Mequon-Thiensville School District to appeal open records case to state Supreme Court
The Mequon-Thiensville School District plans to appeal a Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision to the state Supreme Court over an order to release parent and guardian email addresses to a Mequon alderman.
Ald. Mark Gierl initially sought the addresses through an open records request to the school district. When that request was denied, he filed suit in Ozaukee County Circuit Court in August 2020. The case has been ongoing ever since.
In a Jan. 4 statement, the district announced its intent to appeal the state Court of Appeals' Dec. 7 decision upholding an October 2021 circuit court decision ordering the district to turn over the email addresses of those who received a link to a webinar titled "The Talk: A Necessary Conversation on Privilege and Race with Our Children" to Mequon Ald. Mark Gierl.“As the designee responsible for responding to such requests for school district records, it is my firm belief that the District applied the public records law properly by not disclosing the private email addresses of our public school students’ parents and guardians,” said Mequon-Thiensville School District Chief of Staff Amanda Sievers in a statement from the district.
Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, the district's liability insurance carrier, has covered and will continue covering the district's litigation expenses, the district said in its statement.
The district said in its statement it has only refused to provide parents' personal email addresses and has not denied access to copies of actual school district communications.“The public has access to our communications and to whom they were sent. We have no ‘secrets’ and nothing to hide," Sievers said in the statement. "The requestor and his legal representation have gone outside of the scope of the law in requesting access to the personal contact information given to us by our mostvalued stakeholders.”
The statement said the district is pursuing the appeal to protect the privacy of "those individuals who have entrusted the District with their personal, private email address." The district's position is that the appellate court's decision expanded "the scope of the Wisconsin Public Records Law andimpacts every school district in the State of Wisconsin."
"These factors compelled MTSD to ask the Wisconsin Supreme Court to hear the case as it has great impact on the citizens they serve," the district said in its statement.
The deadline for the district to file the appeal is Jan. 6. It will provide updates about the case on its website, the statement added.
List should be public record, attorney says
In response, Gierl's attorney, Tom Kamenick, who represents the Wisconsin Transparency Project, said that, for over 60 years, state attorney general guidance "has advised that government distribution lists are public records."
"For over 20 years that guidance has extended expressly to email addresses. Mequon-Thiensville is trying to make this about 'privacy,' but it ignores that it is already required by law to make the names, addresses, and phone numbers of its students public unless the students or their families affirmatively opt out. Basic contact information should not be treated like a state secret," Kamenick said in an emailed statement.
District appeal to Wisconsin Supreme Court latest of many developments
The district's intent to make an appeal to the state Supreme Court is the latest development since Gierl first filed the lawsuit in August 2020 in Ozaukee County Circuit Court.
In October 2021, Ozaukee County Circuit Court Judge Steven Cain ruled in favor of Gierl and ordered the district to turn over the records. The district filed an appeal in December 2021, which was denied Dec. 7, 2022, by the Wisconsin Court of Appeals District Ⅱ.
Gierl filed a second lawsuit in February 2022 after he said the district also refused to turn over email distribution lists for alumni, the district's Momentum newsletter and recreation department, as well as emails sent to those lists. Cain ruled in Gierl's favor on the second lawsuit in October 2022. The Court of Appeals District Ⅱ is still deciding on the district's appeal of the second lawsuit, according to online court records.
Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlecJohnson12.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Mequon-Thiensville to appeal open records case to state Supreme Court
