FOIL: Procedures for handling removal of school officers by NYSED Commissioner (Sole Supervisory District Of Broome-delaware-tioga Counties And Boces)
| Multi Request | FOIL: Procedures for handling removal of school officers by NYSED Commissioner |
| Submitted | April 14, 2023 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Jackson Parker
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the New York Freedom of Information Law, I hereby request the following records:
All materials related to processes that would need to take place if the Commissioner of Education of the State of New York removes one, multiple or all board members, school officers or superintendents from a school district under the jurisdiction of your sole supervisory district (your organization). Specifically, I request any and all materials including, but not limited to:
1) Policies, procedures, and protocols for responding to the removal of board members, school officers or superintendents, including but not limited to filling vacancies and ensuring continuity of school district operations.
2) Records of any past instances where the Commissioner of Education has removed board members, school officers or superintendents from school districts under the jurisdiction of your sole supervisory district (your organization) and the actions taken by the sole supervisory district (your organization) or NYSED in response.
3) Any other records or materials relevant to the processes that would need to take place if the Commissioner of Education removes one, multiple or all board members, school officers or superintendents from a school district under the jurisdiction of the sole supervisory district (your organization).
Please provide any records or materials that are responsive to this request, regardless of format or medium. If some records are not subject to disclosure, please provide the reasons for the denial of access.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 5 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Jackson Parker
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following New York Freedom of Information Law request, copied below, and originally submitted on April 17, 2023. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From:
Good Afternoon,
I have received this FOIL request interoffice today, please confirm receipt of my email.
I will respond to this FOIL request within 20 days of today, by June 5th, with your information or a reason why it’s been declined.
Thank you.
Lisa Cicciarelli
Executive Assistant
Broome-Tioga BOCES
435 Glenwood Road
Binghamton, NY 13905
Phone: (607) 766-3812
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following New York Freedom of Information Law request, copied below, and originally submitted on April 17, 2023. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Sole Supervisory District Of Broome-delaware-tioga Counties And Boces
To Whom it May Concern:
I am the Freedom of Information Officer for Broome-Delaware-Tioga BOCES. We have received your FOIL request seeking all materials related to the processes necessary if the Commissioner of Education removes one or more board members or other school officers or superintendents from a component school district, any policies, procedures, and protocols responding to such removals, or relevant to the processes, and records of all past instances where the Commissioner of Education has done so, and any other records or materials relevant to the process. Your request is rejected as overly broad, including, but not limited to the fact that which documents would be relevant would depend on which school officials were removed, and the request being unbounded in time.
Please confirm receipt of this email so I can close out this FOIL request, this is the 2nd time I’ve sent this response and I continue to get FOIL requests.
Thank you.
Lisa Cicciarelli
Executive Assistant
Broome-Tioga BOCES
435 Glenwood Road
Binghamton, NY 13905
Phone: (607) 766-3812
From: Jackson Parker
Subject: Re: FOIL
Dear Ms. Cicciarelli,
Thank you for your response to my Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request. I understand your concern that the request might be interpreted as overly broad and I apologize for any confusion.
To help make my request more specific, I would like to amend it as follows:
1) I'm seeking policies, procedures, and protocols that your organization would follow if the Commissioner of Education removes one or more board members, school officers, or superintendents from a component school district. Please provide any materials that outline general steps or contingency plans that your organization would follow in such circumstances.
2) For past instances where the Commissioner of Education has removed any board members, school officers or superintendents from school districts under the jurisdiction of your sole supervisory district, please provide records dating back to January 1, 2000.
3) Any other records or materials relevant to the processes that would need to take place if the Commissioner of Education removes one, multiple or all board members, school officers or superintendents from a school district under the jurisdiction of the sole supervisory district (your organization). Please provide any available materials that relate to a general process or contingency plan.
I hope these revisions clarify the nature and scope of the information I'm seeking. If any part of the request remains unclear or is still considered too broad, I'd be grateful if you could provide further guidance on how I can appropriately narrow it down.
Thank you for your time and assistance. I look forward to your response.
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following New York Freedom of Information Law request, copied below, and originally submitted on April 17, 2023. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Sole Supervisory District Of Broome-delaware-tioga Counties And Boces
To Whom it may concern:
I have received this request. You can expect a response with the information or denial no later than June 5th, as I am trying to keep my original timeframe, from when I received your first request. (see below)
Please confirm receipt of this email.
Thank you.
Lisa Cicciarelli
Executive Assistant
Broome-Tioga BOCES
435 Glenwood Road
Binghamton, NY 13905
Phone: (607) 766-3812
From: Jackson Parker
Acknowledged
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following New York Freedom of Information Law request, copied below, and originally submitted on April 17, 2023. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Sole Supervisory District Of Broome-delaware-tioga Counties And Boces
To Whom it may concern:
In response to question #1, No such written policies, procedures, or protocols exists.
In response to requests 2 and 3: To the extent your request relates to how any removals were handled pursuant to BOCES policies, procedures, and protocols, described in request number 1, because the documents do not exist, no such removals or documents relating thereto in accordance with such documents in request 1 exist. To the extent you are looking for any potential documents of any kind, including emails and other correspondence that somehow relate to any potential removal of any school board member, officer, or superintendent by the Commissioner of Education of any of our 15 component district’s for the last 23 years, the request is broad to be processed and therefore is denied. Please note, however, that BOCES is not in charge of overseeing such removals, and the job titles you requested belong to the component school districts, not BOCES. We are not sure why you think BOCES would be the repository of removal documents. To the extent that the Commissioner of Education has ordered a removal, we note that the NY Department of Education’s website publishes the Commissioners decisions and orders going back to 1991. It can be searched by name of District and BOCES, as well as other key words.
Please confirm receipt of this email response.
Lisa Cicciarelli
Executive Assistant
Broome-Tioga BOCES
435 Glenwood Road
Binghamton NY 13905
Phone: 607-766-3812
From: Jackson Parker
Dear Ms. Cicciarelli,
Thank you for your response to my Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request. In response to your question about why I believe BOCES may have documents related to the removal of school officers by the NYSED Commissioner, I would like to clarify my reasoning.
As a supervisory district, BOCES oversees and provides services to its component districts. In the event of a removal of a school officer by the NYSED Commissioner in one of its component districts, BOCES may have been involved in or informed of the removal. This could include receiving communications about the removal, being involved in implementing the removal, or participating in the processes that followed the removal. Therefore, I believe that BOCES may have documents related to such removals.
I hope this clarifies my request. I look forward to your response.
From:
We recommend the following response:
We have received your email request for any documents that involved any discussion or information regarding removals of District officers of any of its component districts for the last 23 years, your request is denies as failing to reasonably describe the records because it is unreasonably broad. As stated in our previous email, BOCES is not responsible for handling or overseeing removals of local school district officers. Therefore it has no filing or retrieval system set up for the issue and searching the entire electronic data base and paper files for 23 years for possible mentions of a removal is looking for a needle in a haystack. The Court of Appeals has suggested that “…whether or the extent to which a request meets that standard [of reasonableness] may be dependent on the nature of an agency's filing, indexing or retrieval systems. It has been advised that an agency need not search through the haystack in an effort to find the needles, even if it is known that the needles are there, somewhere.” Committee on Open Government Opinion AO 19,738 citing Konigsberg v. Coughlin [68 NY2d 245 (1986).
James A. Gregory, Esq.
Ferrara Fiorenza PC
520 Columbia Dr. Suite 204
Johnson City, NY 13790
Phone: (607) 797-4839
Fax: (607) 797-6123
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Confidentiality Notice: This electronic mail transmission is intended for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential information belonging to the sender which is protected by the attorney-client privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify the sender immediately by e-mail and delete the original message. Thank you for your cooperation.
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From: Sole Supervisory District Of Broome-delaware-tioga Counties And Boces
To Muckrock News:
We have received your email request for any documents that involved any discussion or information regarding removals of District officers of any of its component districts for the last 23 years, your request is denies as failing to reasonably describe the records because it is unreasonably broad. As stated in our previous email, BOCES is not responsible for handling or overseeing removals of local school district officers. Therefore it has no filing or retrieval system set up for the issue and searching the entire electronic data base and paper files for 23 years for possible mentions of a removal is looking for a needle in a haystack. The Court of Appeals has suggested that “…whether or the extent to which a request meets that standard [of reasonableness] may be dependent on the nature of an agency's filing, indexing or retrieval systems. It has been advised that an agency need not search through the haystack in an effort to find the needles, even if it is known that the needles are there, somewhere.” Committee on Open Government Opinion AO 19,738 citing Konigsberg v. Coughlin [68 NY2d 245 (1986).
Lisa Cicciarelli
Executive Assistant
Broome-Tioga BOCES
435 Glenwood Road
Binghamton, NY 13905
Phone: (607) 766-3812
From: Jackson Parker
Thank you for your response. I understand your concern about the breadth of the request and the challenges posed by the lack of a specific filing or retrieval system for this issue. However, I would like to clarify the nature of my request and the obligations of your agency under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).
While I understand that the agency is not required to search through a haystack to find a needle, the agency is required to conduct a diligent search for responsive records. The agency’s obligation under FOIL is to make a diligent effort to locate and disclose all documents that are responsive to my request, to the extent that they can be located with reasonable effort.
In light of this, I would like to request that your agency conduct a diligent search for the requested records. If there are specific keywords, terms, or other parameters that could assist in narrowing down the search and making it more manageable, I would be happy to provide them.
I look forward to your response and appreciate your assistance in this matter.
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following New York Freedom of Information Law request, copied below, and originally submitted on April 17, 2023. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Sole Supervisory District Of Broome-delaware-tioga Counties And Boces
We have received your FOIL request of June 26th 2023 Please note, this request does not provide any new information that helps refine or narrow your previous request of June 21, 2023 which was denied for failing to reasonably describe the records you are seeking. Instead it is a second request for the same records. Therefore it is again denied for the same reasons. Further, the Agency is only required to perform a diligent search once the nature of the records is reasonably described so the diligent search can be performed. If you have particular officers who you believe may have been removed, please state their names, job titles, and/or districts of employment. That would greatly reduce the search parameters.
Lisa Cicciarelli
Executive Assistant
Broome-Tioga BOCES
435 Glenwood Road
Binghamton, NY 13905
Phone: (607) 766-3812
Sole Supervisory District Of Broome-delaware-tioga Counties And Boces
FOIL Office
435 Glenwood Road
Binghamton, NY 13905-1699
July 11, 2023
This is a follow up to a previous request:
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following New York Freedom of Information Law request, copied below, and originally submitted on April 17, 2023. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
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