This document discusses the issues and regulations that affect schools, school districts, and state education agencies in the release of personal information on their employees. It is not intended to provide legal guidelines, but rather to introduce the key concepts involved in protecting and managing information in staff records. By understanding the privacy issues surrounding staff records, agency or school officials may develop policies and procedures to protect employee privacy without conflicting with the public's need to know and its right to have access to government records. The text is divided into four chapters. Following an overview, chapter 2 discusses open government versus personal privacy. It presents guidelines that address trustee of records, public agency, public records, personnel files, personal privacy interests, and clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Chapter 3 examines access to and release of staff records and describes guidelines on providing internal access and use, managing the release outside an agency, evaluating a request, and documenting requests and release. The final chapter discusses the collection and maintenance of staff records and presents guidelines on types of data to collect, data maintenance, collecting and using unique identifiers, adding new information to records, licensure and certification data, and the disposal of data. (Contains a glossary.) (RJM)