..
Court backs local family over
school district
By Carrie Pederson
Friday 16, 2007 - Washington State
http://www.tdn.com/articles/2007/11/16/area_news/doc473d34b36dc56833373934.txt
The Washington State Supreme Court today ordered the Kelso School
District to release a school bus surveillance video that it had denied
to a family who wants to review it for evidence that their son was bullied.
The high court's 7-2 ruling overturned Cowlitz County Superior Court
Judge Stephen Warning's March 2004 denial of the request for the tape by
Richard and Ginger Lindeman of Kelso.
The Lindemans assert that the school bus video of Oct. 8, 2003, shows
another student repeatedly kicking and hitting their son during the ride
to Rose Valley Elementary School.
The district allowed the Lindemans to watch the tape that day, but
officials later refused to give them a copy, saying it is a record of students'
personal information and exempt from disclosure under the state Open Records
Act.
In a decision hailed by advocates of open government, the court rejected
that reasoning and awarded the Lindemans' attorney fees, costs, and penalties,
the amount of which were unavailable Thursday.
The state open record law exempts personal information such as students'
grades, test scores, evaluations and class schedules from public disclosure,
according to the court.
But a surveillance tape "differs significantly from the type of record
that schools maintain in students' personnel files. Merely placing the
videotape in a location designated as a student's file does not transform
the videotape into a record maintained for students," the according to
the majority opinion.
Mark Hottowe, director of student services for the Kelso School District,
said the district would have no comment until its attorney reviews the
Supreme Court decision. Lawyers for the district and the Lindemans did
not return repeated phone calls Thursday.
Ginger Lindeman said the family would have no comment "until we talk
to our lawyer."
In the decision, the high court reaffirmed that privacy exemptions
in the state Open Records Act must be interpreted narrowly.
"This case is important because it clarified the law on the disclosure
on school records," said Greg Overstreet of Allied Law Group LCC and a
former assistant state attorney general who specialize in open government
issues.
"A fair number of public records requests are to school districts.
Now there is more clarity on what needs to be disclosed." Overstreet said.
"Identification is not personal," said Rowland Thompson, executive
director Allied Daily Newspapers, the Olympia-based lobbying group for
the newspaper industry. "If that were the case you couldn't have surveillance
cameras in public or private areas."
The Lindemans' son was placed in counseling following the bus incident,
and at the time Ginger Lindeman complained the school district had not
done enough to protect her son from repeated bullying. She eventually pulled
both her children out of school and home-schooled them.
At the time, school officials said the district followed its anti-bullying
policies, which had been adopted a month before the bus incident, and that
the aggressor's behavior had improved after stepped-up disciplinary action.
TRIAL ISSUES
http://www.jaredstory.com/trial_brief01.html
http://www.jaredstory.com/trial_brief02.html
http://www.jaredstory.com/trial_brief03.html
http://www.jaredstory.com/trial_brief04.html
http://www.jaredstory.com/trial_brief06.html
http://www.jaredstory.com/trial_brief08.html
http://www.jaredstory.com/trial_brief09.html
http://www.jaredstory.com/trial_brief10.html
http://www.jaredstory.com/trial_brief11.html
HIGH v. PASCO SCHOOL DISTRICT
The
Lawsuit
PLAINTIFFS'
TRIAL BRIEF & FACTUAL BACKGROUND
The
Complaint for Damages
THE
SETTLEMENT
The
Rest of the Story
The
Assault
Suicide
- The Forseeable Consequences of Bullying
Why
the Pasco School District wouldn't help Jared
Court Case about Videos
on a bus & bullying
Losing sleep over finding
a lawyer? Get matched with a pre-screened local attorney! With
LegalMatch, the process is easy and safe
Check out: The National Center of Victims of Crime
- www.ncvc.org or call 1-800-394-2255
