Sometimes, the newspaper becomes the story.
In late October, Chris Robbins, a member of The Perspective staff, sought information from the school district regarding why certain websites were blocked.
After discovering inconsistencies in the process, as well as an apparent lack of a formal policy regarding appeals, Robbins filed a Freedom of Information request with the district in order to obtain documents and was slapped with an estimated bill of $8,806. That’s when news sources including The Detroit News, Student Press Law Center, The Detroit Free Press, ABC local Channel 7 News, The Canton Observer and others started to get interested.
FOIA law enables citizens to access public information from government bodies, including school districts.
Robbins filed the FOIA asking for documentation regarding procedures, meeting minutes, blocked and unblocked websites, emails from staff and faculty members regarding appeals and emails shared with the Teaching & Learning Department.
The original estimate came to $7,917.15 due to approximately 85 staff members’ emails that needed to be searched and evaluated. The charge was for $44.93 per hour, according to the estimated bill sent to Robbins on Wednesday, Nov. 11.
As FOIA law requires, the school must charge the hourly wage of the lowest-paid employee capable of acquiring the information. Appeals may be made if the charge is believed to be excessive.
Robbins responded to the $7,917.15 estimate on Nov. 20 with a request to have the cost waived by Superintendent Michael Meissen.
On Nov. 24, Nick Brandon, Director of Communications, responded with an itemized list with an increased estimate of $8,806, as the lowest paid employee was now going to be paid $49.95 per hour for 170 hours.
When The Perspective later interviewed Meissen regarding how the district operates, he said, “Things are done in an open and transparent manner. We have to make sure it’s governed by policy and the law.”
Brandon said if Robbins agreed to waive the request for staff and faculty emails concerning appeals to unblock websites, then the district would be willing to provide the remaining information free of charge.
After consulting with Frank LoMonte, Executive Director of the Student Press Law Center, Nancy Costello of Michigan State University’s First Amendment Law Clinic, Jeremy Steele, director of the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association, Jane Briggs-Bunting, head of the Michigan Coalition for Open Government and others, Robbins agreed to Brandon’s request to amend the FOIA to exclude the emails in question. On Nov. 30, Brandon responded to the amended request with the remaining documents.
A P-CCS administration statement said, “The FOIA requests is often not well-understood by those who have not previously used it, and it is understood that pupils may not be aware that Section 4 of the Act provides the structure for fees associated with producing records.”
The Perspective has indeed filed previous FOIAs and all First Amendment experts consulted said they considered the fee to be excessive.
Shortly after Brandon first asked that the FOIA be amended, he offered the editor-in-chief of The Perspective, Emmanuel Jones, an internship in the Communications Department. Subsequently, Jones stepped aside from his duties relating to the news story, due to a possible conflict of interest.
On Dec. 3, ABC local Channel 7 News stated in coverage of the FOIA story, “We’re a little curious ourselves, so we plan on submitting our own FOIA for that same information.”
FOIA: the Quest for Information
District Charges Big Bucks for Emails
By: Chris Robbins and Genevieve St. Jean
Sports Editor and News Editor
Blocked websites: Who Decides? And Why?
Who decides which websites are blocked from school devices and why?
Those are among the questions The Perspective sought to answer after students and staff returned to school in the fall and discovered that previously accessible websites had been blocked.
According to emails obtained through Perspective staff writer Chris Robbins’ FOIA request, it appears that Teaching & Learning Department members Kay Elaster, Carlos Lopez, Anthony Ruela and Elson Liu, who is also Director of Integrated Technology Systems, were directly involved with blocking and unblocking websites from Aug. 1-Nov. 2, with Elaster, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching & Learning, making the final call on teacher requests.
According to Liu, the district uses several web filter systems by an outside company. The Teaching & Learning and Technology Departments also receive requests from teachers and students to unblock websites, with the Technology Department handling most student requests.
When asked for a list of websites that the district currently blocks and the guidelines used for determining the blocks, Liu said, “The Teaching & Learning Department requested that social media services be blocked in general, except for the services used by the District’s Community Relations Department: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+.”
Liu added that he rarely unblocks websites, as most requests come from students who never respond with an educational reason as to why they need the site they request.
Elaster said that each website is looked at individually in case there is something that is deemed “controversial” by herself, Lopez and Ruela.
Elaster added, “We get some requests, but I wouldn’t say we get numerous requests.”
The Perspective staff counted 555 email requests from teachers and students between Sept. 2 and Nov. 20.
Approximately 58 were from teachers.
The Perspective staff was alerted to some sites with mature content unblocked, specifically the website DeviantArt, while other websites, such as Pinterest, remained blocked. Both DeviantArt and Pinterest are categorized as social media. According to the documents obtained in the FOIA, there were numerous requests to unblock Pinterest from art, design/yearbook and math teachers from all grade levels, as well as Plymouth principal Cheri Steckel and two middle school principals, all who spoke on behalf of obtaining Pinterest for their teachers.
For approximately two months those requests were repeatedly denied by Elaster.
One teacher’s appeal included: “Pinterest is my way of organizing my lesson plans! Art teachers/Visual teachers do not use a textbook, so many of our ideas come from collaboration. Pinterest has allowed art teachers to collaborate with teachers around the world.”
Elaster said in an email regarding Pinterest, “I’m concerned that these lessons are not aligned to standards. How does it align to what is being taught in the curriculum. Those are my concerns.”
Liu responded via email, “So you are correct - there is no way in Pinterest to align a lesson plan to any standards or benchmarks. But as a general purpose tool, it can be used in educationally appropriate ways. It can also be used in frivolous ways.”
Ruela’s solution was that “teachers can access Pinterest at home for planning purposes.”
