Open Records Requests: 3 Challenges for K12 Education

Written by Paula Cassin

Showcase: Texas Schools and the Challenge of Senate SB 944 

Changes related to public information and retention last year in Texas, known as SB 944, made it clear that the public may request work-related texts, emails, and social media activity from government entities, even work-related messages sent from employees’ personal phones or accounts. Similar efforts are underway in other states to explicitly cover modern types of electronic communications.

This effectively covers all teacher-to-teacher, teacher-to-student, and teacher-to-parent school-related communications, regardless of the channel. A quick news search shows that it’s already being put to use (see here and here).

Anyone working in K12 communications or IT departments knows how complicated and potentially expensive open records requests can be. We see three main challenges facing school districts in particular.

Three Challenges

Let’s imagine an open records request comes in for all communication between a teacher, a student, and that student’s parents.

1. Unofficial Channels and Tools

Do you know what tools the teacher used to communicate outside of email? Have they sent text messages, or used one of hundreds of free classroom apps like SignUpGenius or Google Forms? 

Teachers are picking up more and more free communication tools to improve their ability to keep parents up-to-date, request sign-ups, respond to student questions, etc. Districts who don’t meet these needs will find rogue teachers solving their own problems with available tools, set up with local credentials. If you need to access communications on these platforms, you’ll first have to find out what they are.

2. No Administrative Access

Can you access and then extract the records you need from the platforms in use? 

Even if you do know which communication tools are used by staff, teachers, students and parents, do you have administrative access to them? For apps and tools managed by teachers or school staff, the answer most likely is no.

Imagine the work and legal wrangling involved to get the login and password to single user, free accounts. Once you get in, there’s also no guarantee they even provide the data you need in a usable format.

3. Time Consuming and Expensive

Even if you can access all of your communication platforms, how much time and money would it take to collect and redact all the data? 

Take a second to think about what it would take to search and extract records from a standard set of platforms: email, SIS channels, curriculum tools, Google Forms, SignUpGenius, mass voicemails, and classroom apps! (And we haven’t even started reviewing it to ensure student, teacher, and parent privacy requirements are met.)

Even for smart school districts who planned ahead and have access to all their school communication channels, the task of collecting records from half a dozen channels is resource-intensive and cost-prohibitive. Recently a school district made the news — one text messaging request alone was listed as 80 hours of work!

Passing on the cost can also result in bad PR, as this unfortunate story making the rounds shows.

What To Do?

ParentSquare is a parent engagement platform created to handle all school-to-home communication, from the district to the classroom, from text to email to voicemail. We provide the tools that teachers, administrators, staff, and parents want and need, and the reporting and oversight you need to fulfill public record requests on top.

K12 Districts across 44 states use ParentSquare to gain some relief from these 3 challenges. They can:

1. Stop rogue apps and texting by providing what teachers, students, and staff need on a secure school communications platform, specifically built for K12.

2. Manage access and permissions for different kinds of users, from the district to the classroom, including clubs, sports and performing arts groups.

3. Quickly and easily obtain communication records if and when the need arises.

4. Make it clear to staff and teachers where work-related texting and app communications belong.

PS: We provide a lot more to delight our customers’ parents, teachers and district leaders. Ask us about managing parent-teacher conferences, permission slips, background checks, fundraising, payments, calendars and more!