 ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS GREG ABBOTT | |
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September 5, 2006 Ms. Karen Hattaway
OR2006-10295 Dear Ms. Hattaway: You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under the Public Information Act (the "Act"), chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 258356. The Texas Education Agency (the "agency") received a request for copies of student assessment incident report forms for 2005 and 2006, and electronic databases that contain information from the incident report forms. You claim that the submitted information is excepted from disclosure under section 552.116 of the Government Code. We have considered the exception you claim and reviewed the submitted information.(1) Initially, we note that recently, the United States Department of Education Family Policy Compliance Office (the "DOE") informed this office that the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act ("FERPA"), 20 U.S.C. § 1232g, does not permit state and local educational authorities to disclose to this office, without parental consent, unredacted, personally identifiable information contained in education records for the purposes of our review in the open records ruling process under the Act. Consequently, state and local educational authorities that receive a request for education records from a member of the public under the Act must not submit education records to this office in unredacted form, that is, in a form in which "personally identifiable information" is disclosed. See 34 C.F.R. § 99.3 (defining "personally identifiable information"). You have submitted, among other things, unredacted education records for our review. You state you will withhold the identifying information of students from the requested documents pursuant to FERPA. Accordingly, we will address the applicability of the claimed exception to the remainder of the submitted information. You inform us that the requested information was the subject of a previous request for information, in response to which this office issued Open Records Letter No. 2006-10244 (2006). The information in the current request is identical to the information previously requested and ruled upon by this office, and thus, as we have no indication that the law, facts, and circumstances on which the prior ruling was based have changed, we conclude that the agency must continue to rely on that ruling as a previous determination and withhold or release this information in accordance with Open Records Letter No. 2006-10244. See Open Records Decision No. 673 (2001) (so long as law, facts, and circumstances on which prior ruling was based have not changed, first type of previous determination exists where requested information is precisely same information as was addressed in prior attorney general ruling, ruling is addressed to same governmental body, and ruling concludes that information is or is not excepted from disclosure). As we are able to make this determination, we need not address your arguments. This letter ruling is limited to the particular records at issue in this request and limited to the facts as presented to us; therefore, this ruling must not be relied upon as a previous determination regarding any other records or any other circumstances. This ruling triggers important deadlines regarding the rights and responsibilities of the governmental body and of the requestor. For example, governmental bodies are prohibited from asking the attorney general to reconsider this ruling. Gov't Code § 552.301(f). If the governmental body wants to challenge this ruling, the governmental body must appeal by filing suit in Travis County within 30 calendar days. Id. § 552.324(b). In order to get the full benefit of such an appeal, the governmental body must file suit within 10 calendar days. Id. § 552.353(b)(3), (c). If the governmental body does not appeal this ruling and the governmental body does not comply with it, then both the requestor and the attorney general have the right to file suit against the governmental body to enforce this ruling. Id. § 552.321(a). If this ruling requires the governmental body to release all or part of the requested information, the governmental body is responsible for taking the next step. Based on the statute, the attorney general expects that, upon receiving this ruling, the governmental body will either release the public records promptly pursuant to section 552.221(a) of the Government Code or file a lawsuit challenging this ruling pursuant to section 552.324 of the Government Code. If the governmental body fails to do one of these things, then the requestor should report that failure to the attorney general's Open Government Hotline, toll free, at (877) 673-6839. The requestor may also file a complaint with the district or county attorney. Id. § 552.3215(e). If this ruling requires or permits the governmental body to withhold all or some of the requested information, the requestor can appeal that decision by suing the governmental body. Id. § 552.321(a); Texas Dep't of Pub. Safety v. Gilbreath, 842 S.W.2d 408, 411 (Tex. App.--Austin 1992, no writ). Please remember that under the Act the release of information triggers certain procedures for costs and charges to the requestor. If records are released in compliance with this ruling, be sure that all charges for the information are at or below the legal amounts. Questions or complaints about over-charging must be directed to Hadassah Schloss at the Office of the Attorney General at (512) 475-2497. If the governmental body, the requestor, or any other person has questions or comments about this ruling, they may contact our office. Although there is no statutory deadline for contacting us, the attorney general prefers to receive any comments within 10 calendar days of the date of this ruling. Sincerely, Lisa V. Cubriel
c: Ms. Holly Hacker
Footnotes 1. We assume that the "representative sample" of records submitted to this office is truly representative of the requested records as a whole. See Open Records Decision Nos. 499 (1988), 497 (1988). This open records letter does not reach, and therefore does not authorize the withholding of, any other requested records to the extent that those records contain substantially different types of information than that submitted to this office. POST OFFICE BOX 12548, AUSTIN, TEXAS 78711-2548 TEL: (512) 463-2100 WEB:WWW.OAG.STATE.TX.US |