Delaware’s Attorney General’s Office has ruled that Indian River School District and its board of education violated Delaware’s Freedom of Information Act at its Aug. 23 meeting by voting on two items, including a state mask mandate for all students, that were not on the public agenda.
FOIA requires that public bodies, such as IRSD, give at least seven days’ notice of any meetings and shall include in the notice “the agenda, if the agenda has been determined.” The agenda should at least “alert members of the public with an intense interest in the matter that the subject will be taken up by the (public body).”
- Wasn’t that a governor-initiated mandate anyway? Not sure why it would need a vote. — Eileen Patricia
- This is retaliation from the governor’s office. — Beth Gallagher
- No, it’s how board of directors and procedures work. They have requirements they must adhere to, and they didn’t. It’s really that easy! — Amy Pastore Rademaker
- So let me understand this: Carney gets a vote of no confidence and sends the DA in to try to show them in violation. — Eddie Morris
- In reality, parents and others to whom the board is responsible filed a formal complaint with the AG’s Office, as is their right, claiming that the board abrogated its legal responsibility to keep their constituents and others impacted by their decisions sufficiently informed, or to receive any public comment, before making a decision that many of those constituents didn’t agree with and which could directly impact their health and safety and that of their kids, nor in consultation with any experts in related fields of science or law. The AG’s Office ruled (as it sometimes does in these cases) that the board had violated the law, finding that the constituents who filed the complaint were correct that FOIA had been violated and had been justified in filing the complaint. — M. Patricia Titus
- I find it very disheartening that, in all these comments about the vaccine, nobody ever mentioned natural immunity! — Troy Mitchell
- That was an amazing, quick opinion from the AG’s Office. — Lewis W. Briggs II
- Just for your future reference, all FOIA complaints filed with the attorney general have to be ruled upon within 20 days. That time requirement is in Delaware Code, set by our legislators. I believe the intent was to keep a problem from being buried or delayed. — Dan Shortridge
- School boards all over pull this type of situation! Open your eyes and get involved and vote for those people that are supposed to represent parents and their kids! Also, ask yourself, “Why should any superintendent be involved with the school board?!” It’s a conflict of interest for a superintendent to be interacting with any school board, but it happens all over and shouldn’t! — Michele Strusowski
- Also, anyone in a teachers union should not be on a school board. Conflict of interest. — Mary Bashtarz
- Pity the “news” isn’t willing to report on how often municipalities don’t post their agendas in public, so they can sneak shady ordinances, permits, services and comprehensive plans past the citizens who they are supposed to “represent.” — Shawn Knotts
- Good! What the board did that day was wrong. We did not know they were going to vote on the issue. If parents had been informed, we would have been there. I watched virtually. If I knew they were voting, I would have been there and spoke in favor of the mask mandate. I know many other parents pro-mask that would have attended. — Christine Murray Clark
