Thank you for your email. Our district is closed for the winter break, and
will reopen on Monday, January 3, 2022. Merry Christmas and Happy New
Year!

--
Patrick S. DeGeorge 
Business Administrator/Board Secretary
Lacey Township School District
200 Western Boulevard
Lanoka Harbor, New Jersey 08734
p - 609-971-2000 ext. 1001
f -  609-693-9638

Dear Ms. Mindas:

The Lacey Township Public Schools (“District”) Records Custodian received
your Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) and right of access request on
December 31, 2021.  As such, the seven (7) business day deadline to
respond to your request is January 11, 2022.  This response is therefore
being timely submitted in accordance with New Jersey law.  See N.J.S.A.
47:1A-5.

Your request seeks the following and I will address each one in turn:

• Copies of the signed oaths of Lacey School Board Members

Copies of an oath of allegiance, oath of office, or any affirmation for
incoming, current, and former officers and employees in State, County, or
municipal government are exempt from disclosure under OPRA pursuant to
N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1.  Therefore, your request for copies of signed oaths of
Lacey School Board Members is denied.

• Emails or text messages pertaining to the development and enforcement
of masking, COVID-19 testing, and collecting and storage of
vaccination status.

Please be advised that your request for written communications is overly
broad.  The GRC has upheld an established criteria deemed necessary to
specifically identify and facilitate a search for responsive e-mails and
other written communications.  See Armenti v. Robbinsville Bd. of Educ.,
GRC Complaint No. 2009-154 (Interim Order May 24, 2011); see also Zahler
v. Ocean Cty. College, GRC Complaint No. 2013-266 (Jan. 2016); Elcavage v.
West Milford Twp., GRC Complaint No. 2009-07 and 2009-08 (April 2010).
  In Elcavage v. West Milford Twp., GRC Complaint No. 2009-07 and 2009-08
(April 2010), the GRC determined that in accordance with legal precedent:
“[I]n order to specifically identify an e-mail the OPRA request must
contain (1) the content and/or subject of the e-mail, (2) the specific
date or range of dates during which the e-mail was transmitted or the
e-mails were transmitted, and (3) identification of the sender and/or the
recipient thereof.”  Your request has failed to specify a date or date
range and does not identify and senders and/or recipients and thus your
request does not satisfy OPRA's specificity requirements, and would
require the District’s records custodian to conduct research.  See
Lagerkvist v. Office of Governor of State, 443 N.J. Super. 230, 237 (App.
Div. 2015).

Here, your request for emails and text messages are overly broad without
regard to time-frame, senders, or recipients’ information.  Therefore,
this information is not readily available and would require the Records
Custodian to conduct research to analyze, compile, and collate emails and
text messages. OPRA requests may not be a broad generic description of
documents that require the custodian to search the agency’s files and
“analyze, compile and collate” the requested information. See also
Lagerkvist v. Office of Governor of State, 443 N.J. Super. 230, 237 (App.
Div. 2015) (holding that OPRA does not convert a custodian into a
researcher, which would have been the effect of the request); see also
Burke v. Ocean Cty., 2013 WL 6169154 (App. Div. 2013) (holding that an
OPRA request is not the equivalent of law suit discovery).

Accordingly, your request for “emails and text messages . . .” is overly
broad, invalid, and therefore denied.

• Any documentation of funds allocated to or from the NJEA pertaining to
masking, vaccination, or testing for COVID-19.

The District has not identified any records responsive to this request.

• Any documentation of funds received from the state of NJ pertaining to
masking, vaccination, or testing for COVID-19.

The District has not identified any records responsive to this request.

Your OPRA request is now deemed answered and closed.  Thank you for your
attention to this matter.  

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