FHPS CRT FOIA Request
Hi, all.
As most know, a FOIA request was submitted to the Forest Hills Public School District ("FHPS") on May 11, 2021 which in part requested the following:
"Any and all writings since March 1, 2020 through the date of this Request that reference the words or phrase “critical race theory;”
The request also included other items that have been raised as important to parents in the FHPS district and expressly requested FHPS to "waive or reduce the fee to search for or furnish copies of the requested public records on grounds that a waiver or reduction of the fee is in the public interest because searching for or furnishing copies of the public records can be considered as primarily benefitting the general public."
After some back-and-forth correspondence with FHPS, the entirety of the request would cost over $400,000.00 due to the amount of responsive documents; the request pertaining to "critical race theory" returned "2 emails, 2 users (students & staff)." Because of the enormous cost, on May 18, 2021, the scope of the request was narrowed to only "documents authored by staff, board, and superintendent only" in accordance with state law and FHPS board policy.
On June 15, 2021, FHPS informed that it is "impossible to eliminate [students] completely from the search because of student documents that are shared with staff or emails between students and staff regarding the topics outlined in your request. Therefore, this does not significantly reduce the number of documents and email." The cost of the full request remained over $400,000.00.
On July 7, 2021, the request was narrowed to include that from above along with one other request due to the limited number of responsive documents identified by FHPS.
On July 9, 2021, FHPS informed that its Technology department originally searched for "critical racial theory" instead of "critical race theory." FHPS further stated that, "When they did an updated search with the correct search term today, about 2,000 emails were produced (1,930 staff emails)."
On July 15, 2021, FHPS expressly rejected the renewed request to waive the fee for the FOIA request for purpose of public interest.
On July 20, 2021, a renewed request was sent via email to request the fee be waived and FHPS responded on July 21, 2021 again rejecting the request for waiving the fee because it "do[es] not have the manpower to fulfill your request without the payment of the fee." FHPS was once more requested to waive the fee on July 28, 2021, not because of manpower, but because of "the nationwide discussion and local public interest surrounding CRT as it relates to school curriculum."
On August 6, 2021, FHPS phoned and verbally refused to waive the fee, rejecting that it is in the public's interest.
Now we must pay over $2,000.00 and ask your help to obtain documents that taxpayers deserve to see. Once the documents are received, they will be made public for all of those that help fund this and beyond--transparency is necessary and should be demanded from the FHPS district!