Independence School District documents are public records. Why charge students $300?

Under Missouri’s Sunshine Law, the Independence School District has the legal right to charge reasonable fees for copies of public records.

But to bill student journalists more than $300 for information that should be readily available seems excessive. Especially when it comes to finding out information that’s crucial to their education: teacher turnover rates.

“High school students don’t have that kind of money,” said Eden Winkler, a journalist for William Chrisman High School’s Envoy student newspaper.

Envoy journalists wanted to know:

▪ The Independence Board of Education’s decisions to hire, fire, promote or discipline any Independence School District employees and administrators since 2020.

▪ The names, positions, salaries and lengths of service of all officers and employees of the Independence School District, by year, from 2020 to 2022.

▪ All records pertaining to speaker requests at school district board meetings over the last two years.

The latter request was aimed at trying to determine the number of people denied an opportunity to address the school board during its monthly meetings.

Superintendent Dale Herl has the final say of who is approved to speak, often rejecting to hear the slightest grievance against district policies and decisions. Speakers are asked to submit their statements prior to being placed on the agenda.

Herl once approved letting a woman spew hate against marginalized students in the district. When advocates for LGBTQ students wanted to speak before the school board, they were told thanks, but no thanks.

Winkler intends to write a piece on teacher shortages in the Independence School District, an important and timely issue. Educators are leaving the profession in droves — some willingly, others because of pressure from district officials or a climate of intolerance for marginalized individuals. Independence is no exception.

The information Winkler is seeking should be available through the Sunshine Law. The names, positions, salaries and lengths of service of a public employee in Independence or any other school district should be publicly available at minimal cost.

When Winkler learned the cost for the records — a small fortune, for her — she took action.

A GoFundMe campaign she organized to cover the unexpected expenditure has raised more than $400 since late May. She plans to pay the district for the records. The remaining amount will be available for Envoy staff to use for expenses related to future Sunshine Law requests.

She hopes it’s not too late to run a story on the teacher shortage this summer.

“It’s necessary for us to receive this information, not only so that we can write the story we need to write, but also so that Independence (residents) are aware of what is happening within their district,” Winkler wrote on the GoFundMe page.

“The cost and procedure we asked from the students is the same that the district uses for any entity making a Sunshine request,” a district spokesperson wrote in an email.

The district’s demand for financial compensation is consistent with all requests for information, district officials told us. The district took in nearly $20,000 in fees for Sunshine Law requests this academic year, according to officials.

Because of the amount of time it took to retrieve the requested information, the district is refusing to waive the fees, according to an email to Winkler from Annette Miller, the district’s custodian of records.

Under Missouri law, school districts can charge reasonable fees for public records, including the cost for lawyers to redact confidential information. But that doesn’t mean they have to. Independence school officials could easily negotiate with students to reduce the amount. Such discussions over cost are not uncommon.

School districts and local governments routinely use pricey legal fees to dissuade journalists and citizens from obtaining public information, advocates for open government argue.

School districts in states such as neighboring Iowa rarely charge their patrons for open records requests.

In Independence, student journalists have the right to know how many of their teachers are leaving the district. So do their parents and other concerned residents.

Acquiring that information shouldn’t cost hundreds of dollars. Transparency should be an overriding district priority.

This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 5:00 AM.