he PRA has historically been used by journalists and watchdog groups to uncover corruption, shine a light on fiscal mismanagement, and inform communities on matters of public interest and facts critical to voters’ decision making on candidates and issues. However, more recently, the PRA has been weaponized as a means of harassing locally elected officials, including school board trustees — turning an important tool for accountability into a farce likely unimaginable to Madison.

“They can be totally overwhelming — I have one district where the same guy makes about seven PRA requests a week and then does follow-up requests based on whatever he gets. Now we’ve got another parent in the same district who’s doing PRA requests for all this guy’s PRA requests. It’s just total nonsense,” said Michelle L. Cannon, partner at Lozano Smith. “It takes up so much staff time because there’s usually no one at a district designated to just handle public records requests. So, it’s extremely time consuming and it can be harassing, in large part.”

Between early 2022 and October 2023, one former Santa Rosa City Schools employee sent at least 75 PRA requests to the district, the Sonoma County Office of Education, the County of Sonoma, the State of California, Cloverdale Unified School District, Healdsburg and other local cities, according to an extensive breakdown by The Press Democrat.

Though her initial efforts were largely focused on COVID-19 vaccines, this person’s requests devolved into looking for connections between the school districts, equity-centered nonprofits, government, private companies, pharmaceutical interests, the media and financially powerful families such as the Rockefellers.

And this person isn’t alone.

“I think we saw an uptick in PRA requests when we went to distance learning and there were conversations we had to have around safety plans, masking and other precautions that we were taking to mitigate the spread of COVID. These folks became active then and they’ve become even more active since,” said Stephanie Manieri, Santa Rosa City Schools trustee. “It is just a handful of people, maybe four or five, [who] have found ways to build a web of conspiracies and are utilizing PRAs to try to validate their theories. It’s really taking up a lot of resources, not just in terms of our time, but we have lawyers we have to pay who also respond to these PRA requests. It’s definitely put a financial strain on our system.”

Sonoma County officials estimated that as of Aug. 7, 2023, this former employee’s requests alone had cost taxpayers nearly $323,000 in wages as staff across departments had spent almost 2,500 hours fulfilling them.

Yet, that doesn’t account for the personal cost. “It’s taken up so much of my personal time. Not only do I have to come to board meetings prepared, and have conversations with constituents, staff and students, now I’m also having to take time to respond to these requests,” Manieri continued. “It’s made the job cumbersome in ways that it really shouldn’t be.”

According to Cannon, whether it’s parental notification policies, book banning or ethnic studies, if a controversial issue goes before the board of a local educational agency, PRA requests are to be expected.

Another hot topic? Cell towers. “You’re looking at putting up a cell tower and then suddenly it’s, ‘I want every communication about that cell tower,’ then, ‘I want every communication about any facilities project that you’ve undertaken in the last 20 years.’ People are having to go into warehouses and pull out boxes, scan things, make copies and redact them,” explained Jessica Hull, executive director of Communication and Community Engagement for Roseville City School District and president of the California School Public Relations Association.

The law requires LEAs, upon receiving a request for records, to respond within 10 days, by notifying the requester of any of the requested records that are eligible to be disclosed, when those records will be made available and of any requested records that are exempt from disclosure. This deadline for initial response may be extended by up to 14 days under certain circumstances. When complex requests are involved, it can take LEAs months to provide the requested records due to time needed for collecting the records and redacting any exempt and/or confidential information such as that related to student or employee privacy, health information, or other information protected from public disclosure.

“When you’re going through and redacting, if you miss one redaction and include the name of a student, those are really serious mistakes by a district,” Hull said. “That’s the other part of this — it is taken very seriously. So, a lot of time and effort is put into responding to a request [and] I think that’s something those that are misusing the law know and understand. I think that’s the intent of these outlandish requests — the person casting wider and wider nets to try to find something to ‘catch’ the organization in the process, or burden the system, but it’s truly not the intent of the law.”

Torie Gibson, superintendent of Amador COE and Amador County USD, said the current topic in her small LEA is school consolidation, with people making PRA requests regarding developer fees for the last 30 years. “That’s a huge undertaking for our staff, but we have to comply,” she said. “We can ask them to narrow their search, but that’s why we use our attorneys a lot — they know exactly what to ask. They know what we can and can’t limit.”

However, consulting lawyers is a costly undertaking, particularly for smaller LEAs. With just 4,500 students, and staff pulling double duty with both district and COE roles, Amador County USD personnel spend an exorbitant amount of time creating databases and pulling documents — including archived documents recently put on microfiche to save time, said Gibson. Still, so much must be sent to legal counsel that, “now it’s also a financial constraint,” she said.

CSBA Chief Legal Counsel Robert Tuerck noted the uptick in requests has been widespread as school board meetings now serve for some as a platform for social and political agendas.

“Responding to CPRA requests is part of being a public agency, but it can be time consuming and sometimes tricky. Our Legal Services attorneys have been quite busy lately assisting our clients with gathering, reviewing, and when appropriate, redacting and exempting records that are responsive to these requests,” Tuerck said. “We encourage anyone responding to CPRA requests to reach out CSBA’s Legal Services or engage your other attorneys to make sure you avoid pitfalls that create liability for your LEA.”

Despite the cost, many LEAs rely on lawyers to aid in fulfilling PRA requests due to its nuances. For example, a memo from a district’s attorney is completely exempt; while there are exemptions for personnel and medical records, those don’t have a wholesale exemption, Cannon said. And in documents that are not confidential or exempt, sections of it may be — and rarely do LEAs have someone on staff with the expertise to know the difference.

“Ask questions. Don’t make any assumptions about what is discoverable and what isn’t,” warned Manieri. “Have your superintendent talk to your legal firm. We just hand over the information that’s being asked [to our legal counsel], and if there are ever any doubts or questions around that, just checking in is a great way to understand what you should be sending in and what you don’t have to.”

Students and families are also impacted, Hull noted. “Staff time is swallowed up by requests, board and LEA goals are delayed due to staff time being focused on responses, and our community of students and families sees less proactive engagement and communication,” she said. “When an organization is focusing on responding to requests, they are being pulled away from the essential roles of supporting students, staff and families. The current misuse of the PRA is detrimental to the fabric of our public education system.”

If a PRA request is submitted for records such as emails, text messages or social media communications, individual board members will likely have to aid in collecting documents — especially those in personal accounts. “If it has to do with district business, those can be public records,” Cannon said. “If board members are doing it themselves, most districts will have a process for the board member to certify that they did a good faith search of their own accounts, messages or devices and that they provided all the responsive documents.”

It’s critical that trustees turn over everything of relevance to their legal counsel, she continued, because should a person who has filed a PRA think an LEA has not complied and initiates litigation, they are entitled to attorney’s fees if they succeed. “So that’s why it’s important to respond in a timely manner and respond in a legally defensible manner upfront to avoid that litigation,” said Cannon.

LEAs should also have systems in place to respond to requests, both for retrieving and reviewing digital and hard copies of documents gathered. And while documenting the steps in how a decision was reached is important, if controversial issues come before the board, Cannon said the less trustees discuss internally or respond to the public outside of open meetings on the topics, the fewer PRA requests they’re likely to receive over time.

In Amador County, Gibson said trustees don’t discuss anything related to district business via text, even if it’s a quick, informal update. “Great as technology is, you’re better off not using it, because of the increase of PRA requests. I definitely think people are questioning themselves more in regard to that,” she said. “Any keystroke creates the possibility for a public records request, period. It’s that simple.”

In Santa Rosa, a statement is prominently included with trustee contact information informing the public that any correspondence with the board could be subject to a PRA request — a practice started after a constituent’s address was shared in filling a request. “It created an unsafe environment for that person, and unfortunately, the legalities around it don’t allow us to protect people in the ways that we want to,” Manieri said. “It’s really unfortunate that this practice we’re seeing has created a shift in culture.”

Manieri and Hull both expressed the importance of LEAs having easy to navigate websites with as much information available to the public as possible — including searchable board agendas, minutes and policies, as well as recordings of meetings.

For now, both said not much can be done by LEAs to stem the surge of requests. “So many districts have undertaken different strategies to try and [address this proactively],” Hull said. Recalling her time in Carmel USD, the district began posting all the documents turned over in PRA requests online thinking community members would see how the district was having to spend time and resources that could be spent on students or the classroom.

“It really took the opposite effect,” Hull said. “It just turned into hundreds of anonymous requests being submitted. I’d love for a district to find success in a strategy of what would make the public stop and think and change? Or at least create an opportunity for a conversation to say, ‘What is it that you’re looking for specifically? What is it that you don’t trust, or that you’re trying to find out?’ Because we’ll do a better job of sharing that information.

“I believe school board members have the powerful role of influence, not only within their communities, but within government, and encourage them to advocate for changes to the law to protect organizations from the misuse that has been increasing over the last several years,” she continued. “When they share with their communities and their government officials that the crucial job of educating students, supporting staff members and celebrating the good work of public education is being bypassed to respond to unnecessary requests, maybe there will be a change.”

What those changes should be, no one interviewed for this story could say for certain — demonstrating the delicate balance of ensuring transparency while curbing misuse. For instance, Hull said, one wouldn’t want to remove the option to make a PRA request anonymously, because if a person truly felt they would face retaliation, they may not look for the information that would help them. And limiting the number of requests a person can file could be just as problematic.

Hull thinks the only real resolution to some of these questions is through the courts, which could rule that districts have some power to narrow the scope or ask for more specificity. That way, those who are looking for specific information can still do so, while, for example, those asking to see every communication from a trustee over a four-year period — all of which must be gathered and reviewed — would have to at least narrow down their search to a topic.

“Public organizations are just that — public. Their goal is to be as transparent as possible. The intent of the law is positive — if there is a question about something, the organization should be able to provide all responsive documents to provide a clear answer,” Hull said. “However, that is not how the law is currently being used by the public and it is important that we work to move communities toward utilizing it for its intended purpose. Valuable time and resources are being used for individual disagreements and political fights instead of focusing all we have to benefit our students.

“I’m hopeful that as more people discuss this, as board members discuss this with their legislators and explain to them the misuse — not the burden of the law itself, but the misuse of the law — and try and find ways to modify it, we can get back to focusing on student learning,” she continued.

For now, Santa Rosa’s Manieri emphasized the importance of staying the course. “It can feel really overwhelming and stressful, and the amount of time it takes to respond to these, all of that is very real,” she said. “And I don’t want to say, ‘it gets better’ because maybe it doesn’t get better for everyone, but at least in our case, we see it getting a little bit better. I encourage other board members or other folks going through this to keep doing their job and to keep doing the good work to keep your head down and just bust through it.”

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Alisha Kirby is a staff writer for California Schools.