From The Greeley Tribune:  Regardless of which acronym you attach to the request, the Keenesburg school district was out of line to charge the mother of a student $567 to view her son’s records.

Connie Sack went to the Keenesburg school district with a request. She wanted to see her son’s records. According to the Family Rights Education and Privacy Act, or FERPA, Sack has the right to such information. The only thing the district may charge her for is copies, and those fees can’t be “prohibitive.”

Keenesburg’s response was to charge Sack $438 for “research and retrieval,” as well as $129 for copies. Keenesburg graciously offered a free hour for this research and retrieval. However, the district then charged $30 per hour for the remaining 14.6 hours.

“To pay that just to view his education records seems ridiculous,” Sack said.

We agree. First is the rate. $30 per hour? That’s more than an average teacher makes. Did Keenesburg really pay someone $30 per hour to dig up some paperwork? Second is the time. Even if the records were kept on paper it shouldn’t take more than 15 hours to retrieve the information. If they were kept on a computer — and in this day and age we assume they were — the records should have been accessible in a fraction of the time.

Now, here’s where it gets a little confusing, because one of the battles waging between media outlets and school districts is the charging for public information. Under the Colorado Open Records Act, or CORA, the public is allowed to ask for public records to be released.

Some entities have chosen to make such record requests somewhat cost prohibitive to individuals and sometimes charge more than media outlets are comfortable paying. Of course, we’re not big fans of this particular tactic and wish it would cease and desist. Public records, after all, should remain accessible to the public.

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