FOIL: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion materials (East Greenbush Central School District)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the New York Freedom of Information Law, I hereby request the following records:

All materials and correspondence between the district Board of Education, district Administration, district Equity Committee or Office, Faculty, Staff, Third Party Contractors and Consultants related to the following terms, subjects or concepts between April 2021 to the date this request is fulfilled:

Race
Anti-racism
Racism
Equity
Culturally Responsive
Decolonize
Diversity
Implicit Bias
Intersectionality
Microaggression
Oppression
Patriarchy
People of Color
Privilege(d)
Safe Space
Social Justice
Tokenism
White Supremacy

This request shall also include any teachings of such curriculum mentioned above by any faculty employed within the school district, third party contractors, consultants or other third parties invited by the school or agents of the school.

This request shall also include any documents or materials accessed by the school district, but stored on third party service providers on behalf of the district, and links/references/credentials for access to such materials if present in emails or electronic systems or files stored in browser caches, cloud storage (i.e. Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc), or local hard drives managed by the district. This request shall also include non-school email and texting services used by the district, board, administration and faculty to conduct activities and business related to the school district (i.e. Gmail, Outlook, etc).

This request shall also include any training material or supplemental information provided to district staff, whether required or suggested.

Please keep in mind, pursuant to the Retention and Disposition Schedule for New York Local Government Records (LGS-01): Any record listed in the LGS-01 Schedule for which a Freedom of Information (FOIL) request has been received should not be destroyed until that request has been answered and until any potential appeal is made and resolved, even if the retention period of the record has passed.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 5 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Jackson Parker

District Superintendent Jeffrey Simons
29 Englewood Avenue
East Greenbush, New York 12061
SimonsJe@egesd.org
Phone: (518) 207-2500

Re: FOIL Appeal – Denial of Request for Records

Dear Records Appeal Officer:

I am writing to appeal the denial of my Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL”) request, which was received by the East Greenbush Central School District (the “District”) via email on March 6, 2023. In the denial letter, the district stated that my request for all materials and correspondence related to certain terms, subjects, or concepts from April 2021 to the date my request is fulfilled was denied because it did not reasonably describe the records sought and because it was overly broad.

First, I would like to clarify the scope of my request. I believe that my original request was as specific as possible and included all relevant keywords and personnel. However, if there are any additional keywords or phrases that could help narrow down the search, I would be happy to provide them.

Second, I would like to challenge the district's assertion that my request does not reasonably describe the records sought. While I understand that agencies are not required to engage in herculean efforts to locate records, they are required to make a reasonable effort. The Committee on Open Government has stated that whether a request reasonably describes the records sought may be dependent upon the terms of a request, as well as the nature of an agency's filing or record-keeping system. FOIL-AO-10737.

In this case, I believe that my request was specific enough to enable the District to locate the responsive documents. The district has the ability to search for records using keywords and should be able to narrow down the search by using the keywords I provided. I respectfully request that the District reconsider its denial and make a reasonable effort to locate the responsive documents.

Third, I would like to challenge the district's assertion that it cannot accommodate requests for records spanning from a past date to “the date the request is fulfilled.” FOIL does not specify a time frame for records requests, but it does require agencies to respond within a reasonable time. The Committee on Open Government has stated that the determination of whether an agency has responded within a reasonable time is fact-specific and depends on the nature of the request and the agency's workload.

In this case, I believe that my request falls within a reasonable time frame, as it covers a period of less than two years. I respectfully request that the District reconsider its denial and make a reasonable effort to search for the responsive documents.

Finally, I would like to request that the District provide a detailed explanation of why my request does not reasonably describe the records sought and why it cannot search for records spanning from a past date to the present.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to hearing from you soon.