The district didn't budge after receiving an appeal from New Westminster parent Lisa Chao to reduce the $1,385 bill that the school district would charge to cover the cost of photocopying and research for her information request for math marks at New Westminster Secondary School.
"They still feel justified in charging me!" Chao wrote in an email. "I have another avenue of appeal, then I will be accepting the generous offers I have had in the community to contribute to the cost. In fact, last week I had a senior neighbour I hardly know knock on my door to donate to the cause! I have yet to accept funds, but I have a growing list of names to contact when the time comes."
Chao recently filed a freedom-of-information request with the school district asking for all math marks for grades 8 to 12 students at New Westminster Secondary School for the past five years, indexed by year, course, semester and teacher. The district told Chao that the information she requested would be 1,700 pages long.
Chao and Kal Randhawa have been speaking out about what they believe to be an unusually high failure rate in classes taught by a certain teacher. They say a significant number of students in the teacher's classes were failing, and they want the school district to address the situation. They also have concerns about the district's handling of parent complaints.
The district wrote a letter to Chao explaining its decision. The letter, written by assistant superintendent Al Balanuik, says the FOI charge is appropriate because her request spans a five-year period. The high school offers an average of 70 classes per year, with an average of 28 students per class, which equals 9,800 student records. Those names, along with teachers' names, would have to be blacked out. A process that requires two sets of eyes, Balanuik, the district's Freedom of Information and Privacy officer, told The Record recently.
Currently, the district tracks the average scores for each class, not the median score. Determining the median score would require running hundreds of reports, printing thousands of pages, entering thousands of numbers into a spreadsheet program, identifying and entering the middle score in a report, Balanuik's letter's said.
"Simply, the school district needs to ensure its resources are expended properly," he wrote. "Given the depth and breadth of the three requests that you submitted, it was determined a fee was appropriate."
The letter also says the school district would "abide" by the information and privacy commissioner's decision.
