{"id":4190,"date":"2009-06-11T13:37:57","date_gmt":"2009-06-11T17:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=4190"},"modified":"2009-06-11T13:37:57","modified_gmt":"2009-06-11T17:37:57","slug":"my-reply-to-larry-clark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/11\/my-reply-to-larry-clark\/","title":{"rendered":"Halifax County School Board FOIA controversy \u2013 Round #4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s my reply to Larry Clark’s email<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nMr. Clark (and Ms. Mahan),<\/p>\n

After reading your lawyer’s interpretation of the School Board’s compliance with FOIA, I concur with your opinion that you are indeed complying with the law, but that doesn’t make it “right”.<\/p>\n

I ask you to increase the public visibility of everything that the Halifax County School Board does. Instead of relying on what little that you have to do to ensure compliance, I call on you to set a new precedent and example by going beyond what the FOIA says that you have to do.<\/p>\n

If a document is exempt under FOIA guidelines, no one should have a problem with that document not being made available. But when a document has nothing sensitive in it (i.e. the “AP\/dual enrollment proposal” from the most recent school board meeting), I feel that you should actively encourage the dissemination of it by making it as readily available as possible.<\/p>\n

A person in the postion that you are in (and that applies to all school board members as well as Mr. Stapleton) should not have to rely on sentences like “There is a distinction that is clearly made in Sections 2.2-3704 and 2.2-3707, between what must be made available for “inspection” and what must be made available by “copying” to justify the reasonings on why documents are not immediately forthcoming to the public.<\/p>\n

It is also a shame in today’s electronic world for the Halifax County School Board to resort to requiring that all FOIA requests be made in writing and to say that you will comply in a required number of days. In less than a minute, any competent user could attach documents to an email and reply back to any citizen requesting information.<\/p>\n

In summary… Yes, you are complying with the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. However, you could do a lot more if you chose to. I hope that this letter encourages you to indeed do more and bring more sunshine into the operations of the Halifax County School Board.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n

Bruce Hedrick<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More to come…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s my reply to Larry Clark’s email.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educationcentral","category-newscentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-15A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4164,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/09\/update-the-foia-concern-with-the-halifax-county-school-board\/","url_meta":{"origin":4190,"position":0},"title":"UPDATE: The FOIA concern with the Halifax County School Board","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"June 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"When we talked about this last, I had an issue with the Halifax County School Board not making the entire agenda packet available to the public. Let's go to the next chapter of this story... Based on a conversation that I've had with the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, I've\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "EducationCentral"","block_context":{"text":"EducationCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/educationcentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4182,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/10\/halifax-county-school-board-foia-controversy-round-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":4190,"position":1},"title":"Halifax County School Board FOIA controversy – Round #3","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"June 10, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"We've got our reply from the latest letter sent to the School Board Clerk. Today, we got this reply from Larry Clark. Dear Mr. Hedrick: I am writing in response to your email to Robin Mahan of June 9, 2009. I would like to clarify our policy and approach on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "EducationCentral"","block_context":{"text":"EducationCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/educationcentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4089,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/04\/halifax-county-school-board-agenda-for-monday-68\/","url_meta":{"origin":4190,"position":2},"title":"Halifax County School Board agenda for Monday (6\/8)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"June 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What's happening at the Halifax County School Board meeting Monday night? You know where to look.... but we've got a problem with public access to some of their documents and their policy. Read all the way to the end, please. Here's the agenda for Monday's Halifax County School Board meeting.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "EducationCentral"","block_context":{"text":"EducationCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/educationcentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14883,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2016\/01\/11\/rifa-live-11116\/","url_meta":{"origin":4190,"position":3},"title":"RIFA – LIVE! (1\/11\/16)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"January 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"SouthsideCentral was at Monday's RIFA meeting and almost nothing happened! But hey, that didn't stop us from getting some photos. Let's take a look at what did happen in this article... We're at Danville Regional Airport for today's meeting. At the first meeting of every calendar year, the RIFA board\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/8RDJo1a.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/8RDJo1a.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/8RDJo1a.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/8RDJo1a.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7388,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2011\/08\/22\/tossup-simple-request-or-chilling-effect\/","url_meta":{"origin":4190,"position":4},"title":"TossUp!: “Simple Request” or “Chilling Effect”?","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 22, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"County sheriff elections are bad for the amount of animosity... but they make for good TossUps! (Editor's Note: I've had my differences with HalifaxTalk before, but I'll defend anybody that is dealing with a potential free speech issue.) HalifaxTalk: Jeff's FOIA Stuff Let's go over some background information quickly. Jeff\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Halifax County"","block_context":{"text":"Halifax County","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/halifax-county\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7656,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2012\/11\/05\/burn-baby-burn-school-records-inferno\/","url_meta":{"origin":4190,"position":5},"title":"Burn, Baby, Burn! School Records Inferno!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"November 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Things are getting hot in the Halifax County School System, and it's only partially because of a document bonfire behind Meadville Elementary School... 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