When Public Records Requests Become ‘Weaponized’

LEGAL BRIEF

Superintendents and their school district colleagues across the country are facing a similar challenge: a deluge of public records requests.

For decades, district administrators in adherence to state-level “sunshine” or open records laws have provided documents to the public and news media upon formal request. To their credit, district officials often take pride in the speed with which they fulfill these requests, even when searching for records and providing proper notification can be time-consuming and expensive.