FOIL Request for Records Related to Communications with American Academy of Pediatrics and Council on School Health (Scotia-glenville Central School District)

To Whom It May Concern:

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

I am seeking all records related to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Council on School Health (COSH), including any communications or correspondence between the school district and these organizations, or any other party that may have provided information to the district from these organizations.

To help identify responsive records, you can limit your time period to 1/1/2017 until the date of final response; also I request that you search for the following terms, which are focused on the American Academy of Pediatrics and its affiliated organizations:

"American Academy of Pediatrics"
"AAP"
"Council on School Health"
"COSH"
"pediatric"
"child health"
"school health"

Please include records of any type, including but not limited to emails, letters, memoranda, reports, meeting minutes, presentations, and any other records of communication or correspondence between the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Council on School Health, and the school district or any other party that may have provided information to the district from these organizations.

If no records are responsive to this request, please provide a certification of that fact pursuant to Public Officers Law §89(3), and inform me of the district's obligations under LGS-01 to retain records until any appeal has been resolved.

If any records are withheld, please provide an explanation of the legal basis for the withholding.

If my request is denied in whole or in part, please provide a written explanation of the reasons for the denial.

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

I appreciate your prompt response and the efforts of the IT department in extracting the emails within the scope of my request. I understand that the next step involves reviewing the emails for any personal or sensitive information that may need to be redacted.

However, I would like to clarify the regulations regarding the costs associated with a FOIL request. According to the New York State Public Officers Law §87(1)(b)(iii), an agency may charge a fee for copies of records, but not for the time spent redacting or reviewing them. This is further supported by the Committee on Open Government, which has consistently advised that an agency may not charge for the time involved in redacting electronic documents.

As such, while I acknowledge that there may be costs associated with copying the records onto a thumb drive, any costs associated with the time spent by your attorneys to review and redact information should not be passed on to the requester.

I also want to confirm, based on your email, that the IT department has successfully copied the records onto a medium that can be provided, which in this case is a thumb drive.

I look forward to your response and the provision of the requested records.