In Desperate Need of Sunshine
My quest for SLPS records.
In late 2020 I chose not to pursue a second term on the Board of Education (BOE) of the City of St. Louis, a decision fraught with the unknown. The catastrophic interruption of the pandemic was beginning to fade as the paralyzing possibility of government recovery funds loomed. Permanent school closures scratched at old scars, but directing the pain into long-range strategic planning with the city offered signs of hope.
Tackling so many complex policy decisions simultaneously was exhausting. I needed a break from the visibility, from my own public vulnerability. I wanted to build the knowledge and skills required to combat the self-purported experts of the education reform world. My trust in the democratic process, the hand-over-hand transfer of power over time, was a permission slip to leave so much work unfinished. I trusted progress would continue even as the decision-makers changed. I believed then, as I do now, that the school district belongs to us all, our responsibility to advance its mission shared.
We also share the responsibility to hold the district accountable when it veers off track. This is especially true since the return to elected governance was only five years ago. The relationship between the school district and the people it serves eroded under a decade-plus of appointed governance and the expansion of school choice. We must rebuild our collective understanding of what it truly means to have a public school district with a democratically-elected board.
We can’t do that without the cooperation of our elected officials. They hold the power to control the flow of information — a power that can be transparent, building trust or a power that stifles, only seeking to build more power.
Right now, I am in a Sunshine Law war with St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) over this very issue. Missouri Sunshine Law requires governmental bodies to maintain specific records, including meeting notices, agenda, and minutes. While posting minutes is optional, agenda and notice must be made publicly available at least 24-hours prior to a meeting. Minutes can be accessed by request, but many governmental bodies (including other school districts and some charter schools) voluntarily include them on their websites.
SLPS used to follow this practice, posting minutes of board meetings and work sessions on a regular basis. Currently, these websites are woefully out-of-date: regular meeting minutes haven’t been posted since March 2023 and work session minutes not since July 2022. Committee records are hit-or-miss, but the Real Estate Committee has not even posted an agenda since June 2023 or minutes since November 2022. This represents a significant departure from the previously regular monthly postings of each.
At first, I thought maybe the district needed a gentle reminder to get back on track, that maybe things fell through the cracks in the transition from a long-serving superintendent to an interim to a new permanent superintendent. Unfortunately, after more than two months of trying to access records that should be easy to obtain, I now conclude it is willful non-compliance.
On February 8, 2024 I sent the SLPS custodian of records the following request:
I have exchanged emails with SLPS representatives for more than two months now, and I still don’t have any of the documents I’ve requested. If I, someone with deep institutional knowledge of the school district and a strong understanding of the Sunshine Law, cannot obtain simple records then what chance do others have?
(The entire email exchange with SLPS follows this post along with pertinent explanations of Missouri Sunshine Law.)
Not only has my records request gone unfilled, but the BOE is still operating without transparency. Previously approved meeting minutes from 2022 and 2023 have not been posted to the website and the Board has not approved any meeting minutes since last fall. It is impossible to know what is going on with the real estate committee. Has it been on hiatus since last summer? Or has it been meeting in secret, without appropriate notification to the public? The BOE, district administrators, and legal counsel have all been repeatedly informed of this issue, yet it remains.
These records matter. They provide a real-time look into the decision-making process of the BOE, allowing members of the public to participate in the democratic process. Citizens can keep track of scheduled meetings, monitor the agenda for items of interest, attend when they desire, and communicate with their elected officials on important topics. This engagement is foundational to the trust between citizens and government. Transparency is protection against corruption, shining light into the shadows so that conflicts of interest have fewer places to hide.
School district records also serve a historical purpose. The St. Louis Public Library and the Missouri Historical Society house more than 150 years of SLPS records and archives, including decades of meeting notices, agendas, and minutes. These materials are freely accessible to all, allowing anyone with a question about the school district to seek answers. Through open and critical inspection of our past decisions we find ways to improve in the future. If our school district is not maintaining records of their actions now, it will be impossible for future generations to learn from this time period.
I’ve considered filing an official sunshine law complaint with the Missouri Attorney General’s office, the appropriate recourse for a situation like this. However, the Attorney General’s history of frivolous lawsuits, including those against area school districts, make it likely a complaint against SLPS would be used for his own personal political gain.
At a time when traditional public schools are under attack, the school district cannot afford to make these mistakes. This is a time to exemplify the value of democratically-run traditional public schools by reinforcing trust and transparency. The absence of these standards has been rightfully used as an attack against charter schools and their supporting education reform organizations. In fact, I’ve led that charge at least once. However, these standards of accountability apply to ALL publicly funded schools and SLPS is no exception. SLPS is currently suing a charter school for ignoring state law, so it is shameful they are content to ignore it themselves.
I love SLPS and I am heartbroken that an institution that I love so much is not holding itself to the highest of standards. While I could allow my love for the district to serve as an excuse to look the other way or to worry that my critique will be seen as an attack, I realize that my love for the district carries an immense responsibility. If those who love SLPS do not demand excellence, then the district remains vulnerable to those who seek to destroy it. Every flaw that goes uncorrected, every trendline that falls, every year that passes without improvement serve as fodder for our opportunistic adversaries. Our love for SLPS cannot be a cloak that covers the indefensible, instead it must be the force that pushes the district to be its very best.
The initial request for committee records.
By statute, the custodian of records must respond within three business days to either provide the records or give a timeframe for when they will be provided. By February 15, the fifth business day after my request, no one had responded. I emailed the full board.
Minutes later I got an update from the custodian of records. While it didn’t provide a fulfillment timeline, it was nice to get a response.
The government body is permitted time to compile records because, depending on the request, research may be required and/or new documents may need to be produced. For example, if I submit a request for enrollment trends over time the district would need to determine if there was an existing document with that information and if not, pull data from multiple sources to create it.
My request for notice, agenda, and minutes, however, is very straightforward. All three documents are required of every meeting of the board and its committees, so they should be easy to provide upon request. By February 21, the fourth day after the custodian of records confirmation of my request, I still had not received the records.
The next day I received a response with what would be the first of many excuses and deadlines.
Excuse 1: “A portion of the minutes will be available pending approval on March 14, 2024, after the next board meeting.”
Note: Committee meeting minutes are approved at committee meetings, not meetings of the full board.
Excuse 2: “Another portion of the records precedes Mrs. Henry’s tenure as the executive assistant to the board.”
Note: To the best of my recollection, Mrs. Henry began in March 2021, so only two months after the start of the time period covered by my request.
Later that day, I got an update claiming that the “extent and voluminous nature of the request” would require more time and included a fee for copying of 10 cents per page. It also linked back to the Board of Education website that was, and still is, out-of-date.
Deadline 1: March 15, 202
Governmental bodies are allowed to charge fees for record fulfillment and individuals are allowed to ask for them to be waived for good reason. I asked for associated fees to be waived since these records are both required by statute and were previously readily accessible for free on the district website. I responded with this justification, even citing examples of their non-compliance with Sunshine Law.
The next time I heard from the district was March 19, two business days past the deadline (March 15) they had provided earlier. There were no records, only new excuses and an exorbitant fee of more than $1,300.
Excuse 3: The district would need to search for the records, requiring staff be paid $40/hour for 32 hours of work.
Note: Sunshine Law does allow for staff to be paid for their time to fulfill a records request, but it must “billed at actual cost of employees that result in the lowest amount of charges for search and duplication time (Sunshine Law Book, page 9).” This means that they can only charge an amount valued at the lowest paid staff who can complete the request. Presumably, there is someone on district payroll who is paid less than $40/hour that is capable of locating records.
Excuse 4: Staff are not working full-time during Spring Break (March 18-22).
Note: The original date for fulfillment was March 15 which is prior to Spring Break.
Deadline 2: April 3, 2024
It seems someone realized the payment deadlines provided in the previous email had passed, so a correction email was sent later that same day.
By this point, my patience was running thin. To assign a fee of more than $1,300 to a simple request of records is to subvert the democratic process. That I even had to make this request in the first place demonstrates a lack of transparency and accountability to the public because the records should have already been posted.
In my response, I highlight some of the discrepancies in their explanations and directly ask, “Do these records exist?”
By April 2, with no response and my frustration growing, I opted to narrow the dates of my request to account for the alleged research time required to locate records that predate Mrs. Henry’s tenure. I again ask very directly, “Do these records exist?”
In response, I received a new deadline, a link to the outdated webpage (again), and a statement that all records would be provided for free.
Deadline 3: April 12, 2024
April 12 comes and goes with no records provided.
Friday morning (April 19) I received yet another excuse and deadline.
Excuse 5: “We are reviewing the meeting minutes in order to determine the status of the numerous properties discussed in closed meetings.”
Note: The Sunshine Law gives special permission to real estate matters, so SLPS is within its rights to redact information from these minutes before making them public. However, that does not excuse them for the missed deadlines as they’ve previously mentioned the need to review the documents before releasing them. In addition, the need to review the minutes should not impede the release of the agenda and notice which are required to be posted BEFORE the meeting takes place.
Deadline 4: May 3, 2024
These delays are inexcusable and demonstrate willful non-compliance with the Sunshine Law. I will continue pursuing the release of these documents and providing updates on this substack.