December 29, 2000; School District 625 (St. Paul)
12/29/2000 10:14:43 AM
This is an opinion of the Commissioner of Administration issued pursuant to section 13.072 of Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13 - the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act. It is based on the facts and information available to the Commissioner as described below.
Facts and Procedural History:For purposes of simplification, the information presented by the person who requested this opinion and the response from the government entity with which the person disagrees are presented in summary form. Copies of the complete submissions are on file at the offices of IPA and, except for any data classified as not public, are available for public access. On January 27, 2000, C. Elaine Dunbar sent a letter to Mary Jo Stump, principal of Capitol Hill Magnet School in St. Paul asking for the number and percentage of students by ethnicity and economic status for a number of different pools such as the Capitol Hill attendance area and the School District 625 (St. Paul). Ms. Dunbar requested the data on behalf of the Capitol Hill Recruitment Committee to help plan, administer, and monitor the committee's outreach efforts. On January 28, 2000, Ms. Dunbar sent an email to Ms. Stump that contained some of the same data requests along with some new ones. On May 23, 2000, Ms. Dunbar sent a follow up email to Steven Schellenberg of St. Paul again asking for the data requested in January. She also had a telephone conversation with Mr. Schellenberg on an unspecified date and was referred to a web page for district wide data and to Jill Cacy for the remainder of her request. On May 26, 2000, Ms. Dunbar sent an email to Ms. Cacy with same letter as contained in her January 28, 2000 email to Ms. Stump. On August 8, 2000, Ms. Dunbar sent a letter to Kris Peterson of St. Paul as a follow up to a conversation they had in late June, 2000. In this letter, Ms. Dunbar requests aggregate data about students who had attended a workshop and comparative data for similar students throughout the district. According to Ms. Dunbar, this request was referred to Ms. Stump, the Capitol Hill principal. Ms. Stump agreed to provide the data. On August 10, 2000, Ms. Dunbar asked for data about new 2000-2001 students by ethnicity and economic status. On October 13, 2000, Ms. Dunbar called Cindy Porter of St. Paul and received some information that related to 2000-2001 students over the phone. On October 25, 2000, Ms. Dunbar sent a request for an advisory opinion to the Commissioner of Administration. After discussions with staff of the Information Policy Division, the issue to be addressed by the Commissioner was clarified and the request was accepted on November 3, 2000. On November 13, 2000 a letter was sent to Dr. Patricia Harvey, the superintendent of St. Paul. The purpose of the letter was to inform Dr. Harvey of the request for an advisory opinion and to give St. Paul an opportunity to respond. On December 6, 2000, St. Paul provided its response through Assistant General Counsel Nancy L. Cameron. In the response, Ms. Cameron indicated that: (1) the request was not covered by the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act because Ms. Dunbar was acting on behalf of the school district as a member of the Recruitment Committee and the Act does not cover internal disseminations of data; (2) even if Ms. Dunbar's request was covered by the Act, she had not made an appropriate request for summary data and so St. Paul was not obligated to respond; (3) that some of the data did not exist; and (4) St. Paul had responded appropriately. Issue:In the request for an opinion, Ms. Dunbar asked the Commissioner to address the following issue:
Discussion:I. Is the request covered by Chapter 13? The resolution of the issue begins with a determination of the role Ms. Dunbar is playing in requesting the data. In the first request, Ms. Dunbar identifies herself as an agent of the Capitol Hill Recruitment Committee who works with St. Paul to recruit students to Capitol Hill Magnet School. St. Paul also identifies Ms. Dunbar as an agent in its response. Therefore, the two parties agree that Ms. Dunbar is acting on behalf of a school based committee. As a result, Ms. Dunbar is not making a public request for access to data held by St. Paul. As an agent of St. Paul, Ms. Dunbar is entitled to receive access to data according to Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13. Specifically, Minnesota Statutes, section 13.05, subdivisions 3 and 4 require that the responsible authority for St. Paul establish procedures for the collection, storage, use and dissemination of private data. Since Ms. Dunbar was requesting data that identified individual students and this data is classified as private according to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, 20 USC 1232g and Minnesota Statutes, section 13.32, St. Paul's responsible authority should have had procedures in place to respond to Ms. Dunbar's request. II. Was St. Paul's response appropriate? A delay from January to October in providing even some of the data requested does not comply with statute. In addition, it appears that St. Paul does not have any policies or procedures in place to help school employees respond to requests for data whether from an internal party or the public. The provisions of the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13, work best when all parties understand how requests will be handled. In fact, Minnesota Statutes, sections 13.03, subdivision 2 and 13.05, subdivision 8 require St. Paul to have procedures in place to appropriately handle requests for data. To assist government entities like St. Paul in developing these procedures, the Minnesota School Boards Association and the Department of Administration's Information Policy Analysis Division both have models that can be used. The Information Policy Analysis Division's model is available on the Web at www.ipad.state.mn.us. So how should St. Paul have responded to Ms. Dunbar's request? First, the request should have been forwarded to the responsible authority for review. The responsible authority is the St. Paul employee designated by the St. Paul School Board to be accountable for handling requests for data. See Minnesota Statutes, section 13.02, subdivision 16 and Minnesota Rules, section 1205.0200, subpart 14. In reviewing the request, the responsible authority should have determined whether Ms. Dunbar was eligible to received the requested data. As Ms. Dunbar is operating as an agent of St. Paul, there needed to be a determination of her legitimate educational interest in and work assignment that authorized her to receive the requested data. See 34 CFR section 99.31(a). Legitimate educational interest is a term that the St. Paul School Board should have defined for use in all types of situations where there is a need to determine when a person is authorized by their legitimate educational interest to have access to student records. The second determination that needed to be made was whether Ms. Dunbar's work assignment reasonably required access to the private data about students. Minnesota Rules, section 1205.0400, subpart 2. If, as a volunteer, it was reasonable for Ms. Dunbar to have access to the private data about students in order to recruit new students for Capitol Hill Magnet School, then St. Paul should have provided access. If Ms. Dunbar did not have a legitimate educational interest and a work assignment that permitted disclosure of student records, then the process for requesting and receiving summary data should have been explained. Although St. Paul's response makes an issue of the fact that Ms. Dunbar did not use the summary data process described in Minnesota Rules, section 1205.0700, it does not make sense that St. Paul would charge Ms. Dunbar for creating the data when they would be used to recruit students for a school operated by St. Paul. III. What happens if some of the data do not exist? If some of the requested data do not exist, then St. Paul should have so informed Ms. Dunbar. This information should have been provided as soon as possible after the request was received. In so informing Ms. Dunbar, St. Paul would also have had an opportunity to explain the way to make a summary data request or to explain why St. Paul was unable to produce the data at all. IV. Did St. Paul respond appropriately? In summary, Ms. Dunbar made a request that fell under the provisions of the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act because of her status as an agent for St. Paul. In its role as a responder to the request, St. Paul did an ineffective job of promptly and appropriately handling the request. St. Paul is encouraged to develop procedures to prevent this type of response to data requests in the future. Time lines for prompt responses to requests for data should be included in the procedures that are developed. Opinion:Based on the facts and information provided, my opinion on the issue raised by Ms. Dunbar is as follows:
Signed:
David F. Fisher
Dated: December 29, 2000 |
Copy costs
Existence of data
Response to data requests
Summary data
Work assignment reasonably requires access
Requestor must be informed
Appropriate response generally
Summary data (See also: Educational data - Summary data)
