FOIA use called mixed success

Prince William County Schools announced on March 14 that Nokesville Elementary will be renovated and expanded, rather than replaced, due to a comparative cost study that found the former the more cost-efficient route.

The announcement means the 80-year-old school will only increase its current 450-student population to 550 or 600 by 2012, rather than 850 or 950.

“In studying the plan, an important, reasonable and prudent point was raised: What is the long-term cost of building … versus the cost of renovating … ?“ Superintendent Steven Walts wrote in a March 14 letter to the community. “The leadership of [the schools] was very open and up-front about this question, providing information and soliciting input at public meetings and in other various ways, and the Nokesville community re-sponded.“

But to some Nokesville parents who have spent weeks fighting against the concept of construction over renovation—and who have received cost estimates from the school to fulfill their Freedom of Information Act record requests in the collective range of $21,000—that claim of openness sounds a bit hollow.

“FOIA is really the only way citizens can obtain information the county or schools don’t want to reveal,“ said Laura Spillane, president of the Parent-Teachers Association for Nokesville. “FOIA is a citizen’s friend and it can work.“

She stumbled upon that piece of wisdom these past months.

In January, Spillane and several of her community colleagues were caught off guard, she said, by a newsletter from their children’s principal that made reference to a Brentsville high school project with “surprise, surprise,“ she said, plans for the new Nokesville facility at the same site. She devised and circulated a survey to gauge the community’s reaction to these plans; of 307 mailed, she recalled, 178 responded. Roughly 81 percent, Spillane found, were opposed to a new school.

As such, Spillane and a handful of like-minded cohorts—some with professional backgrounds in facilities planning and awareness of how new-building plans are supposed to proceed—began to investigate and ask questions. Specifically, they sought School Board clarification of the logic that concluded a $28 million new building was the better plan than a $14 million renovation and expansion, especially for a school with students who score consistently well on standard tests.

“We decided to make a soft sell first, at the February 6 meeting, and a harder one later,“ Spillane said. “Three or four of us spoke on how small schools were better, how there wasn’t enough money in the budget for a new school and how not enough homework had been done to show the reasons to build a new school.“

At that same meeting, school employees, to include cafeteria and maintenance workers, said the school was beyond repair, plagued by mold and other environmental hazards, and the only fix was to construct a new facility. Spillane, in response, wanted to find out if these statements were true.

“On February 7, I sent a FOIA request in,“ Spillane said. “I asked for way too much stuff … and I finally narrowed. I asked for bu

accident reports, stranger danger

reports, health related incident reports, and maintenance records” for Nokesville and from four other schools, for comparison purposes. She received that information and, several days later, found she needed more to complete the picture she was trying to draw: whether or not Nokesville’s maintenance costs were really outrageous when compared to other schools.

“I sent in a request for one year’s worth of maintenance records for Victory,“ she said. “It opened in the fall of 2006 so I could compare an old school with a new.“

She soon after asked for costs associated with maintenance labor hours and material costs at other elementary schools. Those requests stemmed from statements from “at least one School Board member commenting that they can’t continue to pay the maintenance costs” for Nokesville, Spillane said.

Her overall experience?

“It took awhile, everything took awhile, but I eventually did get it,“ Spillane said. “On March 5, armed with this data, we spoke at the School Board meeting and the presentation focused largely on the county [school’s] failure to do their homework. There was no structural analysis, no cost analysis, the maintenance argument was empty, and the $28 million cost for a new building was not needed. This was a much more hard-hitting presentation.“

In the end, FOIA did play a part in pressuring the school to opt for renovation, rather than new

construction, she thought.

“It was a combination of persistence on our part and a conviction, not just as parents, but as county citizens,“ Spillane said. “My perception is they are really tight with their data and fairly unwilling to release it … but it was definitely the information we got from FOIA that was definitely helpful.“

Fellow Nokesville resident and parent Zara Tirrell, who collaborated with Spillane to split and divide FOIA requests pertinent to the construct-versus-renovate question, hasn’t been as lucky.

Tirrell is still waiting for some of her documents, and in the meantime, finds the cited costs from the school to be both ridiculous and prohibitive.

“It’s over $21,000 for all of us,“ Tirrell said. “Laura [Spillane], she totaled six requests we sent in. With mine, it was $1,800. Another one, Jackie Mason, her original request was more than $10,000 and then she narrowed it.“

Her assessment of this cost accrual is simple.

“If you take a step back and look, if it’s the school’s desired outcome to discourage citizens from pursuing documents, well, how do you do that? You make them responsible for the costs,“ Tirrell said, “and then you blow them out of the water.“

Tirrell, who has a background in facilities planning for schools, thought her requests for documents would flow smoothly, given she knew the exact titles of reports and summaries that

should have been on file.

But on one more than one occasion, the process of asking for this paperwork became so convoluted with return requests for clarifications of the requested information—and bogged down by accompanying requirements for different deposit amounts—Tirrell felt frustrated by what she perceived as intentionalstonewalling.

“Fine,“ she said, at one point in her FOIA experience, “I’m kicking a can of worms here.“

She’s approached the Freedom of Information Advisory Council, a state agency that can issue advisory opinions for citizens on matters related to FOIA, and said she will continue her push for public documents—even though the school has already decided to renovate. In effect, then, she’s won the battle, but now her stand is one of principle.

“They get a FOIA request in and they choose to read it in the broadest, most cost-provoking way possible and use it as a weapon to discourage citizens from going forward with the request,“ Tirrell said.

And that’s not the letter or spirit of the law, she described.

The school’s FOIA contact did not respond to a Thursday e-mail seeking address of Spillane and Tirrell’s experiences. School Board Chairman Milt Johns did not return a telephone call for comment in time for deadline.

Staff writer Cheryl Chumley can be reached at 703-670-1907.