Schools are not above the law

The Herald reports:

A major education union is seeking legal advice in a bid to exempt state schools from the Official Information Act after an Auckland law student sent an onerous “system-wide” records request to nearly 2500 schools.

So the union thinks schools should be exempt from transparency laws. Why am I not surprised.

Spanz president Louise Anaru also wrote a scathing letter of complaint last month to University of Auckland (UoA) Vice-Chancellor Dawn Freshwater after law student Regan Cunliffe sent a mass request for details of school trustees’ use of personal devices to 2422 state and state-integrated schools.

She wrote that Cunliffe’s request was not a simple exercise to establish how a particular school managed its records.

“It is a carefully designed, system-wide exercise intended to map legislative non-compliance across the school sector.

That sounds like an excellent use of the OIA. We should know if there is a problem with legislative non-compliance.

Cunliffe’s latest OIA sought information on policies and procedures regarding trustees’ use of personal devices and accounts for board business.

This sounds like a simple request. You either have a policy, which you can send him. Or you don’t have a policy, and you say you don’t.

In 2018, Cunliffe uncovered what he said was a nationwide failure by schools to properly protect children, after discovering his own child’s school lacked a required child protection policy. 

After extending the investigation to other schools, OIA responses revealed patchy compliance with the Vulnerable Children Act.

Sounds like Regan is performing a public good.