From The Complete Colorado:  A June 9th Douglas County School District Board of Education meeting produced preliminary approval for the 2016-17 budget that includes a new full-time position dedicated to filling Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) requests, and included feisty exchanges over school choice and the results of an independent investigation into two board members’ treatment of a student.

Rob Ross, legal counsel for DCSD, said the new staff position, which is budgeted for $56,000 in salary and benefits, is required because the number of CORA requests the district gets has increased greatly.

Currently, Osasu Edoigiawerie, who acts as the paralegal/public records manager for Dougco, fills all CORA requests. However, Edoigiawerie is unable to get her own normal work done because of the volume of requests.

The department needs someone to focus entirely on the effort, Ross said.

CORA requests are generally handled through the legal department to be sure private information protected by law is not divulged.

Complete Colorado attempted to call several other large districts in the state to compare policies, but not all were reached by press time. However, it is uncommon for a school district to hire someone exclusively for the purpose of filling CORA requests.

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