MCPS Charging Parental Rights Group $18K to Fulfill Public Information Request

[Anonymous]

So much for MCPS transparency. This charge seems excessive:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/montgomery-county-public-schools-charges-parental-rights-group-18k-fulfill-public-records-request.amp

[Anonymous]

Why is MCPS charging 3 hours for an attorney in the General Counsel’s Office in regards to the Public Information Request?

[Anonymous]

The request was probably too broad. If it takes 440 hours they were probably requesting every document in the system to be viewed or scanned in some way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is MCPS charging 3 hours for an attorney in the General Counsel’s Office in regards to the Public Information Request?

Probably because private information needs to be redacted.

Good for MCPS, for charging for their wasted time

[Anonymous]

Wow… MCPS sucks. In govt, we usually charge about $15 to $20.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So much for MCPS transparency. This charge seems excessive:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/montgomery-county-public-schools-charges-parental-rights-group-18k-fulfill-public-records-request.amp

That charge says the group is requesting an enormous number of pages. Access to information doesn’t mean it is free to get copies.

[Anonymous]

So their request is so broad it will take someone almost three months of full time work to process it.

I’m glad MCPS are charging them $18k (and I am sure there is some right wing plutocrat willing to pay it- they probably only whined about it because they could complain about MCPS while fundraising off it at the same time)

These “parents rights” groups need to get the eff out of MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So much for MCPS transparency. This charge seems excessive:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/montgomery-county-public-schools-charges-parental-rights-group-18k-fulfill-public-records-request.amp

"Parental rights group" [sic]. More like the "It's intolerable for my child to be exposed to a book where a girl's uncle marries a man, even though my child has classmates with LGBTQ+ family members, and somehow that's not intolerable but a book is" group. Let's call them the anti-book group.

Now, does MCPS routinely use fees as a barrier for Public Information Act requests? Yes, they do. That is well known. On the other hand, we don't know what the anti-book group is asking for. If the anti-book group is asking for records where MCPS will have to do a lot of legal review because of the Public Information Act's exceptions to disclosure, then yes, it's perfectly valid for MCPS to charge for a lot of legal review. The Public Information Act provides options for the anti-book group:

1. Appeal the fee to the Public Information Act Compliance Board.
2. Ask the Public Information Act Ombudsperson to mediate.
3. Sue MCPS.

Or they can run to national Fox News. Which doesn't seem like a very effective strategy for a group that is trying to distance itself from the Christian supremacist hate group M4L, but they didn't ask for my advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So much for MCPS transparency. This charge seems excessive:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/montgomery-county-public-schools-charges-parental-rights-group-18k-fulfill-public-records-request.amp

Oh my god, the irony

“The parents argued the content in these books was a form of indoctrination that violated their families' religious beliefs.”

[Anonymous]

Gotta give MCPS credit. They are fantastic at creatively using bureaucracy to dodge accountability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gotta give MCPS credit. They are fantastic at creatively using bureaucracy to dodge accountability.

But I don't think that, in this case, "accountability" is the issue.

[Anonymous]

This is so normal that you have to pay for the cost. Most organizations will then try to narrow the request so it’s not so burdensome. If the cost is too much.

[Anonymous]

The "Parent Rights Group" asked MCPS to turn over any emails from a four-month period from 30 individuals that included a common phrase.

This isn't just a matter of software turning up the term. MCPS then needs to figure out which emails were actually about the LGBT books, and from there, which pieces of correspondence were between the named individuals.

I am not an MCPS employee, nor am I someone working on this issue in any way or form.

I just searched my work email, and I sent 75 emails since April 2023 that included the phrase "opt out." Now, many of those were auto replies to solicitation emails that included the phrase "opt out from future emails" but the point is that this request isn't trivial.

It's going to take real hours of human labor that could be used for other things, and it makes sense to charge for it.

[Anonymous]

This org is so self-obsessed that they think discussing their issue is the only way “opt-out” would surface in MCPS email.

Bravo for not thinking too hard before hitting submit on the FOIA! Unless being able to do an outraged press release was the goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow… MCPS sucks. In govt, we usually charge about $15 to $20.

Did you actually look at the request? They want MCPS to review the email accounts of 30 people, for a four month period, looking for common phrases. And the requestor refused to narrow the search. MCPS is estimating that it will take about 15 hours - 2 days - to review each custodian's email. And they're charging a really low rate for both the initial review and attorney review.

Requests that ask for "XYZ file" cost a minimal amount in compliance. Requests that require extensive searches are far more burdensome, and consequently, cost far more.