Email communications to/from Lisa Kontos - subject Please Help!
Dear Ridgewood Public School District,
This is a request for public records made under OPRA and the common law right of access. I am not required to fill out an official form. Please acknowledge receipt of this message.
Records requested: electronic copies of all emails to and from Lisa Kontos with the subject line "Please Help!" and /or "Re: Please Help!" from July 20, 2020 through July 29, 2020.
Yours faithfully,
Anonymous
Dear Sir/Madam:
The Ridgewood Board of Education (“Board”) received your Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) request which seeks the following records:
[E]lectronic copies of all emails to and from Lisa Kontos
with the subject line “Please Help!” and/or “Re: Please Help!” from July 20, 2020 through July 29, 2020.
The Board has identified fifty-six (56) pages of records responsive to your request. Please note that personal e-mail addresses and private telephone numbers have been redacted to protect an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy pursuant to N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1
(providing that “a public agency has a responsibility and an obligation to safeguard from public access a citizen’s personal information with which it has been entrusted when disclosure thereof would violate the citizen’s reasonable expectation of privacy . . .”). See Kemery v. Gloucester Twp. Fire District No. 4 (Camden), GRC Complaint No. 2014-290 (2016) (holding that the
records custodian properly redacted the personal e-mail address of the Fire Chief); and Wolosky v. Somerset Cty., 2017 WL 1179852 (App. Div. 2017) (holding that the County properly redacted the e-mail and home addresses from the documents provided to the requestor). See also N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1 which exempts that portion of any document containing an unlisted telephone number from the definition of a government record.
Lastly, redactions have been made to remove student names. N.J.S.A. 47:1A-9(b) allows exemptions from disclosure for any grant of confidentiality established or recognized by the Constitution of this State, statute, court rule or judicial case law, to apply to OPRA. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”), 20 U.S.C. 1232(g) and its supplemental regulations codified under 34 C.F.R. § 99.30, precludes schools from disclosing student names and personal identifying information without obtaining consent. See also N.J.A.C. 6A:32-7.1 to - 7.8.
Your requested information is contained in the following dropbox link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yzbbhj1bsqupng...
Your OPRA request is now deemed answered and closed.
Very truly yours,
Scott Bisig
Business Administrator/Board Secretary