Thank you for your correspondence. The district is currently closed and
will reopen on Monday, November 13, 2023.
Best regards,
Julie

--

Julie Kot

Business Administrator/Board Secretary

Ridgewood Public Schools

49 Cottage Place

Ridgewood, NJ 07450

201-670-2700

show quoted sections

NOTICE:

You are advised that e-mail correspondence and attachments between the public
and the Ridgewood Board of Education are obtainable by any person who files a
request under the NJ Open Public Records Act (OPRA) unless it is subject to a
specific OPRA exception.  You should have no expectation that the content of
e-mails sent to or from school district e-mail addresses, or between the public
and school district officials and employees, will remain private.

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Dear Ms. McKenna:

The Ridgewood Public Schools (“District”) is responding to your Open
Public Records Act (“OPRA”) request submitted on November 11, 2023. The
seven business day deadline to respond to your request is November 22,
2023.   As such, the District is timely responding to your request in
accordance with New Jersey law.

Your request is set forth below: 

 1. I would like to see the total amount of Federal ESSR grants that Ridgewood School District received between March 2020 and present; 

 1. I would like to see the full breakdown of how Ridgewood Public Schools used those funds between March 2020 and present.

Your OPRA request is denied as it is a request for information and not a
request for records. Your request is overly broad, as it fails to identify
with reasonable clarity any particular records sought. OPRA operates to
make identifiable government records “readily accessible for inspection,
copying, or examination.” N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1. New Jersey courts have
consistently held that OPRA does not countenance open-ended searches of an
agency’s files. MAG Entm’t, LLC v. Div. of ABC, 375 N.J. Super. 534, 549
(App. Div. 2005); New Jersey Builders Ass’n v. New Jersey Council on
Affordable Housing, 390 N.J. Super. 166 (App. Div.), cert. denied, 190
N.J. 394 (2007). Consequently, a proper request under OPRA “must identify
with reasonable clarity those documents that are desired, and a party
cannot satisfy this requirement by simply requesting all of an agency’s
documents.” See e.g., Spectraserv, Inc. v. Middlesex Cty. Utilities
Auth., 416 N.J. Super. 565, 576 (App. Div. 2010); Bent v. Twp. of Stafford
Police Dep’t, 381 N.J. Super. 30, 37 (App. Div. 2005). 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. Id.; 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). Here, your request is deficient as it purportedly
seeks all of the District’s records pertaining to various statutes and
requires the District’s records custodian to conduct research with respect
to same. See Parreott v. Asbury Park School District, GRC Complaint Nos.
2016-20 & 2016-39 (Sept. 2017) (holding that the portion of the request
seeking “all relevant documents” was invalid because it sought a class of
various records and would have required the records custodian to conduct
research in order to locate responsive records); see also Burke v. Ocean
Cty., 2013 WL 6169154 (App. Div. 2013) (holding that an OPRA request is
not the equivalent of lawsuit discovery). Accordingly, your request for
documents is invalid and denied as it does not comport with OPRA’s
specificity requirements.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, information regarding the allocation of 
ESSR Funds to all New Jersey school districts is available to the public
at the following links:

[1]CARES Act (ESSER I)

[2]CRRSA (ESSER II)

[3]ARP ESSER (ESSER III)

[4]ARP IDEA Basic and Preschool

[5]ARP-HCY II

Your OPRA request is now deemed answered and closed. 

Sincerely,

Julie Kot 
Business Administrator/Board Secretary

--

Julie Yohana

Assistant to the Business Administrator & Manager of IT

Ridgewood Public Schools

201-670-2700 ext. 10543

[6]www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us

show quoted sections

NOTICE:

You are advised that e-mail correspondence and attachments between the public
and the Ridgewood Board of Education are obtainable by any person who files a
request under the NJ Open Public Records Act (OPRA) unless it is subject to a
specific OPRA exception.  You should have no expectation that the content of
e-mails sent to or from school district e-mail addresses, or between the public
and school district officials and employees, will remain private.

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References

Visible links
1. https://www.nj.gov/education/esser/cares...
2. https://www.nj.gov/education/esser/crrsa...
3. https://www.nj.gov/education/esser/docs/...
4. https://www.nj.gov/education/specialed/p...
5. https://www.nj.gov/education/esser/arp/h...
6. http://www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us/