What is the single most important change our schools need? We need to bring community input back into school decisions. This could not happen while the school board “gag order” was in place.
After a policy change in April 2023, the school board packet is now posted online prior to school board meetings:
This allows those watching the school board meeting to have access to the same documents the board members have. Without those documents it would be very difficult for community members to share input with board members before a vote. This was my top priority as a new board member (I joined the board in January 2023). The ABC news affiliate in Indianapolis (WRTV) interviewed me for a short news story about this policy change back in June 2023:
Between March 2022 and April 2023, the school board packet was not publicly available before school board meetings, but was posted several days after each meeting:
“Prior to a school board meeting, the school board packet shall be considered confidential and shall not be released” (old policy 0143.1).
Prior to March 2022, the school board’s policy was to never release the board meeting packet:
“Materials found in the School Board’s meeting packet shall be considered confidential and shall not be released without the School Board’s majority vote to do so” (old policy 0143).
How did we go from totally confidential all the way to posted online before each meeting?
A Journal and Courier article (March 2015) described how West Lafayette school leaders try to prevent access to public information. The article shares an example where the school corporation lawyer charged $5,500 in one instance to review 4 months of the school board packet as well as an audio recording of a public school board meeting. Why does the school board need to redact portions of an audio recording of a public school board meeting?
December 2020 – I began submitting an APRA request each month for the accounts payable report, which lists all school spending for the month. In other school districts (like TSC) the accounts payable report is made available to the public at the meeting when the school board is asked to approve it. In contrast, our school board only provided it through APRA requests with some of the information redacted. I posted the report each month to my website on the documents page.
February 2021 – I learned that the first three months of accounts payable reports were incomplete. Pages listing spending on construction accounts had been removed before the documents were provided to me. I re-requested those reports and clarified that I was requesting the entire document.
September 2021 – After 10 months of accounts payable reports posted to my website, the school board began posting it to the school district website on their own after each meeting. Rather than continuing to pay a lawyer to redact information, the central office staff just removes names of students before posting it. I no longer had to submit an APRA request each month.
December 2021 – I began submitting an APRA request for the complete school board packet each month. My requests in December 2021 and January 2022 were both denied. So, I filed a formal complaint with the Indiana Public Access Counselor. The school board paid a law firm to fight my request. The main argument in their dispute of my complaint is that there is no set of documents called the “board packet” and that I need to specifically request each document by name. This would be difficult to do given that school board policy prevents the disclosure of the names of the documents in the board packet.
February 2022 – The Indiana Public Access Counselor wrote in Mumford v. West Lafayette Community School Corp that the school corporation violated the access to public records act in denying my request for the school board packet: “to deny a request for a board packet from a public meeting in its entirety runs contrary to any reasonable interpretation of the access laws.” The access counselor also rebuked the school corporation’s law firm by writing that “doubling down on the denial by using specificity as a cudgel is quite outside the bounds of acceptable practice.” The Purdue Exponent and Dave Bangert wrote articles about this ruling. My subsequent request for the February school board packet was accepted and I received a pdf with several documents, though they didn’t include everything. After sending another request, they shared an additional document, but refused to share others claiming that they were “deliberative” and therefore not subject to disclosure. When I wrote back with questions about why they considered these documents deliberative, they responded by simply sending me those documents as well. I posted everything they provided to my website on the documents page organized by meeting and topic.
March 2022 – In response to the ruling, the school board revised policy 0143 to allow (but not require) administration staff to post the school board packet to the school corporation website after each meeting. This policy used to read: “materials found in the School Board’s meeting packet shall be considered confidential and shall not be released without the School Board’s majority vote to do so.” This was changed to: “Requests for materials found in the meeting packet shall be governed by Policy 8310 concerning Public Records.”
August 2022 – Community complaints about excessive spending on legal fees and the school board’s lawyer’s negative community interactions finally resulted in the school board selecting new legal representation. The previous lawyer charged the school district around $300,000 per year for about 20 hours of work per week (see November 2021, 7:19).
The school board needs to prioritize providing information and seeking input in order to bring the community back into the West Lafayette Community School Corporation.
Action Items:
- The school board meeting agenda for public meetings should be posted online several days before the meeting with zero redactions and the agenda should include a link to each document in the school board packet. The same packet that school board members receive is what should be posted for the public.
- School board policies that limit public access to information should be revised.
- The school board should adopt a practice of requiring two readings for policy revisions and other non-routine agenda items. This would allow public access to the relevant documents and give school board members one month to seek community input before voting.
- Every item being voted on should be discussed and board members should ask their questions in public, not behind closed doors.
- The school board website needs a “sign up for emails” button so that members of our community can opt-in to a list that emails them about every upcoming public meeting with a link to the agenda and each document in the school board packet.
Dacia Mumford 