Illinois high court orders release of school board records

The Illinois Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ordered a school board to make public a former superintendent’s contract, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The Wheaton Warrenville School Board had withheld the employment contract of former Superintendent Gary Catalani when a candidate for the board requested it, claiming it was a  "personnel file" whose disclosure would be an invasion of privacy.

Chief Justice Thomas R. Fitzgerald, writing for the court, told the board it must turn over the contract, the Tribune said. He pointed to the open records law’s provision that "disclosure of information that bears on the public duties of public employees and officials shall not be considered an invasion of personal privacy."

The requester’s attorney, Shawn Collins, told the Tribune the ruling was "a home run for people who are trying to learn what the government is up to."