June 20, 2001; School District 834 (Stillwater)
6/20/2001 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 April 25, 2001, IPA received a letter dated April 23, 2001, from Mark Anfinson, an attorney representing the Stillwater Gazette. In his letter, Mr. Anfinson asked the Commissioner to issue an opinion regarding the newspaper's access to certain data that School District 834, Stillwater, maintains. IPA, on behalf of the Commissioner, wrote to Kathleen Macy, Superintendent of the District, in response to Mr. Anfinson's request. This letter, dated April 26, 2001, served to inform her of Mr. Anfinson's request and to ask her to provide support for the District's position. On May 7, 2001, IPA received comments, dated same, from Karen Kepple, attorney for the District. A summary of the facts as provided by Mr. Anfinson is as follows. Sometime around March 10, 2001, the editor of the Gazette requested data from the District. He previously had learned that the District had expelled two students and he asked for the following information about each student: age; grade level; sex; home town; race; and the act that led to the expulsion. The District responded, in part, in the following manner: [O]ne 10th grader was expelled for the balance of the 2000-2001 school year; and one 12th grader was expelled for one year. The only additional information we can provide is that both students violated the District 834 Discipline Policy regarding possession, use, or intent to sell dangerous drugs/controlled substances on school property. Any further information, such as more detailed demographic information, could reveal the identity of the students, which would violate state and federal laws. In his opinion request, Mr. Anfinson wrote: [W]e do not believe that the District's refusal to provide the additional information sought by [the Gazette] can be justified. Summary data as defined in Minn. Stat. section 13.02, subd. 19, are of course classified as public and [the Gazette] sought nothing but summary data.... [T]he Stillwater district has disclosed that the two students expelled were respectively in 10th and 12th grade. This district is one of the biggest in the state. There are several hundred students in each grade. To contend that by providing the age of the students expelled, their sex, their home town, or their race, the district would on any reasonable basis enable them to be identified is simply not plausible. Issue:In his request for an opinion, Mr. Anfinson asked the Commissioner to address the following issue:
Discussion:The data at issue in this opinion involve student expulsions. Generally speaking, pursuant to Minnesota Statutes, section 13.32, data about students are private; and the fact that a particular student had been expelled would be private. However, this does not necessarily mean that the District would be unable to provide data in response to a request. Pursuant to section 13.02, subdivision 19, summary data are accessible to the public. Further, Minnesota Rules, section 1205.0200, subpart 16, provides that summary data may include reports once all the data elements that could link the data to a specific individual have been removed. Minnesota Rules, section 1205.0700, provides additional guidance regarding summary data requests. The key, as the Commissioner discussed in Advisory Opinions 96-025 and 00-014, is that the District cannot release any data that identify a particular student. In response to the Gazette's request, the District released only the grade level of each student and that both students had violated that District's discipline policy regarding drugs/controlled substances. In her comments to the Commissioner, Ms. Kepple defended the District's position. She wrote: [T]he Department of Administration also recognized that [Chapter 13] precludes the release of private educational data, such as demographic data which would reveal the identity of an expelled student. [See Advisory Opinion 00-014]. In fact, in that opinion, the Department acknowledged, as does [the Gazette], that if the expelled student is a male Caucasian and is in grade 11, and the District has only one Caucasian student in grade 11, the District cannot release any combination of grade, gender, or race. This is precisely the case here. In both expulsions, each of the students is the only student of his/her gender, grade, or race living in their hometown. The School District would plainly be in violation of [Chapter 13] Section 13.32, Subd. 3, Minn. Stat. Section 13.02, Subd. 19, and Minn. Rules Section 1205.0200, Subpart 16, if it were to release the data requested by the Stillwater Gazette which would clearly identify the individuals who are the subject of the data. As discussed above, the District may release only those data that, in and of themselves or in combination, do not identify either of the expelled students. Ms. Kepple has asserted that a release of gender, hometown, race, and age would, in effect, identify each student. Therefore, the District may not release those data. That said, however, the Commissioner does have the following comments. First, given that the District has released the students' grade levels, it is not clear why a release of the age of each student would identify him/her. The Commissioner urges the District to reconsider its position on releasing this element of data, unless the situation is one in which one or both of the students is/are much older or younger than the average age for the 10th or 12th grade, and that this situation is unique to these students. Second, the District responded to the Gazette's request for the act that led to the expulsion by stating that both students violated the District 834 Discipline Policy regarding possession, use, or intent to sell dangerous drugs/controlled substances on school property. When a person makes a request for summary data, as did the Gazette, the entity is required to provide the data minus all the data elements that could link the data to a specific individual. Thus, if a report exists that provides more explicit detail about the act that each of the students committed, the District is obligated to provide that information after having removed all personal identifiers. Opinion:Based on the facts and information provided, my opinion on the issue that Mr. Anfinson raised is as follows:
Signed: David F. Fisher
Dated: June 20, 2001 |
Educational data
Summary data
Expulsion
Summary data
Combining data elements may uniquely identify an individual
