Opinion
Opinion By: Jack Conway, Attorney General; Amye L. Bensenhaver, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
This matter having been presented to the Attorney General in an open records appeal, and the Attorney General being sufficiently advised, we find that the Martin County School District's denial of Mountain Citizen Editor Gary Ball's March 22, 2012, request for copies of "Itinerant Teacher sign-in sheets at each of the Title 1 schools from the beginning of the school year in 2009 to the present" and the "minutes of meetings concerning [each] school's Parent Compact Committee that formulates policies regarding parent involvement . . . [from the] beginning of the 2009 school year to the present" did not violate the Open Records Act. The district cannot produce records documenting compliance with Title 1 that it does not maintain. Nor can it produce itinerant teacher sign-in sheets insofar as itinerant teachers are not required to sign in and out on the sign-in sheets maintained at each of the schools identified in Mr. Ball's request. 1
In a response dated March 29, 2012, Martin County School District Superintendent Mark Blackburn advised Mr. Ball that "[t]here are no records that fit [his] request [for itinerant teach sign-in sheets] " and that "[t]here are no minutes [of Parent Compact Committee meetings] stored at the board's office or in storage at other places that the Superintendent is aware."
In supplemental correspondence directed to this office after Mr. Ball initiated his appeal, the district elaborated on these statements. The district explained that although the Kentucky Department of Education requires school districts to maintain "'documentation to substantiate' that the [parent compact committee] meetings occurred," minutes are not required. Relying on the Department's "2011-12 Title 1 Handbook, " the district noted that the "District Title 1 Parent Involvement Checklist" suggests that such documentation may "include agendas from parent meetings or trainings and comments from parents," but emphasized that the Department affords the districts "flexibility in setting policies for what documents are maintained to meet the Title 1 requirements," and that "the district does not have a policy of maintaining minutes of its Parent Involvement meetings . . . ." 2
With reference to Mr. Ball's request for itinerant teacher sign-in sheets, the district advised that a visit to each of the five schools confirmed that only one school had "anything remotely resembling a teacher sign-in sheet. " That sheet, the district observed, "was principally signed by teachers assigned to the school, and was used to account for their absences during school hours." The district thus characterized the documents as "a 'sign-out' sheet for assigned teachers, rather than a sign-in sheet for itinerant teachers. " In closing, the district reiterated that, as a matter of policy, it does not maintain itinerant teacher sign-in sheets.
Our review of the referenced handbook, and discussions with representatives of the Department of Education, confirm that neither requires minutes of parent compact committee meetings to document compliance with Title 1. As noted, the district asserts that minutes are not maintained of its parent involvement meetings. 3 We trust that the district maintains other documentation, such as agendas and sign-in sheets, that fulfills this requirement and that is accessible to Mr. Ball, but it cannot produce minutes documenting compliance with Title 1 that it does not maintain. 4 See 97-ORD-56 and authorities cited therein. Mr. Ball may, of course, submit an open records request to the district for documentation substantiating the occurrence of the parent compact committee meetings, or parent involvement meetings, that is referenced in the district's response and required by "2011-2012 Title 1 Handbook -- District Title 1 Parent Involvement Checklist" upon which the district relied.
The district also denies the existence of itinerant teacher sign-in sheets at each of the five schools identified in Mr. Ball's request. While each school's 703 KAR 5:140 Section 2(2) "report card, " which is available for inspection on the Department of Education's website, 5 confirms that visitors are required to sign in, itinerant teachers are apparently not required to do so. Our discussions with representatives of the Education Professional Standards Board disclose that many schools maintain a separate sign-in sheet for itinerant teachers, but those discussions again disclose that districts are afforded flexibility in setting policies relative to itinerant teacher accountability. Consistent with the analysis set forth above, the district cannot produce a record that it does not maintain and cannot be assigned error for its inability to do so. The Martin County School District did not violate the Open Records Act because it could not produce records maintained for the purpose of holding accountable itinerant teachers by documenting their arrival and departure from assigned schools.
A party aggrieved by this decision may appeal it by initiating action in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882. Pursuant to KRS 61.880(3), the Attorney General should be notified of any action in circuit court, but should not be named as a party in that action or in any subsequent proceeding.
Distributed to:
Gary BallMark BlackburnJohn R. Triplett
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 Those schools are identified as Inez Middle School, Warfield Middle School, Eden Elementary School, Warfield Elementary School, and Inez Elementary School. Each school's "report card, " mandated by 703 KAR 5:140 Section 2(2)(f)1, confirms that visitors are required to sign in. See https://applications.education.ky.gov/schoolreportcardarchive/default.a…. The retention period for these visitor sign-in lists or registers is one year. Public School District Records Retention Schedule Records, Series L4492.
2 The district does not indicate how it fulfills its duty to document these meetings. It contests Mr. Ball's assertion that his request for the minutes of the meetings encompassed meeting sign-in sheets and meeting dates, arguing that it had no duty to produce for inspection records that were never requested.
3 The phrase "parent compact committee meeting" and "parent involvement meeting" are used interchangeably by the parties. The latter phrase appears in the referenced handbook, but the district does not question Mr. Ball's use of the former phrase. We therefore assume they are one and the same.
4 Because this question is presented in the context of an open records appeal, we do not address the application of the open meetings requirement found at KRS 61.835 to the parent compact committee meetings . That statute requires every public agency, including committees established, created, and controlled by a public agency per KRS 61.805(2)(g), even if the role is purely advisory, to record minutes of every meeting and make those minutes available for public inspection.
5 See note 1, above.