Q. Students; discussions on individual students.

A school board may meet in executive session in student expulsion cases if requested by the parent or guardian of the student. Though the board may hear testimony and deliberate in private, it must reconvene in public to vote. Ark. Code Ann. § 6-18-507(d)(2). See Ark. Op. Att’y Gen. Nos. 96-009, 87-478. This statute provides for an executive session only in the case of expulsion hearings, and a school board must meet in public when considering an appeal from a student who has been suspended. Troutt Brothers Inc. v. Valley View School Dist., CIV-2000-343(F) (Craighead County Cir. Ct., July 2, 2000). An executive session is not allowed simply because the school board will consider educational records that are exempt from disclosure under Section 25-19-105(b)(2) of the FOIA. Ark. Att’y Gen. No. 97-298. Moreover, because the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1232g, neither qualifies as an exemption nor supersedes the FOIA under the Supremacy Clause, it does not permit a school board to hold a closed meeting to discuss the records of a particular student or former student. Id.