Centre portal > Billing > Purchase Services

[E_G_R2]

I agree that a policy of disabling at the end of the summer, deleting next Easter is entirely sensible.

 

Surely a Year 12/13 student applying to universities would have a non-school email account (they'd be 17/18 so old enough to have their own I think!) and be smart enough to use that rather than one linked to an institution they're imminently leaving?

 

Might be worth having a word with your Sixth Form team and get them to remind students of this - they're gonna need a "proper" email account for other life admin, so might as well get one! Can even link it to an e-Safety PSHE lesson.

 

OMG if only!!!

 

We allow access up till half term (Oct) then disable them again. Finally delete accounts at Easter because you can bet your bottom dollar that some future highly paid professional will have forgotten about an important email or something. Not my decision I'd disable then let them request but our HOSF and Principle see it otherwise.

[3s-gtech]

I leave them open until around the October half term, when all but the latest uni courses start, so they've got all of their UCAS info to hand. They're then disabled until Easter, and deleted after that.

[IrritableTech]

https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/manage-graduating-student-licenses-and-content-in-office-365-education-ba3142c7-fa7d-46d2-9efd-f1ee751cd400

 

The Exchange Online (Plan 1) for alumni is available for free, via the Office365 Admin Centre portal > Billing > Purchase Services

 

Although we may be able to keep the accounts running, do we have the legal basis to hold (and possibly access) the data held on the account once the student has left, and what damage could be caused to the organisation through mis-use of that account?

 

We've had to cut off our alumni accounts recently when we revisited the subject. The biggest issue I think schools may have is students who use their school email for UCAS - especially in the event of deciding to take a gap year.

[MYK-IT]

No idea to be honest with you @IrritableTech ... we've not got any students on Office 365 email as we're still trying to get our head around the myriad of options / features in Office 365 in attempt to understand, configure, control, monitor and administrate what students may (or will) do once they have access to it! (e.g. email control/monitoring, denying creation of Teams, Groups, Sharepoint sites, sharing of files etc. etc.) Edited November 26, 2019 by MYK-IT

[ITGURU]

I disable year 11 accounts at the end of August, giving them time to access if for any reason unable to collect their results.

Their emails and user space are then backed up to external storage , encrypted, and stored for the relevant retention period just in case required.

[IrritableTech]

No idea to be honest with you @IrritableTech ... we've not got any students on Office 365 email as we're still trying to get our head around the myriad of options / features in Office 365 in attempt to understand, configure, control, monitor and administrate what students may (or will) do once they have access to it! (e.g. email control/monitoring, denying creation of Teams, Groups, Sharepoint sites, sharing of files etc. etc.)

 

It was a question for wider discussion to be honest - I just picked on your comment!

[Sylv3r]

Year 11 leavers who don't come back to our sixth form are deleted in the first week in September.

 

Sixth form leavers are all sent an e-mail before they leave to say the account will be available until the October half term before it has been removed.

[keyboards]

We had this the other day, a jobsworth SLT member panicking as the students still have access, pointed out it's common to give a weeks leeway espically for uni leavers, ie October. Tried explaining this that they may still need it, no ordered us to switch them all straight off.

 

In my eyes October half-term is a good yard stick, gives them a bit of time if they need something or if you do.

[sonofsanta]

Given that Microsoft give us, what, 1,000,000 student licences for O365 now, I no longer delete any accounts just in case. I disable them in October half term for data protection/security, having given plenty of warning: a lot of kids don't start uni until October and went through UCAS using their school account. We archive off their files to save space, but the account itself is doing no harm sitting there disabled, and we sometimes get requests to re-enable (because someone is taking a gap year and didn't tell us, usually). I'll probably need to start deleting some at +7 years for GDPR, but that's a few years away yet.

[hardtailstar]

We disable Year 11s at the end of July. They are told if they are not coming back in September to save work to usb/forward to personal emails before end of July.

 

We enable the accounts in September if staying on.

 

6th form leavers are the same but disabled and deleted about 6 months later.

 

If they want access to work/emails after they have left they have to come in and have a member of staff watch what they are up to.

[Ookami]

We suspend all the accounts for scheduled leavers on the first day back after the summer, They are retained for 1 year and access is by on site appointment. We may introduce the GSuite Takeaway transfer for Post 16 leavers to allow transfer of Gsuite data to a personal account subject to further testing. We can then reduce the retention period.

[CHiLL]

We use Salamander to manage our accounts, so when they're marked as leavers in AD, their accounts are automatically disabled and archived. We very rarely get requests to retrieve data for previous students.