Spokane Public Schools handled 34 requests for public records in 2009. Two years later, that number was up to about 90.
Mark Anderson, associate superintendent of the district, handles the requests. He lays the blame for this sharp rise at the feet of one group of activists.
“They probably make up 70 percent of the time, I’d say,” Anderson says of the time needed to process requests made by Laurie Rogers, Breean Treffry and Paul LeCoq, three outspoken critics of the district. “The nature of the requests are getting more and more expansive.”
This dramatic increase has led the school board to seek a change in state law allowing the district to charge “reasonable costs” in order to locate and process these requests, costing the schools an estimated $70,000 every year. Currently, the schools charge 15 cents per page.
Earlier this year, the board approached Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, who agreed to champion the change in state law. But it was too late in the session. The bill is likely dead this year, but it could be revived next session.
Until then, the district will have to keep processing the increasing requests.
“When parents ask for records, we don’t even charge them.
And there’s been no abuse from media at all. It’s really about this small group of people,” says district spokeswoman Terren Roloff.
Some examples of the requests made by Rogers, who did not return several messages seeking comment:
- On Aug. 30, 2011, Rogers asked for “dollars spent on curricular materials” since 2007, broken down by subject and grade. She also asked “how much money was spent on calculators, computers, SMART boards, laptops, AVR vision, etc. for all grades, broken down by type and by grade.”
- On Aug. 24, 2011, she asked for the “program” for middle and high school math classes, including copies of “program guides for math for all grades.”
- Updating a previous request looking for communication between school board members and school board candidates, she wrote, “I had a thought this morning about my request. I might have narrowed these requests too much by adding the word ‘public’ in front of the word ‘correspondence.’ I’ll take out the word ‘public’ wherever it appears.”
In an interview last fall with The Inlander, Rogers said, “I do believe that, to some extent, this is what I have to do to get information. It’s not like I’m trying to be a problem. I always try to find information on my own first.”
Toby Nixon says Rogers isn’t to blame. The district is. “It’s an essential function for every agency to make their records available to the public for accountability purposes,” says Nixon, president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government.
“Allowing an hourly charge will create a perverse upsidedown incentive,” he says. “If they can charge by hour, they’ll maximize how many hours it takes.”
Anderson, the associate superintendent, says he knows the solution is imperfect.
“I don’t know if charging a reasonable cost is the way to go.
Maybe it’s limiting the amount of requests per month,” he says. “I don’t know the answer. But I do know our board preferred the reasonable costs. And that’s what we’re pursuing.”
Daniel Walters contributed to this report
Maybe Laurie could address this hypocrisy on her blog. Feb 17, 2012 | Reply to this comment
I appreciate anyone that makes an attempt at getting to the bottom of things with respect to the district, city, county, state, nation, or the world.
I am appalled at this "story"
The associate superintendent of the school district has made a point - in this story - of calling out private citizens for exercising their right to ask for public records. He is implying that these three people are “abusive” requesters
What is the point of Mark Anderson’s comments about these private citizens other than to intimidate, to slander their character in the community with language such as “abusive,” and to excuse the district’s abhorrent effort to effectively eliminate the Public Records Act in Washington State?
The strategy seems to be to get the focus on someone – anyone – and keep the focus off of the district.
The POINT of the story, however, seems to be INTIMIDATION - a warning to every citizen in Spokane:
File a Public Records Request to find out what Spokane Public Schools is doing, JUST ONE REQUEST, and we will label you abusive - and “out” you to the public as a money and time wasting kid hater.
This would be bad law. But, as long as the district can make it about a person (or persons, however unfairly, however illegitimate the claim that they are “abusive” requestors), AND so long as The Inlander and other local media play their assigned role in keeping citizens focused on a person – instead of on the issues that person brings to light – the issues will ever get aired.
The issue here, in this story, is NOT the schools – the issue is the people’s right to know everything about their schools.
“They” don’t want to discuss that. “They” want us to ignore the man behind the curtain – please focus on the person “they” choose to demonize. “Bad” people hold our attention longer than bad ideas – this media fact-of-life is what “they” are depending on here.
“And there’s been no abuse from the media at all. It’s really about this small group of people,” says district spokeswoman Terren Roloff.”
--- And with that statement; Rogers, Treffery and LeCoq have been publicly labeled as “abusive”. A big scarlet “A” for them, they become the “bad” people in this “story” and you are supposed to forget and ignore the bad law the district is attempting to shove down our throat…
Abusive – What is the definition of that word with respect to Public Records Requests? Has The Inlander submitted any Public Records Requests this last year? Was the number of Public Records Requests by The Inlander the same, or less, or more than the three citizens identified in this “story”? MUST have been less, right, since the media haven’t been labeled as “abusive”…
This story is pure tactical gameplay by the district, with the obvious assistance of The Inlander. No parent in Spokane will dare file a Public Records Request now – lest they be pilloried in the kangaroo court of local media.
We screamed for information from the government when Bush sent the nation to war based on the WMD gambit. We decried the government’s denial of Request for Records relative to that decision. Investigative news stories were printed about the neo-con conspiracy to get us into that war – we printed in bold headlines “BUSH LIED!”
We demanded information and records when local police killed Otto. We investigated the documents trail, the internal memos and records, and then the facts GLEANED FROM RECORDS were reported.
Public records laws are designed, by the people and for the people -even the poor people who will not be able to afford this abortion of legislation. Public Records law is there for us, especially for those who would like to see some sunshine reach the dark cellars of this district’s ivory towers.
I never really thought I’d see the day that a progressive newspaper would tacitly support any law that makes it more difficult for citizens to know what is being done by public officials. Shame on you.
Shame on Lisa Brown for supporting such a fascist end-run around public accountability.
And shame on Mark Anderson and Terren Roloff. Those two should be fired for what they’ve done here – an obvious attempt to place a chilling effect on the citizens who pay their salary.
Feb 17, 2012 | Reply to this comment
Perhaps the nature of the requests is getting more expansive as people come to believe that the deceptions and skullduggery of the district have become more expansive...
Here´s the story as we get it at the classroom level: (and yes, for those who have shown concern about my job security in other threads, I am taking precautions.)
An example of what Anderson describes as an "expansive" request might be the local citizen who requested public records in an effort to examine the legality of the 2009 bond and levy campaign by the district. Those records were apparently turned over to the Public Disclosure Commission, along with a complaint. The Public Disclosure Commission looked at them and decided that a formal investigation of Spokane Public Schools was warranted...
Perhaps, what Anderson didn’t want to say was that these Public Records Requests were:
- becoming more and more incriminating in their nature, becoming more and more troublesome
- becoming more and more likely to expose the pressure put on teachers to support the levy with time and effort
- more and more likely to show where the district was possibly crossing the line from "getting the facts out there" into full-bore collaboration on levy promotion, with the union leadership and local businesses that depend on those levy dollars
Perhaps.
From the trenches here, it seems possible that the request from Spokane Public Schools (and likely our union) to Senator Brown for help in limiting (read: shutting down) public access to public records came directly as a result of the Public Disclosure Commission launching an investigation of Spokane Public Schools based on Public Records collected via a citizen’s Public Records Request.
(We are told regularly that we should not air our laundry in public, that as far as the union and district are concerned - we should always remember that "What happens in Vegas - Stays in Vegas".)
So our district leadership and union leadership might have some egg on their face. What does the district do? It appears to me that they went to their local legislators and said "HELP! How do we make the Public Records Law so difficult and expensive that citizens won´t do this kind of thing to us?" And clearly, Senator Brown decided to help them out and sponsor legislation to do just that - put public records out of the public´s reach.
This city has excellent teachers, willing students, and mostly supportive parents. We also have education “leadership” and labor “leadership” making a very lucrative living with things just the way they are..
This paper should have been on the front lines of this story long ago, championing that citizen´s rights. Instead, you´ve besmirched what appear to be caring people - people who appear to be doing the hard work of standing up for the students, teachers and parents of this community.
Those of us who are trying to teach the next generation need more of these involved citizens, not fewer. Making people afraid to get involved, which this story and the district´s statements do, doesn’t help us get the job done.
Feb 18, 2012 | Reply to this comment
- nothing but crickets... Feb 21, 2012 | Reply to this comment
"In defense of public-records requesters" - located at:
http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/2012/04/in-defense-of-public-records-requesters.html
Laurie H. Rogers
"Betrayed: How the Education Establishment Has Betrayed America and What You Can Do about it"
http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com
wlroge@comcast.net
Apr 17, 2012 | Reply to this comment