There are other factors as well. Even when requesting school-to-school records transfers, I sometimes run into challenges that have nothing to do with will, such as paper records having to be disinterred from archives, often located in minimally accessible locations, like large, poorly-lit basements or attics. Or non-paper records (digitized or microfiched) requiring some kind of process to recover to paper form. Also, paper records requests may incur a printing cost, especially if one is requesting all school records. Requesting testing is sometimes an ambiguous request if one was never on a disabilities-related plan, since most testing records are attached to a special education file. Cognitive testing relevant to a GT classification question may be attached to special education, or it may be attached to some other department, with central department possibilities including guidance, curriculum & instruction, registration (especially for early records, such as kindergarten screening or early entrance to K or 1st evaluations) and pupil services. Or they may be attached to building-based departments. Occasionally, there is a dedicated advanced learner department that holds those records.
And then there's the scenario of records having inadvertently been destroyed by, say, a flooded basement. (This actually happened in a district I know.) Even in the absence of accident, most districts in the USA are not required to hold student records outside of the transcript/permanent record more than seven years after the projected date of graduation. (Transcripts usually have to be held in perpetuity, or for at least 50 years.) They do not actually have to make contact with you to destroy records. Only a good faith effort to notify students (e.g., at last known address, which would probably be one's parents' address, or through a generic public notice re: students in class of ---- year) is required.
You would think it would be more consistent and centralized than this, but it quite often is not.
