For a press release I wrote, I searched Google News and other news sites for stories that involved email AND schools. I expected a lot about mail from sex offenders and email threats. But, I did not realize that requests for emails under state open meeting laws had a lot of coverage. Examples of what I found during the survey include:
· Emails between School Board members made the news in Palo Alto, CA, Nashua, NH, Alamogordo, NM, and Pine Bush, NY. Because of various state open meeting laws, many school attorneys believe that an email exchange involving a quorum of school board members is subject to public disclosure. For example, In Nashua, N.H., the attorney released 198 pages of email in response to a newspaper request.
· Offensive emails or emails with sexual content involving school computers were in the news in Fresno, CA, Cape Coral, FL, Bainbridge, IN, and Edmonds County, WA. In Fresno, a school employee was terminated after reportedly sending a racist email entitled “Proud to be White.”
· Threatening emails locked down schools or caused students to be removed in Batavia, IL, Canon City, CO, Douglas County, NV, Canton, OH, and Appleton, WI. In Canton, OH, roughly 1000 students were evacuated after a secretary received an email bomb threat.
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