On May 8, the Eagle Observer requested notes on the interviews with other players in the superintendent's investigations of allegations against Coach Timothy Fulks. The request was sent by email and reads as follows:
Dr. Barrett,
Since you have shared the report on your interview with one player, I would like to request the summary reports of your interviews with the other players in your investigation.
Should I publish anything from them, names of students will be omitted.
Thank you.
Randy Moll, Managing Editor Westside Eagle Observer
Barrett's unedited response:
May 11, 2015
Randy Moll, Managing Editor, Westside Eagle Observer
Dear Mr. Moll:
As noted in our previous e-mails, I am respectfully declining to provide the information you requested under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. I have already expressed to you, but perhaps not in these words, that I felt your request might put me in conflict with FERPA as I had not previously provided the information to the parents.
Second, I noted earlier also that the information I had sent to a parent of a player, and copied the board members, and copied as a courtesy to you, was informational only and came as a result of the referenced parent "mass e-mailing" both me and the school board. Had there been an ongoing disciplinary issue, I would not have copied the board members. While not germane to this matter, I find it slightly ironic that my efforts to be publically transparent as a long-time matter of practice, copying you everything I send to board members, has raised this present issue.
Finally, as stated earlier also, I decline based on what I believe to be governing principles of the FOIA itself. The FOIA provides an exemption for "job performance and evaluation records." Those are records that detail the performance or lack thereof of an employee. Among those records are those created in connection with an investigation of alleged employee misconduct, which include witness statements and notes made by someone investigating the allegations. The fact that the "investigation" is over does not change the character of the records as being "job performance and evaluation records." Such records are only subject to release after the final administrative resolution of a termination or suspension of the employee and only if the requested records form part of the basis for such termination or suspension, there is no termination or suspension here, so I do not believe the records are not subject to release.
Respectfully,
Randy C. Barrett, Ed.D.
Superintendent, Gentry Public School District
General News on 05/13/2015