JOURNALISTS’ GROUP OPPOSES SCHOOL DISTRICT’S PLAN TO DELETE EMAILS

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Source: Society of Professional Journalists

June 21, 2017 (San Diego) -- The San Diego Unified School District recently announced it will start deleting emails older than six months effective July 1, a change the district describes as a cost-saving measure. The San Diego chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is concerned this policy will significantly hamper access to important public information at a time when the public and the media already have problems obtaining information and records from the district.

San Diego SPJ has researched email retention policies in other large California school districts and learned that the policy San Diego Unified is proposing is outside the norm. The Los Angeles, Long Beach, Fresno and Elk Grove unified school districts all retain emails for at least two years, per their policies.

At a productive meeting last week to discuss transparency concerns with San Diego SPJ, two of the district's public information officers told the SPJ board the new email retention policy was an administrative decision that didn't require school board approval, an SPJ press release indicates. But the district has since said the board may vote on the policy after it goes into effect, and school board member Richard Barrera has said he wants a June 27 vote on the new policy.

San Diego SPJ believes San Diego Unified should follow other large districts' examples and consider retaining emails for at least two years. San Diego SPJ urges the school district to adopt a better email policy and, even if it doesn't, to honor all existing public records requests that seek emails more than six months old.


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Comments

Really?

Save money. That's the lamest excuse I have heard in a long time. Backup storage is dirt cheep. You don't think they are trying to hide something?

Bingo, you've nailed it.

I don't think two years is even long enough. Courts can take a long time these days.  Why not require agencies to retain records for 5 or 10 years?

If our nonprofit can afford to maintain archives of our entire news site back to the day we started in 2008, nearly a decade ago, complete with photos, videos, documents and other large files, surely any public agency can afford storage space just for emails.  There is simply no excuse to allow them to dodge the intent of the California Public Records Act. 

The Legislature should pass an emergency measure to make this crystal clear in the law and add very stiff penalties for anyone who destroys email records.

Our own journalistic efforts have often found gems by requesting older emails,  notably one in which a superintendent of a school district admitted to destroying a report on whether they were violating the California Voting Rights Act on the day the report was received from the district's lawyer, supposedly unread.  If you believe that, I have some swampland in Florida to sell you.