Millburn Board Of Education Sued For Denying OPRA Request

When does “being on the safe side” of student privacy issues turn into illegal hording of public information?

That’s the question that the Millburn Board of Education’s attorneys will tackle at an August 8 hearing in Essex County Superior Court, when they put forth their argument as to why the district has the right to deny a resident’s public records request.

The legal wrangling began with an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request filed by Somerset resident John Paff in March.

Paff - who serves as the chairman of the New Jersey Libertarian Party’s Open Government Advocacy Project – had filed an OPRA request for “each Individuals with Disabilities Education Act case that was filed against the Millburn school district on or after January 1, 2012.”

In late March, the board’s business administrator provided Paff with a redacted set of records which Paff claims was unnecessarily censored.

On his blog, Paff explained that his main concern involves the district’s refusal to provide the initials of students’ names in the documents.

“New Jersey’s administrative regulations state that in order to protect the identities of minors involved in special education litigation, the judge shall use initials rather than full names when referring to the child and the parent(s) or guardian,” he wrote.

“When I submit OPRA requests to local school boards for special education litigation documents, the school boards often redact the initials of both the minor and his or her parents or guardians. The school districts justify these redactions by pointing out that it is often easy, especially in small districts where everyone know their neighbors, to figure out a student’s identity from the initials. I accept this rationale.”

“Yet, when I submit an OPRA request to the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) for the same redacted records that I previously received from the school district, the OAL provides me with a version that leaves the student’s and parent’s initials unredacted. Thus, anyone can learn the initials of special education litigants simply by submitting his or her OPRA request to the OAL instead of the local school district.”

“School records custodians, being acutely aware of and sensitive to student privacy requirements, often overly-redact records, just to be on the safe side,” added Paff in a separate email to Patch. “Through this court case, as well as my Petition for Rulemaking to the Office of Administrative Law, I am seeking rules that will allow for maximum public disclosure of information while still respecting legitimate student privacy concerns.”

See court documents for the lawsuit online here.

Photo: John Paff

Send Millburn news tips and press releases to eric.kiefer@patch.com