Nevada bill would limit state retention of student records, require redaction before archival

Sen. Angie Taylor (Senate District 15) opened the hearing on Senate Bill 445, saying the measure would tighten how the Nevada Department of Education handles longitudinal student records and protect pupils’ private information. "This bill is fairly simple. It aims to enhance the privacy and management of student data by providing clear guidelines for storage and dissemination at the state level," Taylor said during her presentation.

The bill would require the Nevada Department of Education (NDE) to transfer student data to an archive no later than one year after a student graduates or leaves Nevada’s public school system; NDE must redact personally identifiable information (PII) before the transfer, "not including the birth date of the pupil," and must destroy the archived data 10 years after the pupil turns 22. The sponsor and department staff told the committee the change is intended to preserve data useful for longitudinal analysis while reducing long-term privacy risk.

Supporters — including the Nevada State Education Association, the Nevada Association of School Superintendents and privacy advocates who spoke during public comment — described the bill as a needed first step and urged the committee to advance it. Dawn Ettcheverry, president of the Nevada State Education Association, said the association "stands in support of the bill." John Eppolito of Protect Nevada Children and other advocates warned that systems such as Infinite Campus contain detailed health, disciplinary and other records that could identify students if retained indefinitely.

NDE staff and the bill sponsor said districts retain local student records such as transcripts, and that the state archive is intended for anonymized, longitudinal research rather than day-to-day student services. Peter Zutz of the Department of Education’s Office of Assessment, Data and Accountability Management described the archive as supporting research and analysis: "Currently, what the department is required to do is to provide information on students for research and analysis while protecting their privacy. As stated by the senator, this data will be anonymized. In other words, the personal information, identifiable information referred to as PII of the students will be removed when it's stored." He added that the time period in the bill gives analysts sufficient time to use anonymized data for improving student outcomes.

Committee members asked practical questions about how deletion would be tracked if identifiers are redacted and whether retaining birth date alone would allow future deletion triggers. Taylor and department staff replied that districts would coordinate the timing of data transfers and that the archive is designed for trend analysis rather than individual records retrieval; district-level records would remain available for requests such as high school transcripts. Several public callers and witnesses also asked whether the bill would impede cross‑agency longitudinal tracking for higher-education or workforce research; the sponsor said district-level data and other provisions in related bills preserve the ability to track aggregate trends.

Opposition testimony was not recorded in the hearing transcript. Multiple witnesses characterized the bill as a practical balance between research needs and student privacy, while also urging further work — including future efforts to address the larger Infinite Campus system, which multiple speakers called out as holding noneducational and subjective entries. John Eppolito and other witnesses urged a broader review of Infinite Campus data practices in future sessions.

The hearing closed with the sponsor urging support; no formal vote or committee action on SB445 is recorded in the transcript.

The bill remains under consideration; committee discussion identified follow-up items for staff and the department, including clarifying operational roles for districts and the archive and confirming how redaction-plus-birthdate will be implemented.