Lehighton school board debates email redaction

Lehighton School District officials say the need to protect student and staff privacy is greater than the need to comply with a decision from the state’s open records office.

Meanwhile, the board’s most outspoken member says it’s a waste of money and they should give up the fight.

The school board voted 6-2 earlier this week to appeal a recent Office of Open Records decision ordering them to hand over unredacted copies of emails between school officials. The board had 30 days to appeal the office’s decision of Jan. 30.

The Office of Open Records decision was based on a right to know request from a Bucks County resident who makes YouTube videos and operates a website aimed at ending “strategic lawsuits against public participation.”

Simon Campbell requested all documentation from the district’s hiring of an outside law firm, King, Spry, Herman, Freund and Faul LLC, to handle issues with board member David F. Bradley.

The district handed over 4,000 documents but redacted information from 167 emails they said contained personal information which could expose the district to lawsuits.

Campbell appealed to the Office of Open Records on several grounds. OOR ordered that the district hand over the 167 emails, unredacted.

The district is appealing because it says the emails contain employee discipline, student information, IT security information, and information protected by attorney-client privilege.

Eric Filer, one of the board’s attorneys, said the district and Campbell both asked OOR to review the records before making its decision, and it declined.

“We’ve been asking them to hold the hearings because it would be a lot easier for us for us to bring the information to them, and they wouldn’t do it. This was literally the first time that both parties asked for a hearing, and they still didn’t do it,” he said.

Board President Larry Stern wondered out loud why a resident of Bucks County is insistent on getting the names of students and staff from Lehighton.

“I think the bigger question is why does Mr. Campbell want to know the names of our students, staff and whoever is contained in these emails. He can get the gist of what it is without knowing who it is,” Stern said.

Bradley repeatedly demanded that the board drop its appeal, and challenged any explanation from fellow board members. He said that the district will be “consuming dollars” by fighting OOR’s decision.

“There’s no reason to fight the state Office of Open Records. They’ve already reviewed it, checked what the law was and accepted it. The only way to prevent that is for this district to consume additional educational funds that it is not mandated nor required to do,” Bradley said.

Bradley himself has filed numerous right to know requests with the district. A split board voted 5-4 in November to hire KingSpry to deal with Bradley’s right to know requests. At the time, Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver said fulfilling Bradley’s requests had cost the district about $6,000 in 2018.

Two of Bradley’s requests ended up in Carbon County Court, but he dropped them in December.

Bradley said he dropped the suits because he feels the district’s attorneys are using the right to know law to enrich themselves.

“When I learned that to start a fight with someone over the right to know was used to pad the solicitor’s coffers with taxpayers’ funds, I withdrew those cases. Don’t think of it as winning,” he said.

District officials believe disclosing the information could end up costing the district more, in the form of lawsuits from staff and students for violating their privacy.

“So the money we’re spending on this is designed to protect the district from huge settlements from actions that I could file as an employee and a parent should the information be released,” assistant high school Principal David Hauser said.

Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court recently reminded agencies that they cannot violate individuals’ right to privacy in responding to right to know requests, unless their right to privacy is outweighed by the public benefit of having the information released.

Board member Rita Spinelli read a memo summarizing the Common Pleas court decision, which coincidentally came about because of another RTK request Campbell filed with the Governor’s Office of Administration.

The court reversed OOR’s decision, which granted Campbell’s request for a list showing the home counties of all employees in the Governor’s Office of Administration.

“In other words, why do you want to know, and is it more important than this person’s privacy,” Spinelli said.

Superintendent Cleaver addressed Bradley directly, saying he will always fight for students and staff’s right to privacy.

“This is fighting for the rights of our students and staff to keep their information private, which we will do at all costs, because it’s not your right, or anybody else’s right to see any student or private staff information,” Cleaver said.