City of Asheville Submitted: February 12, 2018 | Updated: March 8, 2018

Asheville City School Board of Education Meetings

Hi there! Normally by this time of year there is a tentative calendar out for the next school year as parents plan for the summer. There is not one this year. I went on the website to look at the School Board meeting minutes to see if it had been discussed, but the meeting minutes are way out of date! There are no minutes posted for October, November, December, January or February. That seems like a pretty serious backlog. Is there a way to ensure timely posting of minutes by the district, and is there a proposed calendar for the 2018/19 school year? Thanks so much!

Status: Completed

Documents:

Revised-Central-Office-Salary-Request.pdf

Activity:

March 8, 2018 9:08 pm
6 years ago

Dr. Patterson,

Thank you very much.

I will relay the information to any parties submitting requests related to ACS in the future.

Patrick has access to this email as well, and would like to follow up with his own response next week.

We greatly appreciate your time, and your assistance with the requests.

Have a great evening!

Sunshine Request

Status: Follow up
March 8, 2018 12:12 pm
6 years ago

from: Denise Patterson <[email protected]>
to: Sunshine Request <[email protected]>, Denise Patterson <[email protected]>
date: Thu, Mar 8, 2018 at 12:12 PM
subject: Fwd: PDF (Central Office Salary Information)- Confidental

Sunshine Request and Mr. Conant,

Thank you for your patience. We have consulted with legal counsel further on your questions. As we move forward with requests, we want to be consistent:

1. Even though the public records law and personnel information law do not specifically require ACS to email public records, we will email public information upon request. If an issue arises regarding a specific response, we are more than willing to discuss that with you.
2. As you know, the public records law does not require any public entity to create documents or answer questions. Please make sure that everyone using your service is aware of this. Please know that Asheville City Schools does its best to respond to questions and concerns from parents and members of the public. We prefer to speak with individuals and establish positive relationships. This will allow everyone to have a dialogue and understand important aspects of any concerns or issues. We encourage that individuals contact us directly with questions.
3. North Carolina law allows specific information regarding employees to be made public. With regards to your request sent on Saturday, January 27, 2018 the following information is public: a) Name of employee, b) current salary and c) the employee’s current work assignment. That information was compiled previously and made available at the central office. It is now attached to this email in .pdf format.

Thank you for your interest in the Asheville City Schools, and please let me know if you have additional questions.

Educationally yours,

Dr. Denise Q. Patterson
Superintendent
Twitter: @DrP_ACS

Asheville City Schools
85 Mountain Street
Asheville, NC 28801

Office: 828.350.6145
Fax: 828.232.4185

**Editor’s Note: Please see attached document at top left in “documents”.

Status: Response Received from Government
March 1, 2018 11:26 am
6 years ago

from: Sunshine Request <[email protected]>
to: Denise Patterson <[email protected]>
cc: Kimberly Jones <[email protected]>
date: Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 11:26 AM
subject: Re: Records request: ACS Board of Education Meetings

Good Afternoon Dr. Patterson,

I’d like to follow up on Patrick Conant’s email from last week Re: ACS public records format and policy.

Please let me know whether you have any additional questions, and how you’d like to proceed for us to gather the requested information for the requests found at https://www.sunshinerequest.com/records_request/asheville-city-school-board-education-meetings/
and
https://www.sunshinerequest.com/records_request/asheville-city-schools-central-office-personnel/.

Thank you for your help and assistance.
Have a great afternoon!

Sunshine Request

Status: Follow up
February 22, 2018 4:12 pm
6 years ago

from: Patrick Conant <[email protected]>
to: Denise Patterson <[email protected]>
cc: Kimberly Jones <[email protected]>
date: Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 4:12 PM
subject: Re: Records request: ACS Board of Education Meetings

Good Afternoon Dr. Patterson,

Thank you for the quick reply to my message, and thank you to you and your team for posting the meeting minutes on the website.

At the time this request was first received, those minutes were not posted – the requestor seemed to be interested in seeing the minutes for October to February, as well as requesting that future minutes are posted to the website in a timely manner. We can consider this request fulfilled from the provided information – thank you!

However, I would like to follow up on my question from my previous email, in the broader context of how ACS fulfills public records requests and specifically around the format of the Central Office Personnel Salary Request. For reference, you may view that request at https://www.sunshinerequest.com/records_request/asheville-city-schools-central-office-personnel/.

I understand that the salary information we requested is available, and can be picked up at the central office.

I would greatly appreciate if that information could be provided to us in an electronic format, via email. I am not clear if the district has a policy that prohibits fulfilling records requests via email. If this is an official policy of the school district, I would request a copy of that policy to help us to facilitate future public records requests.

If that is not an official policy, would it be possible for your department to fulfill the salary request via email?

Thank you for your time,
Patrick Conant

Status: Clarification Requested
February 22, 2018 12:30 pm
6 years ago

from: Denise Patterson <[email protected]>
to: Sunshine Request <[email protected]>, Kimberly Jones <[email protected]>
date: Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 12:30 PM
subject: Re: Records request: ACS Board of Education Meetings

Good Afternoon,

I have read the message. It appears that there is a request for the location of information. Is this correct?

The ACS 2018-2019 calendar has been posted. It was approved on Feb. 5, 2018. You can find the calendar on the website (ashevillecityschools.net). Click on About ACS and click on Calendars.

Regular Board Meeting Minutes for October, November, and December 2017 were approved on February 5, 2018. They have been posted on the website. Click on ACS Board and then click on Meeting Minutes.

Please let me know if you have further questions.

Educationally yours,

Dr. Denise Q. Patterson
Superintendent
Twitter: @DrP_ACS

Asheville City Schools
85 Mountain Street
Asheville, NC 28801

Office: 828.350.6145
Fax: 828.232.4185

Status: Response Received from Government
February 22, 2018 11:15 am
6 years ago

from: Patrick Conant <[email protected]>
to: [email protected]
cc: [email protected], [email protected]
date: Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 11:15 AM
subject: Re: [#100469] Re: Records request: ACS Board of Education Meetings

Dr. Patterson,

My name is Patrick Conant, and I lead the team that runs Sunshine Request. I was forwarded your email regarding the request for meeting minutes of the ACS board, and I wanted to follow up, specifically on your request that we pick up the documents in person.

You have stated the documents are available in PDF format, and, as these are meeting minutes, they are typically posted to the ACS website. We have previously received documents from the school district electronically – specifically the email records related to Bree Newsome.

Can you please clarify why you are not able to simply email the documents to Sunshine Request? I understand the law allows you to make the records available for inspection, but that does not prohibit you from sending them electronically as well.

If this is an official policy of the school district, I would request a copy of that policy to help us to facilitate future public records requests.

Furthermore, I want to highlight that requiring individuals to pick up public records in person, especially when electronic copies are available, creates unnecessary barriers to transparency in our school district. While I have access to transportation, many members of our community do not, and I would encourage the school district to develop a policy and process to distribute public records requests electronically.

Thank you,

Patrick Conant
Sunshine Request

Status: Clarification Requested
February 22, 2018 8:32 am
6 years ago

from: Denise Patterson <[email protected]>
to: Sunshine Request <[email protected]>, Kimberly Jones <[email protected]>
date: Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 8:32 AM
subject: Re: Records request: ACS Board of Education Meetings

Good Evening,

The information will be available in hard copy and can be made available in .pdf format if you would prefer. However, the school district does not email documents in response to requests because the law allows citizens to come to our office to inspect and request copies. Please let me know when you will pick up the information so that I can have it ready.

Thanks,

Educationally yours,

Dr. Denise Q. Patterson
Superintendent
Twitter: @DrP_ACS

Asheville City Schools
85 Mountain Street
Asheville, NC 28801

Office:828.350.6145
Fax: 828.232.4185

Status: Response Received from Government
February 21, 2018 1:00 pm
6 years ago

Good Afternoon Dr. Patterson,

I hope you’re having a good week so far.

Just wanted to follow up and see wether you have any questions about the request.

Thank you for your time.
Have a great afternoon!

Sunshine Request

Status: Follow up
February 12, 2018 5:03 pm
6 years ago

from: Sunshine Request <[email protected]>
to: Denise Patterson <[email protected]>
date: Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 5:03 PM
subject: Records request: ACS Board of Education Meetings

Good Evening Dr. Patterson,

You may recall that I work for a website called Sunshine Request www.sunshinerequest.com here in Asheville.

We built a site that makes it easier to make public records requests by filling out a simple form, and the results of any requests are posted on our site. This allows citizens to learn more about our local government and community, while saving staff from having to fulfill duplicate requests. If you have any questions about the project, please let me know, I’ll be happy to answer.

We just received another new request for information that may be available in your office!

Here is the info. sent by the requestor:

Subject: “Asheville City School Board of Education Meetings”

Message: “Hi there! Normally by this time of year there is a tentative calendar out for the next school year as parents plan for the summer. There is not one this year. I went on the website to look at the School Board meeting minutes to see if it had been discussed, but the meeting minutes are way out of date! There are no minutes posted for October, November, December, January or February. That seems like a pretty serious backlog. Is there a way to ensure timely posting of minutes by the district, and is there a proposed calendar for the 2018/19 school year? Thanks so much!”

Thank you very much for your assistance.
Have a great evening!

Sunshine Request

** Editor’s Note:

Any meeting minutes that may have occurred after Sept. 2017, do not appear to be accessible on the site. We were, however, able to locate a few scheduled meeting dates from January – June 2018, listed within the ACS Board calendar at http://www.ashevillecityschools.net/pages/Asheville_City_Schools/Board_of_Education/Calendar.

Status: Sent to Government
February 12, 2018 9:01 pm
6 years ago

Submitted to Sunshine Request

Status: Pending