Public schools

The New Jersey high court ruled Thursday that case records handled at public law school clinics are not considered public records because in dealing with private clients, the clinics do not conduct "official government business" and releasing the records may discourage people from seeking the clinics’ services.

The Student Press Law Center is calling attention to a rule the Department of Education published last week, under which a school would have to deny a records request even for redacted documents if it expects the requester "knows, or can figure out, the students to whom the document pertains."

The City Colleges of Chicago board is facing criticism for neglecting to disclose in a meeting agenda a tuition hike it approved on Wednesday, according to the Chi-Town Daily News.

The Daily News cited open-government experts saying the board could have violated the state’s Open Meetings Act; the board said not putting the tuition item on the agenda was an accident.

 A California school district violated the state’s open meeting law by raising its superintendent’s salary during a closed-door meeting, but it will not face sanctions, the Orange County district attorney’s office said in a Sept. 2 report.  

A sheriff's deputy on Friday asked a local reporter to leave a meeting with school board members, schools officials and teachers at a North Carolina junior high while they discussed student-teacher relations.

FERPA -- the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act -- has long made things difficult for student journalists, and any journalists covering educational issues. Too often schools use the pretext of protecting students' privacy to cover up an embarassing story.

A judge in Washington, D.C., ruled Thursday that the public is not entitled to see the district’s education spending plan for the next fiscal year until the mayor has submitted it to the city council as part of the city budget.

Before Fenty took control of the school system last spring, parents and local citizens had access to school spending proposals and could suggest potential changes before the entire city budget was submitted for consideration.

Numerous FOIA requests submitted to a local school district and one to the county prosecuting attorney’s office by the Times Record in Fort Smith, Ark., resulted in the revelation of a junior high teacher’s record of sexual misconduct.