A San Diego County Superior Court judge has ordered a school district to pay $42,500 to an attorney whose client, a parent of a district pupil, was forced to sue the district for access to public records. Michael Robertson was declared the prevailing party in a lawsuit he filed to force the Del Mar Union School District to allow him to see emails sent between former District Superintendent James Peabody and former School Board President Comischell Rodriguez. The lawsuit caused the district to produce more than 1,000 pages of records which the district previously claimed did not exist. “Every citizen has the right to examine their local governments, including school districts, to see how they operate,” Robertson said. “But some public agencies don’t seem to understand that. They use public money to pay attorneys to help them hide their activities from the people they are supposed to serve. That is exactly what this school district did. They spent public money on attorneys to hide how they are spending our money,” Robertson said. Robertson sought the communications because of his suspicions beginning in 2010 that a school employee union was exerting improper influence and unlawfully using district resources to motivate parents to protest funding cuts proposed by the legislature, according to one observer. The District claimed that it searched for but could not locate the records Robertson asked to see. “The reason why . . . is because the district didn’t carefully look for emails,” said Mike Harris, an information technology expert Robertson hired to examine the methods the district used in its search. “The district searched only part of its computer system,” Harris said. “It is the same thing as looking for a letter that [...]
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Teachers, Test Scores and a Punished Publisher
Teachers, Test Scores and a Punished Publisher
What Gets Measured Gets Publicized? — If a k-12 public school district systematically tracks the average learning progress of each teacher’s class in terms of test scores, should that information be on the public record? The Los Angeles Times says yes, and is suing the city’s public school system for the data linked to each teacher’s name. But an interesting question of equity arises. No such metrics are even required to be gathered, much less released, for individual public college and university professors, or for at least equally important professionals in the criminal justice system—badged officers, prosecutors and judges, prison wardens and probation officers—or indeed of almost anyone else in government. How to Extinguish a Nosy Newspaper — What’s frivolous about a lawsuit to force release of emails that might confirm a tip that a school superintendent used public funds and resources to influence a bond election and a ballot race for the county superintendent of schools? Everything, said a judge in rural Glenn County between Sacramento and Redding: suing too soon and being too aggressive in a case in which thousands of emails (and attachments) were withheld without explanation or justification. But “frivolous” in this context is not just a basis for dismissal. It’s been used to warrant an order to the requester to pay the district more than $56,000 in attorney’s fees. The plaintiff, a nearly impoverished but gutsy newspaper publisher in a poor rural county who’s never really operated in the black, says if that order stands it will ruin him.
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Public Information Barriers Small and Large
Public Information Barriers Small and Large
CSU Nickels and Dimes Students for Email Copies A student editor at the Mustang Daily, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s campus newspaper, asked the CSU headquarters in Long Beach for a copy of an email sent by the system’s chancellor, Charles Reed, to all campus presidents, about faculty members’ politicking in class and Prop 30. CSU headquarters, after at first denying the request, citing university policy, then responded that sending him the email would cost 20 cents and he would have to pay first—by check. Punished for Asking Too Early, Too Hard and Too Long The City of Sebastopol, sued for public records showing what it knew and didn’t do about an unsafe street condition that left her an indigent paraplegic, convinced a court that her lawyer was oppressively zealous and that she should pay it more than $80,000 for asking for too much information from too many officials. The Willows Unified School District, sued for public records showing whether its superintendent improperly influenced the electoral process, convinced a court that the weekly newspaper editor who pushed for the information and got some but not much, was liable for $56,000 for pressing too early and too hard. Californians Aware has submitted friend-of-the-court briefs supporting both requesters against these misplaced fee orders punishing supposedly “frivolous” litigation.
UC Davis Free Speech Scholars: Blockade Others at Your Peril
Two highly regarded First Amendment scholars at the U.C. Davis Law School have provided some locally (and generally) needed reminders about the difference between blockading others’ passage from place to place and other exercises in civil disobedience, and activity such as picketing which informs without obstructing or interfering with others’ rights. The new article is summarized by William Creeley, legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, writing in The Moral Liberal.
D.A. Backs CalAware Complaint against School Board
The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office, based on a complaint submitted by Californians Aware, has warned a school district that using a generic and all-encompassing closed session notice on the school board’s meeting agenda violates the Brown Act.
Be True to Your School—or See Me in My Office
Seniors at La Jolla High School will no longer have to keep their comments about the school positive when they paint them on a campus bench dedicated to their expression. The principal’s ignoring of their speech rights cost the district $22K and change. Emily Summars reports for the Student Press Law Center.
Parent: Trustees' Fight to Keep Records Secret Cost $300K
A Northern California school district’s commitment to unlawful secrecy cost it an estimated $300,000 in attorney’s fees—most of it paid to two different law firms to unsuccessfully defend against a parent’s lawsuit to obtain access to his son’s pupil records, the parent says. Almost two years ago, Mike Harris asked the Roseville Joint Union High School District to show him records in connection with his son’s expulsion from the basketball team for having created a satirical video—off campus and on his own time—about adolescent drug use in the affluent Granite Bay community, and posting it on Youtube. The district showed him some, but not all the requested records. “They gave me what they said were my son’s complete official record but what they gave me was nowhere near the complete record. They claimed the electronic records and emails that they maintain and use on a daily basis were not official records and that they did not have to give them to me. They were wrong,” Harris says. When Harris’ efforts to persuade the school to let him see more of his son’s pupil records failed, he hired Paul Nicholas Boylan, an attorney specializing in records access law, to file a lawsuit to help him gain access to the withheld information. Last January Boylan commenced the court action arguing that the California Constitution, Education Code and Public Records Act gave Harris the right to view his son’s records and that the school district violated Harris’ rights as a parent when they decided to them secret. The district hired Trujillo & Vinson, a San Francisco Bay Area law firm, to defend against Harris’ lawsuit. “The District’s defense was vigorous,” Boylan says. “They did everything they could to [...]
Comment: UC's Occupiers Rekindle Free Speech Themes
The recent clashes between students and police at UC Berkeley and other public campuses in the state echo the struggle in and around Sproul Plaza almost 50 years ago, writes one who was involved there and then.