Schools
School Board Requests $300K for Public Records
After suspicion that the Cherokee Board of Education was hiding key details in the charter school debate, one attorney seeks to get to the bottom of the issue. Now, he's being asked to pay hundreds of thousands just to see some emails.
Cherokee County School Board is asking for a big chunk of change--$300,000 to be exact--in order to turn over their emails and records concerning the Cherokee Charter School.
Keith A. Meador, an Atlanta attorney, filed a complaint to Attorney General Sam Olens, after finding out that his public information request to the Cherokee County School Board carried a $324,608.52 price tag and would take more than a year to complete, said Lauren Kane in the Attorney General’s Press Office.
Now, Olens will launch an investigation to ensure that Meador gets all of the documents he requested under the Open Records Act.
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Meador filed the request on behalf of the Georgia Charter Schools Association after the group began to suspect the board of hiding key details in the Cherokee Charter Academy approval, according to this AJC report.
School Spokeswoman Barbara Jacoby, in her response to the request, said that the information requested would require extensive research, retrieval and copying.
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“The administrative costs for available documents are estimated at $286,600.27, for 6,185 hours of work by seven different employees. This total includes a manual search of emails. If CCSD staff were to instead use an automated keyword search of six keywords, the overall cost would be reduced by $219,093,” according to Jacoby’s response to Meador.
Additional charges come from the copying costs, which Jacoby estimated at $38,008.25 for 152,033 pages to be copied for 25 cents each.
And those costs just apply to the school board members who exclusively use their work email and phone accounts. Jacoby’s response to Meador stated that separate requests would have to be made to Kim Cochran and Michael Geist.
Note, however, that Cherokee Charter Academy falls under the GCEF, rather than the GCSA and has nothing to do with the request or complaint, said Lyn Michaels-Carden with the GCEF.
Sam Olens, a strong supporter of open records, has a department designated to investigating incidents involving public information requests.
Calls to Meador were not returned. Jacoby said Meador had not contacted them since his initial request.
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