… and sending me inquiries I can’t hope to answer. Here’s a recent one:
My name is Michael Line I am on the school board in Barnum, MN. I have been read[ing] your blog. I have been trying to study whats going on with your board as a way to better understand the dynamics of my board.
I am a little confused about one thing that seems simple to me but must be more difficult than I suspect. Its in regard to you trying to get information from the school district. I see you have asked and they have not been forthcoming with said information. Under state law if you give a specific “Written” request to view the information at the school location they must present it to you within a specified time at no cost to you. They can be very selective and give “Exactly” what you ask for and nothing more so you may need to make several requests to get to what you really want but they cannot stop you from getting it. The only things they don’t have to give you are student records, employee info, and certain private contract information. Those exception however are probable available to you as a board member. That’s all based on state law regarding data privacy. If you want to go bigger you can do a federal freedom of information request then they would have to prove they need to keep it private.
To which I replied:
Mike,
I am not an expert about the details of getting public data. I simply understand that the spirit of the law is to make sure public data that is important to the making of sensible public policy is made available when requested.
I served an eight year term on the Duluth School Board from 1995 to 2003, At no time during those years did I feel that my requests for information were routinely denied. Sometimes I might ask for information that was out of reach, or had never been gathered or that was not put together the way I might want to see it. Sometimes it was prohibitively expensive to collect or it took a lot of time to collect.
I’ve not put in many requests for information myself since getting elected again but I have joined Art Johnston when he has requested things that seem obviously important like the $84 million in soft cost spending of the Red Plan. The rationale for denying this information seems to be based on the grounds that a majority of the Board would have to approve the request. I don’t know who it was that decided the majority of the Board could deny making public information available but that seems to be the case.
There are two remedies that I see for this. One, I could hire an attorney and go to court. 2. I could help elect a new school board that our administrators could not hide behind when faced with a request for information. I’ve decided that waiting two years for a new school board is easier. The election is just six months away now.
It makes no sense to me that public data would be shrouded in mystery but that seems to be the case in Duluth.
All the best,
Harry Welty
