Required Action: Standard Agency Email Signature

What is an email signature?
A signature is text that appears at the end of any email messages you send.

Why have a standard email signature?
For our clients, external partners and colleagues, we want a more formal sign-off that includes a staff’s full name and contact details. We want to avoid broadcasting information and/or quotes that might be personal or potentially controversial while using the Agency’s email accounts.

What should be included in the Agency’s standard email signature?
A staff employee should have no more than the following pieces of information.

Name
Title
Heartland Area Education Agency 11
Street Address
City, State Zip
Phone
Fax
Agency mission statement:

EXAMPLE
John Smith
Speech-Language Pathologist
Heartland Area Education Agency 11
602 Visions Parkway
Adel, IA 50003
Phone: (515) 993-4596 ext. 11111
Fax: (515) 993-4598

Heartland AEA Mission: To provide essential services and leadership, in partnership with families, schools and communities, that improve the learning outcomes and well being of all children and youth.

NOTE: You should use the title that Human Resources has assigned you and what appears on your contract for the 2011-2012 year. You may look up your current title in PeopleBox or contact Human Resources.

What about a confidentiality notice?
Notices of this type give people a false sense of security. As a public agency, every email we send on an agency computer and/or through our email server can be requested by members of the public. We would, of course, redact information that is covered by confidentiality laws, FERPA, etc., but that's the exception, rather than the rule. Merely saying an email is confidential does not make it so.