Putting a Backwards Spin on The Right to Know

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A workshop sponsored by the Arizona Schools Public Relations Association on “The Public’s Right to Know” turned out to be a lesson in how school officials could deny that right to citizens. Three guest panelists spent their time telling school public relations officials how they could block access to information. “The way I look at it is that you tell them it’s confidential, you stonewall as long as you can and whenever they come back with an attorney’s opinion or an attorney general’s opinion or something like that, you do ‘mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa,’ and you give them the stuff,” said Donn Williams, policy services director for the Arizona School Boards Association.