LCPS Employees sneaking peaks at Board Member Emails?: Updated

Yesterday morning I checked the agenda for tonight's School Board meeting online, and wrote a routine post about it. This afternoon, after learning that the School Board would not be voting on its budget tonight as previously announced, I checked the agenda again to see if it had been updated to reflect the change, and indeed it had.

But there was something new on the agenda as well, Item 10.01, Modification of Policy 7-32 - Electronic Communications Equipment and Services.

The Chairman and Vice Chairman of the School Board recommend modifying Policy 7-32, Electronic Communications Equipment and Services to promote communications from and to Board Members.

This is a policy modification that would normally go through the Legislative & Policy committee. A redlined copy of the proposed policy is available online. There are minor edits throughout the policy, but the most interesting part is a brand new Paragraph #2:

To facilitate open communication with the public and between members of the School Board, electronic communications received or sent by School Board members shall not be viewed or accessed by any LCPS employee except as may be necessary to comply with the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (VFOIA) or with a lawfully issued subpoena or court order. Emails received by School Board members may be forwarded by those members to others as he or she deems appropriate.

Here's another interesting change:

Computer equipment, software and networks in schools and administrative offices are the property of LCPS and are intended for carrying out LCPS business. The School Board sets forth this policy to insure proper and acceptable use by LCPS employees in accordance with §22.1-70.2 of the Code of Virginia. Licensed staff, administrative staff and classified staff (collectively “employees”) do not have personal property or privacy rights to any material created, received or sent via LCPS equipment, software or network systems.

This isn't interesting in that it excludes School Board members, as I don't see any reason why a school employee should be reading Board member emails. It's just interesting that Eric Hornberger and Jill Turgeon feel that it's necessary to put this in writing, and that it can't wait to go through the normal committee process.

I know that there has been some tension under this Board with Dr. Hatrick being left off of the distribution list of some emails that went out to the whole Board. I know that when I started as Chairman I did the same thing, which led to friction with Dr. Hatrick. I had valid reasons for doing that, but probably overshot the mark in my effort to make a point. But it became pointless when other Board members went ahead and forwarded every email to Dr. Hatrick anyway. I've heard that's happening now too, and the new policy doesn't (and couldn't, legally) prevent that.

This is curious. Have LCPS employees been reading School Board member emails? Why was this added to the agenda on the day of the meeting, with no other advance notice? Will the Board suspend the rules and enact this change immediately? I guess we'll find out tonight.

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7pm Update: I spoke to one of the new School Board members today and learned what this is about. When you send an email to the School Board email address, "lcsb@lcps.org", the School Board members are not the only ones who receive that email. The Senior Staff and all members of senior staff also receive that email. I was also bothered by this when on the Board, but other Board members weren't. Frequently the emails really have nothing to do with the Board and are more appropriate for staff to handle. I never saw any harm done as a result, so it was not a battle to focus on.

It's fine if the six-pack want to change the way that works. Still, putting it in a policy rushed past the Committee review process still seems to me to be like using a cannonball to swat a fly.

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From Eric Hornberger:

The question is not "have" LCPS employees been reading School Board member emails but rather should they be allowed to? The proposed policy effectively closes a loophole in existing School Board policy that enables LCPS employees to review communication to and from School Board members without their knowledge. As such, it provides policy protection for the public to more openly communicate with their elected officials who are responsible to represent their interests within their public school system. The fact is, under the current policy, School Board members and members of the public would not necessarily know if their emails were being read, nor would they know if they were distributed to somebody else within LCPS. This issue surfaced during the new Board's orientation session on December 10th and remains of concern to many of us on the Board. This policy modification serves to address that concern.