A Whidbey school district allegedly inadequately handled a public records request late last year, a lawsuit claims.
The complaint, filed in Island County Superior Court on Feb. 5, comes at a time when the state legislature is attempting to reduce the burden of excessive public records requests on school districts.
Mark Daniels of Arizona alleges Oak Harbor Public Schools violated the Public Records Act when it did not satisfy his request for documentation summarizing incidents of student restraint and isolation over a five-year period until he submitted a second request.
Responding to Daniels’ initial request, the district explained it “does not maintain record of any such report that is submitted through the state portal,” offered individual incident reports instead and closed the request, the lawsuit states.
Daniels requested slightly different documentation the second time around. Specifically, he asked for “the final restraint and isolation data submitted to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the 2023-24 school year.”
Responding to Daniels’ second request, the district provided a spreadsheet “reflecting numerous restraint and isolation entries for the district.” That document, the district later explained, was downloaded from the OSPI’s website.
Daniels alleges the district either did not conduct an adequately thorough search for said documents, or withheld them completely, because public agencies must search “locations and systems reasonably likely to contain” responsive documents.
The Public Records Act, however, does not require government bodies to create documents or extend the search to other government entities. Oak Harbor Public Schools had no comment Monday evening as it had not yet been directly served.
According to court documents, Daniels is a journalist for Silent Warrior Advocacy, “an independent public-interest journalism project focused on law enforcement transparency and accountability.” Daniels did not respond to questions about the reason for his public records request as of Monday evening.
School districts often receive a high volume of public records requests which can be demanding and costly to respond to, according to an article from the Washington State Standard.
To ease the workload — while keeping districts compliant with the Public Records Act — state Rep. Skyler Rude introduced a bill addressing “frivolous, retaliatory or harassing” requests, the article states. The amended version of the bill “directs the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee to form a work group” to assess the issue’s impact exclusively on school districts.
The article states Rude’s bill had a hearing on Feb. 3 and passed the House State Government and Tribal Relations Committee the next day.
