School district officials gave few answers to the many questions asked of them via a special education-related California Public Records Act Request filed by a district parent and trustee, saying they just don't have the documents handy.
In a response to the request submitted by Lisa Pampuch, a leader among special education parents, and Board of Education member Shelle Thomas, the district's attorney Tracy Tibbals writes, "The district has conducted a diligent search of all the categories of information that you list in your Public Records Act Request. After such a search, however, the district has determined that much of your request seeks information that is not contained in the records maintained by the district."
Pampuch and Thomas's request was for four school years' worth of information, starting with 2003-04 through 2006-07, revolving around special education settlements, complaints and legal fees.
The information Tibbals says the district doesn't have on hand includes how many special education students were enrolled in the school district from the 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07 school years. Tibbals also writes that the district doesn't have records compiling special education compliance complaints and the number of and amount spent on settlements relating to special education for the same years - although legal fee totals for 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07 are provided.
Tibbals directs Pampuch and Thomas to two Office of Administrative Hearings Web sites, oah.dgs.ca.gov and document.dgs.ca.gov/oah/seho, for information on special education settlements.
"As a taxpayer, I expect my district to be managed better," Pampuch said. "This information doesn't belong to them, it belongs to the taxpayers. They are caretakers of, not owners of, this information."
The response includes three documents that sort of reply to the request, but don't provide information on all four years requested and are without context.
The first is the October 2004 Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team's "Multi-year Projection and Special Education Review," which gives the number of special education students in the district for the 2003-04, 2002-03, 2001-02, 2000-01 school years. Pampuch and Thomas requested more recent information, starting with the 2003-04 school year and ending with the 2006-07 school year. For the 2003-04 school year, the district documented 1,063 special education students in the district, or 11.97 percent. Only 988 of those were served by the school district.
The second document provided is a 2006-07 non-public school placement report, which lists 10 students at various non-public schools in the district, with an unknown number of students on short-term assignments in non-public schools throughout that same year.
The third document provided is titled "Legal Fees Spec Ed 3 Yr Compar" for the 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07 fiscal years, with a subheading of "Psychological Services." According to this document, the district spent $2,896.10 on legal costs for special education in 2004-05, but that number spiked the following two fiscal years to $27,905.18 for 2005-06 and $64,716.68 for 2006-07.
What these numbers mean exactly aren't clear without explanation, but calls to Superintendent Alan Nishino and Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Michael Johnson, who oversees special education, were unanswered by press time. Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Jay Totter, who previously spoke with the Times about this request, directed the Times to district spokesman Dan Ehrler, who said he would try to get Johnson and Nishino to respond but that they were in meetings Tuesday and Wednesday.
California First Amendment Coalition Executive Director Peter Scheer said the school district is technically correct, but that it's "not supposed to be a game of hide the ball."
"Now what should happen is that the district and the requesters should sit down together and the requesters should describe what it is they would like to know and the district should tell them what records they should be requesting to get that information," Scheer said.
Scheer noted the act doesn't require an agency to put together a new record to reply to requesters, but the act doesn't forbid an agency from doing so either.
"Agencies do it all the time, either out of courtesy or because it takes less time to provide a new record rather than to search out the thousands of papers that contain within them the answers. It's discretionary," Scheer said.
The courtesy issue struck a cord with Thomas, who said the district's response was "inadequate."
"To me, it's bad manners, and you don't play that game. This is one of the reasons the Special Education Advisory Committee was formed," she said, referring to the committee of parents and district officials who work together on global issues surrounding special education. Pampuch was elected as an alternate parent representative to this committee in April.
Trustee Bart Fisher said he hoped district officials weren't feeling that since they answered the request, they're done.
"What does this tell us about improving (the district's communication)?" Fisher asked. "Parents who have children in special education already have additional burdens, we don't need to make their lives any harder. I would like to see the district have a good conversation with our special education parents through the committee."
While Fisher said most of the requests seemed reasonable, he acknowledged that since the request was made so formally then it was going to be handled in a formal, devil-in-the-details manner.
"It's like going on 'Jeopardy!' and being faulted for not answering in the form of a question," Fisher said.
The public records act says in its preamble that access to information is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in the state. Scheer pointed to Section 6253.1 of the act, which states, "...the public agency, in order to assist the member of the public make a focused and effective request that reasonably describes an identifiable record or records, shall do all of the following, to the extent reasonable under the circumstances: assist the member of the public to identify records and information that are responsive to the request or to the purpose of the request, if stated; describe the information technology and physical location in which the records exist (and) provide suggestions for overcoming any practical basis for denying access to the records or information sought."
Pampuch said she doesn't understand how district officials or the school board can operate properly without the information she and Thomas requested.
"I would be embarrassed to put out this response," Pampuch said. "The two possible explanations that I can come up with are that one, the district doesn't have the information, which is bad, or two, the district has the information but doesn't want to share it, which is also bad."
Natalie Everett
Natalie Everett Natalie Everett is the education and city reporter for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106, ext. 201, or neverett@morganhilltimes.com.
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