Springfield, Ill. (ECWd) –
After our November 18th article on the Illinois State Board of Education’s (“ISBE”) refusal to provide the email addresses of its employees, and our filing of a Request for Review with the Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor (“PAC”), the ISBE changed their minds and provided the requested public records as they should have in the first place.
Here is the email from ISBE, attached to the email was a pdf with the information requested:
Ms. Harter,
We are in receipt of your letter dated November 17, 2023, regarding the above-referenced request for review. Upon further evaluation, and in the spirit of cooperation, we have determined to provide the requested records to Mr. Kraft. They are attached here. We believe this resolves the matter, but please reach out if you would like any further information regarding the request or have additional questions.
Thank you,
Kelly Bapst
Assistant Legal Counsel
Illinois State Board of Education
What we find interesting is while the ISBE did provide the requested email addresses, it apparently attempted to do so in a way to make it difficult for a computer to extract the information electronically. Instead of an Excel spreadsheet as was previously provided for the employee names and positions in clear print and sortable, it looks like the ISBE took extra time and effort to physically print it several generations deep and in extra low quality trying to make it too blurry for a computer to read (see example here).
Never fear, our software can quickly overcome this obstacle placed in front of it.
It only makes us wonder what kind of meeting took place and who made the decision to waste so much time on this document production in order to “technically” comply with the Freedom of Information Act, while clearly trying to make it more difficult for the recipient of the records.
We give them a C- for this ridiculous stunt…
