Superintendent Search Surveys and Results
Dear Monroe Township School District (Middlesex),
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:
Any and all survey results with respect to the Superintendent search from March 15 to present. Also, any and all surveys developed by/for the district with respect to the Superintentendent search for a permanent Superintendent for the current vacancy.
Yours faithfully,
Judy Bloom
Dear Ms. Bloom,
The Board is in receipt of your Open Public Records Act ("OPRA") request. Your request requires additional time to respond due to the significant demands placed on the District with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic and OPRA requests. OPRA allows custodians to seek extensions of time pursuant to N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5(i). Specifically, OPRA states that “the requestor shall be advised by the custodian when the record can be made available. If the record is not made available by that time, access shall be deemed denied.” Accordingly, your request requires an extension of time until June 21, 2022.
Dear Ms. Bloom:
The Board is in receipt of your Open Public Records Act ("OPRA") request seeking “[a]ny and all survey results with respect to the Superintendent search from March 15 to present. Also, any and all surveys developed by/for the district with respect to the Superintendent search for a permanent Superintendent for the current vacancy.” Please be advised that your request is being denied as the records requested fall within the purview of OPRA’s advisory, consultative, or deliberative material exception. N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1 (holding that the definition of a government records "shall not include inter-agency or intra-agency advisory, consultative, or deliberative material"). Specifically, the survey and its results are part of the process of the search for a new Superintendent. The survey results were used to fashion interview questions and their release at this time would compromise the Superintendent search. Once that process has been completed and the new Superintendent is appointed and executes a State-approved contract, you will be welcome to renew your request for the survey results.
Dear Reeshemah Zielinski,
Survey results do not fall under the category of deliberative material. Surveys that are completed by the general public are simply not "inter-agency" or "intra-agency" documents and thus the privilege cannot apply.
Furthermore, the public is not giving the interview, the Board of Education is. Other school districts such as Moorestown are exceptionally transparent and collaborative with the community. They made their results available here: https://cdn5-ss10.sharpschool.com/UserFi....
I will also contact the Commissioner of Education and County Superintendent, since they are already involved in this process with Monroe.
The communtiy has a right to this information. he NJ Courts have ruled that the public should have access to this information. See Flom v. Allendale Board of Education, Docket No. BER-L-9208-15 (Law Div. Jan 7, 2016), . Again, this information does not fall under the clause that has been cited here.
Yours sincerely,
Judy Bloom
I am out of the office and will return Tuesday, July 5, 2022.
If this is an OPRA request, please forward all requests to Dr. Adam Layman
at [email address]
Dear Monroe Township School District (Middlesex),
To clarify, I would like a spreadhseet, charts/graphs, i.e. a data repoert analyzing and presenting the survey results.
Yours faithfully,
Judy Bloom