University of Texas Withholds Tax Docs, While Texas A&M Makes them Public

The University of Texas System, comprised of 15 academic and health campuses, is withholding its annual tax return filings pending a ruling of the Texas attorney general's office and an IRS audit of the system. In contrast, the Texas A&M University System says its tax return is a public record under state law, despite also being the focus of an IRS audit.

For more on these requests, click here.

Arkansas School District Hesitates to Provide Football Coach Evaluations

Through the Arkansas Freedom of Information law, the Paragould Daily Press is seeking personnel records and evaluations related to the suspension of several assistant high school football coaches after a November 2009 overnight trip for a playoff game, but The Greene County Tech School District says releasing the documents would violate the coaches' right to privacy.

Read more here.

Wyoming School District Refuses to Hand Over Salary Information

The Wyoming Tribune Eagle filed a lawsuit against Laramie County School District 1 for not complying with the newspaper's request for the names of employees and their salaries. The assistant superintendent for LCSD1 said he would be breaking a state law if he provided the information sought, referring to a statute that requires legal advertising of school district salaries by category.

Laramie County School District 2 complied with an identical request.

For more information, click here.

Urbana, Illinois School District Spent More Than $2.6 Million in Lawsuit Settlements

The Bloomington Pantagraph used the Freedom of Information Act to get details about settlements entered into by the Urbana, Illinois school district, finding the school district has spent more than $2.6 million settling claims of students who were taught by now-convicted child molester Jon White.

White is serving 60 years in prison for molesting nine girls at an Urbana school and two more in Normal.

For more, click here.

Illinois Legislators Move to Exempt Teacher Performance Records from Public Disclosure

Illinois legislators passed a bill exempting performance evaluations of teachers and school administrators from public disclosures. Lobbyists for the teachers' unions had urged the change to the sweeping overhaul to the state's FOIA enacted five months ago, contending that performance evaluations are private and their disclosure would interfere with the evaluation process. Open records advocates disagree, saying it's in the public interest to know whether teachers or school administrators are substandard in their performance.

Get more information here.

Contracts Obtained by FOIA Requests Show Football Coaches Rewarded for Performance, Not Academic, Successes

No surprise here. The San Francisco Chronicle obtained contracts from 70 public universities playing big-time football to see how "performance-based" bonuses compared to bonuses given to coaches for their players' academic achievement. On the whole, the paper found that the contracts are quite specific in the monetary rewards of winning on the field, but are much more vague when it comes to academic achievement bonuses.

For specifics on the contracts, including the coaches of University of Florida and UCLA, click here.

USA Today Investigation Shows Norovirus Sickened 7500 Children Since 1998

A USA Today investigation found that the norovirus is the most sickening food-borne illness for schoolchildren, and it is most often spread through improper food handling in cafeterias. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show that norovirus caused about 7,500 children to be sick from food-borne illness from 1998 to 2007 with more than 8,500 failing to have their kitchens inspected last year.

For more details, click here.

FOIA Request Reveals How a School Lunch Program Ordered Recalled Tainted Beef

The USA Today obtained through FOIA that raises questions regarding whether the government took adequate steps to ensure meat purchased for schoolchildren is safe. During a recall of ground beef products made at Beef Packers Inc. from June 5 to June 23, four orders were produced for the National School Lunch Program.

Get the full report here.

Tracing the Source of Food-Borne Illnesses in Schools

USA Today investigated government-run school lunch programs and found schools have virtually no way to know where all the food on any given lunch tray comes from because there are so many processors and distributors involved. Add to that no timely way to check the health and safety records of those companies supplying the food and a poor alert system for any problems found, and you've got a recipe for widespread food-borne illness outbreaks like the one that hit Racine, Wisconsin in October 2007 when 101 children became ill after eating tortillas served in the school lunch program.

Read all about it and get links to documents obtained by USA Today here.

Rating the Responsiveness of Florida School Districts

Non-profit Sunshine Review recently conducted its Back-to-School guide for parents regarding the responsiveness of the state's school systems.  Although they found some exceptional cases like Orange County Public Schools, it also found instances where the records were difficult to obtain either because of cryptic responses, expensive costs, and bureaucratic attitudes. 

Check out the details here. 

  

Judge temporarily halts release school employees home addresses

After Pennsylvania State Education Association's petition to exempt school district employees' home addresses from public records, a state appellate court judge issued a temporary halt and is expected to schedule a hearing, the AP reported. The state's revised Right-to-Know Law exempts the home addresses of judges, law enforcement officers and minors from public records. The state's largest teachers' union wants the same treatment for school employees.

A state appellate court judge has ordered a temporary halt to releasing school district employees' home addresses listed on records requests made under Pennsylvania's new Right-to-Know Law.

The order issued Tuesday by Commonwealth Court Senior Judge Rochelle Friedman was made in response to a petition brought late last week by the state's largest teachers' union.

Friedman was expected to schedule a hearing on the Pennsylvania State Education Association's request to permanently end the release of school employees' home addresses.

More here.

Kansas City School District won't release mold details

Kansas City School officials have said that mold was found at Knotts Elementary School but won't release the results of an air-quality study done at the school, the Kansas City Star reported. The teachers union has sued the district for the records. The district provided The Kansas City Star with some records but none that revealed the results of air-quality studies. The Sunshine Law request for air-quality reports on Knotts was denied, according to the district’s legal office, because “they constitute legal work product and are subject to the attorney-client privilege.”

The Kansas City School District has problems with mold and air contaminants, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year testing and cleaning some of its buildings.

But that’s not what frustrates teachers the most.

It’s how sparingly the district shares what it knows.

Teachers at Trailwoods Elementary School waited months before learning why their school was cleaned over the summer. And teachers at Knotts Elementary still don’t know the degree of air contamination that had them scrambling out of their school a week before classes started.

More here.

School travel expenses raise questions in Mich.

FOI at Work!
A Flint Journal review of Genesee County school system's receipts and expense records reveal that administrators and educators are staying at three- and four-star hotels while attending conferences in America's vacation meccas. An average of $16,000 was spent by the school districts in the past two and a half years to send school board members and superintendents on trips. Expenses charged to the district include $420 per night hotel accommodations and a $61 steak dinner (for one).

When local school leaders hit up resort hotels and dine in pricey restaurants, the tab adds up quickly -- and all at the taxpayers' expense.

A Flint Journal review of more than a thousand pages of receipts, check orders and expense forms revealed that the top brass in Genesee County's 22 public school districts have spent at least $365,000 on travel since July 2006.

For some districts, that figure includes airfare to vacation hot spots, fancy meals, car rentals and at least one alcoholic drink. It also includes board mileage reimbursement and fees for board certification classes at in-state conferences.

More here.

Mass. tells public school system it can't charge $14K for directory data

Cambridge Public Schools argued that it would cost $14,426.88 to compile directory information on its students. This did not even include reproduction costs for the copies of documents. Massachusetts Supervisor of Public Records has given the district 10 days to respond with a reasonable charge.

The state’s public records division ordered Cambridge Public Schools to nix its $14,000 charge for public information, saying the school district should be charging a reasonable rate for a complete list of students.

The Chronicle originally made the request in 2007 using the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act to gain access to a list of Cambridge Public School students that would be used for informational purposes, not for publication.

“You are hereby ordered to provide [the Chronicle] with a revised written, good faith estimate which reflects the actual costs of providing the names of the students whose parents have consented to release of ‘directory information,” Supervisor of Public Records Alan Cote wrote in a Feb. 12 letter.

More here.

So your kid's school is locked down, but they won't tell you?

That is basically how the Springfield School District in Missouri is interpreting new FERPA regulations. The district will report there is an emergency or lock down at an elementary or high school but will not identify which one, the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader reported. School resource officers have also been redacting not only student's personal information but also the date of the incident from their reports.

This week, the Springfield school district is expected to unveil new guidelines for how to release emergency information to the public.

The district changes are triggered by the U.S. Department of Education enactment of new regulations to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act .

Springfield school officials say the changes likely will mean less disclosure of incident or emergency information.

More here.

Texas newspaper says FERPA doesn't exempt test records from FOIA

Beaumont Enterprise, a Texas-based newspaper, has asked courts to order the Tekoa Academy of Accelerated Studies to release student test scores. The paper had requested reading and math scores of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills through an FOIA. The school argues that FERPA makes these records confidential, even though the scores requested are not tied to individual students.

A Southeast Texas newspaper has been trying to get student test scores from a Port Arthur school for almost a year, and has now asked the courts to step in and order the school to comply with its request.

Hearst Newspapers II LLC, doing business as the Beaumont Enterprise, has petitioned Jefferson County District Court Judge Donald Floyd for a writ of mandamus against Tekoa Academy of Accelerated Studies.

According to the petition filed Jan. 28, the school has not released student scores from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills which the paper requested under the Public Information Act.

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More here.

Salary studies are public, judge says

Salary studies used by the Radnor school board when it granted raises for administrators are public records, a Delaware County Court judge has ruled.

The decision by Robert C. Wright is the latest round in a dispute that began last year when former Radnor school board member Judy Sherry asked for the data.

In a sharp rebuke to the board, which contended that the documents were not public records, Wright, in a June 30 decision, also ordered the board to pay $26,070 for Sherry's attorneys' fees and $2,901 in other costs.

The board must pay, the judge said, because in withholding one salary study that was clearly covered by Pennsylvania's Right to Know Act, it "willfully or with wanton disregard deprived [Sherry] of access to a public record" and "asserted exemptions, exclusions or defenses that were not based on a reasonable interpretation of the law."

The Radnor School District, which has spent $13,258 for its own attorney's fees and costs with more yet to come, has asked Wright to reconsider both his verdict and awarding of the fees, saying he made several factual and legal errors.

The documents' release is on hold until the judge decides. The district can appeal his ruling.

Sherry, who has clashed with the Radnor board on many issues and has long pushed for open records, said the decision will encourage the public to get involved in district affairs.

"We want to be able to hold people accountable" for their actions, she said.

In May 2007, Sherry asked the Radnor board for a Pennsylvania School Boards Association analysis of administrator salaries and an in-house document outlining compensation for administrators in neighboring school districts. She also asked the board for the cost to the district of an unrelated court filing.

The board had recently signed a contract with district administrators and had given four administrators additional salary increases. "I wanted to see exactly what facts they considered when they reached their decision," Sherry said.

More here.

Kudos to the Memphis Schools Chancellor

Not everyday do I dole out praise -- but this is well earned!

Chancellor Walter Evans this morning ruled that records of all applicants for the recent vacancy for superintendent of the Memphis City Schools are public records and should be provided to The Commercial Appeal.

The chancellor’s ruling came after the newspaper filed suit against the school board which provided access only to records of the five semifinalists selected by Ray and Associates, the Iowa-based company hired by the board to conduct the search.

Evans said Ray and Associates was performing a governmental function as an agent for the Memphis City Schools in receiving “all applications” for superintendent and that all applications and correspondence must be made available for public inspection.

More here.

Watching Them, Watching US

An interesting access question posed by a father in Colorado:

Every day, about 6,000 children take a bus to and from school in Greeley. On most of those buses are video cameras capturing their actions. The tape gives the district a tool to determine what to do if inappropriate behavior occurs.

Parents, however, aren't allowed to review the tape, and that leaves Mike Moskalski outraged. After his son was involved in a physical altercation on a bus in April and received a 10-day suspension from the bus, he wanted to review the tape.

Moskalski said his son was defending himself and did not start the fight. The other student received the same punishment. He wanted to see the tape to make sure. But Greeley/Evans School District 6 officials told him no.

"This is not really fair," he said.

Citing a federal student privacy law, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, officials from Greeley-Evans School District 6 say they cannot release the footage from buses to the public.

District officials would not comment about any specific case.

District 6 began retrofitting buses with video cameras about seven years ago. About 80 percent of the district's buses are fitted with cameras, with a cost of about $1,200 for each vehicle.

"Bus safety is very important," said Wayne Eads, chief operations officer for District 6. "Cameras are a way to protect students, to monitor what happens."

He said to allow a parent to view any footage, the district would have to either get releases from the parents of the other children on the tape or digitally blur out their faces, both of which are not financially realistic.

"This is about protecting the child," Eads said.

But wait a minute...this is not really the sort of record protected by FERPA....and come to think of it, are there not school bus videos I have seen in any number of states made public by FOI?

Of course, if police are involved, that's another matter, like here. Or here.
Help! If you have examples, send them along!

The rest of this story here.

A Secret Search? Arguments Always the Same...

The Temple Daily Telegram in Texas filed a Freedom of Information Act request Thursday with the Temple school district to disclose the names of five candidates selected to be interviewed for the vacant superintendent position.

The Temple school board intends to select a sole finalist and hire that person 21 days later, as opposed to multiple finalists. While the law allows for a sole finalist, Carroll Wilson, Telegram managing editor, believes the intention of the law is to allow the community sufficient time to vet all five candidates being interviewed for superintendent.

“The Telegram has asked for the names because the public has a right to know who is being interviewed to become superintendent of schools,” Wilson said Thursday. “State law recognizes the public right by requiring school boards to name their finalists. It’s disingenuous of the school board to argue that the five people they intend to interview aren’t finalists simply because they’re not using the word ‘finalists’ to describe them. Common sense says, of course, they’re finalists.

“Particularly given the problems the school board has had in the past in the selection of and the retention of superintendents, this process should have been as transparent as possible. And now is the time for the board to live up to the letter and the spirit of the law by being as open as possible.”

School board president Steve Wright said the board is following the law and the confidentiality of the process helps bring in higher quality candidates.

“We are choosing to go with a sole finalist because we have concluded that we are doing a closed application process, to ensure the quality of the applicants we receive and protect the anonymity of the applicants,” Wright said. “Circumstances are such that those people that are actively working in districts and enjoy that experience do not wish to expose that they are applying for other jobs to their home districts.”

More here.