Best Practice: changing a user's short name?

I administer the OS X Servers and user accounts at my school, where typically a few teachers will come back from the summer having gotten married and changed their names.
We use a standard for usernames of first letter of first name and last name, where Ann Smith is 'asmith' - when she goes and gets married and wants to be 'ajones' at the beginning of this year, what is the best way to go about this change?
Users have network homes, and IMAP email is on a separate server. Here is what I was thinking:
For the user's files, make a new user with their new username, 'ditto' the contents of the old username's home folder to the new username, and chown/chmod the new folder's contents to match the correct permissions.
For the user's mail, use SirAdmin to add ACL's to the old username's mail folders to be able to read them as the new username, have the new username set up their mail and copy the contents of the old username's mail to their new IMAP folder(s).
Does this make sense or is this far too complicated?
Do I just tell these users to log in using their old name and burn their essentials to a DVD and just worry about helping them with their emails?
Any and all suggestions would be appreciated -- thanks
BC

Hi Blair
These look like good methods to me and should work. You could consider creating a second short name - something suitable like their first name instead? Enable Mobile Account (PHD) for the affected users and log in using that short name. Their account should now be created locally as well.
If you have only a handful you could use a spare machine to do it with yourself? More on this later.
If you these users have IMAP accounts you could enable POP for them as well. As you/they log in to download from the server their current home folder their mail should be downloaded also.
What you have after that is effectively a back up of their home folders and mail kept locally on a client machine or a designated machine you decided to use. Delete their account, create the new long and short names, create the additional short name (exactly as it was before), log in with those details and upload the locally stored information back to the server. There should be no need to worry about permissions etc.
What you could do is send an email to the affected users outlining the steps they need to take to achieve what you want. Minimal effort with maximum gain.
When you are happy kill the mobile account option as well as deleting the additional short name. Send another mail advising they use the first short name for logging in. There'll be a little tidying up to do in deleting the locally created home folders but you can do this at your leisure using VNC.
I would have in place one of the other methods as well - just in case.
Tony

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Hi baobhanjex!
Here is a direct link that usually works, to the utility ChangeShortName by Dan Frakes.
Read all of the instructions carefully, and proceed cautiously, as an improper change can result in unwanted results.
Such as;
Return to Default Desktop, Apparent "Loss" of Home Directory
Mac OS X 10.3 Help: My home folder and desktop are different than before
Also, here is a KB Article on How to change user short name or home directory name.
ali b

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etresoft -- are you around??
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