Cent. Dauphin Sch. Dist. v. Hawkins
| Decision Date | 22 April 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 1154 C.D. 2017,1154 C.D. 2017 |
| Citation | 253 A.3d 820 |
| Court | Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court |
| Parties | CENTRAL DAUPHIN SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant v. Valerie HAWKINS, Fox 43 News and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Office of Open Records |
Casey A. Coyle, Harrisburg, for Appellant.
Craig J. Staudenmaier, Harrisburg, for Appellees Valerie Hawkins and Fox 43 News.
BEFORE: HONORABLE PATRICIA A. McCULLOUGH, Judge, HONORABLE ELLEN CEISLER, Judge, HONORABLE BONNIE BRIGANCE LEADBETTER, Senior Judge
OPINION BY JUDGE McCULLOUGH
This Right-to-Know Law1 (RTKL) appeal is before the Court on remand from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for further consideration consistent with its opinion in Easton Area School District v. Miller , ––– Pa. ––––, 232 A.3d 716 (2020) (partial plurality) ( Easton II ).2
In our original opinion, we affirmed the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County (trial court), which held that a school bus video of an incident involving a Central Dauphin School District (School District) girls’ basketball player and a parent was not protected from disclosure under section 708(b)(1)(i) of the RTKL, 65 P.S. § 67.708(b)(1)(i). Central Dauphin School District v. Valerie Hawkins, Fox 43 News and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Office of Open Records , 199 A.3d 1005 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2018), vacated, ––– Pa. ––––, 238 A.3d 337 (2020). Section 708(b)(1)(i) of the RTKL exempts from public access a record the disclosure of which "would result in the loss of Federal or State funds by an agency or the Commonwealth." 65 P.S. § 67.708(b)(1)(i). The School District argued that if it disclosed the video, it would lose Federal funding under the Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b)(1) and (2), which generally provides for the withholding of Federal funding to educational agencies or institutions that have a "policy or practice" of releasing "education records"3 and personally identifiable information contained in those records unless certain conditions are present.4 Our original decision was based in large part on our conclusion that the bus video in question was not an "education record" for purposes of FERPA's privacy protections. We concluded that, because the bus video was not an "education record," the School District would not lose funds under FERPA if it was released, and therefore, it was not exempt from public disclosure under the loss of funds exception under section 708(b)(1)(i) of the RTKL, 65 P.S. § 67.708(b)(1)(i).
On remand, we reach the same result as we reached in our original opinion and affirm the trial court, although our reasons for doing so have been modified to conform to the rationale of Easton II .
On February 23, 2016, Valerie Hawkins, on behalf of Fox 43 News (Fox), submitted a written RTKL request to the School District that stated, in pertinent part, as follows:
[Fox] is requesting a copy of the video that was captured by a school bus camera system that occurred on Feb. 16, 2016. According to paperwork filed at Magisterial District Judge Lowell Witmer's office, Erica Rawls grabbed the wrist of a 17-year-old girl after the [Central Dauphin] East girls’ basketball [team] returned from a District 3 playoff game at Central Dauphin on Feb. 16 (see attached document). Rawls was cited with a summary count of harassment. We would like to obtain a video copy of the incident that was captured by the school bus video system.
(Reproduced Record (R.R.) at 5a.)
The School District denied the request for the stated reason that disclosure of the video would violate FERPA, and the potential loss of Federal funds under FERPA exempted the video from disclosure under the RTKL's loss of funds exemption in section 708(b)(1)(i) of the RTKL,5 65 P.S. § 67.708(b)(1)(i).6
Fox appealed to the Office of Open Records (OOR). Before the OOR, the School District submitted a sworn affidavit of Assistant Superintendent Karen McConnell, its open records officer. The OOR determined that the school bus video was not exempt and ordered its release. The School District appealed to the trial court, which held an evidentiary hearing. Assistant Superintendent McConnell testified that students are individually identifiable in the video by both facial recognition and by the jersey numbers that are embroidered on their backpacks. (R.R. at 238a-39a.) She further testified that the video was created (converted to a permanent form) for the purpose of investigating student and staff conduct for safety and disciplinary purposes. (R.R. at 236a-37a.) When asked whether the School District had the ability to redact the video, Assistant Superintendent McConnell stated that the School District does not have the capability of doing that. She testified in this regard, as follows:
(R.R. at 241a.)
The trial court affirmed the OOR, finding that the video was not an "education record" under FERPA because it was not "part of a student's permanent academic record." (Trial court op., 8/1/2017, at 12.) Concluding that disclosure of the video would not jeopardize the School District's Federal funding under FERPA, the trial court held that the School District did not prove that the video was exempt under the loss of funds exemption in section 708(b)(1)(i) of the RTKL, 65 P.S. § 67.708(b)(1)(i). Therefore, the trial court found that the video was a public record pursuant to the RTKL. Id. at 12, 16. The School District appealed to this Court.
On December 10, 2018, this Court issued its opinion and order, affirming the trial court. We agreed that the video at issue was not exempt from disclosure under the loss of funds exemption contained in section 708(b)(1)(i) of the RTKL, 65 P.S. § 67.708(b)(1)(i). Relying on our decision in Easton Area School District v. Miller , 191 A.3d 75 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2018) ( Easton I ), aff'd Easton II , we concluded that the video at issue was not an "education record" because the School District failed to establish the first part of the "education record" definition in FERPA that the video be "directly related" to a student.7 We noted that the video revealed nothing about a student-specific file, either academic or disciplinary in nature, and it was unknown whether the School District used the video in the discipline of the unnamed student. Central Dauphin School District , 199 A.3d at 1013-14. Further, we found that the School District failed to establish the second part of the definition that the video was "maintained by the institution."
Because the School District did not prove that the video "directly relates" to a student or that it is "maintained" in the manner contemplated by FERPA, we affirmed the trial court, ruling that the school bus video is not an "education record" for purposes of FERPA and, thus, not exempt from disclosure under section 708(b)(1)(i) of the RTKL, 65 P.S. § 67.708(b)(1)(i).
On January 9, 2019, the School District petitioned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for allowance of appeal, arguing that we erred in our determination that the video is not an "education record" under FERPA, 20 U.S.C. § 1232g. Meanwhile, on June 18, 2020, a plurality of the Supreme Court8 affirmed our decision in Easton I , but its analysis significantly departed from our analysis. By Order dated September 1, 2020, the Supreme Court vacated our December 18, 2018 opinion and order in the case sub judice and remanded for consideration of its opinion in Easton II .
On December 14, 2020, we directed the parties to file supplemental briefing to address the following issue:
Whether the video recording is an education record under [FERPA], and, if so, whether the video recording is protected from disclosure under the [RTKL] or may be disclosed in redacted form.
Because we have been directed to reconsider our decision in light of the Supreme Court's opinion in Easton II , we begin with an analysis of that case.9
In Easton II , it was alleged that an Easton Area School District (district) elementary school teacher physically disciplined a child on a school bus. Rudy Miller and The Express Times (collectively, Miller) submitted a RTKL request to the district, seeking a copy of the surveillance video from the school bus security camera capturing the incident. Easton II , 232 A.3d at 719. The district withheld the video under the loss of funds exemption in section 708(b)(1)(i) of the RTKL, 65 P.S. § 67.708(b)(1)(i). Relying on the definitions of "education record" and "personally identifiable information" as used in FERPA, the district argued that the video was exempt from disclosure as an "education record." Id. Miller appealed to the OOR.
The OOR determined that only those records relating to student academics are "education records" under FERPA and, because the video was not part of the student's permanent academic file, the video was not an "education record" under FERPA. The OOR issued a final determination granting Miller's appeal and ordered the district to disclose the video within 30 days. Id. at 720.
The district appealed to the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County (common pleas court), which agreed with the OOR's determination that the video was not an "education record" under FERPA because the district failed to establish that the video contained information depicting a student's academic or educational performance. Id . Thereafter, the district appealed to this Court.
In a unanimous published decision, a three-judge panel of this Court affirmed the common pleas court's order. Contrary to the rationale of the lower tribunals, we reasoned that FERPA did not require an "education record" to be related exclusively to a student's academic performance. Id. at 721. We emphasized that FERPA...
To continue reading
Request your trial
- Cent. Dauphin Sch. Dist. v. Hawkins
-
Sch. Dist. of Phila. v. Calefati
..."then withholding the [requested records] would not serve the purposes of protecting the privacy of the student under FERPA." Hawkins, 253 A.3d at 834. Accordingly, District's alternative argument also lacks merit. Finally, the District argues that Section 705 of the RTKL does not require t......