![]() “A ruling in favor of Oklahoma Watch and Jennifer Palmer would send a clear message that public bodies, including school systems, in Oklahoma cannot shield records from the public by charging exorbitant fees to the journalists and news organizations who request them.” Gardner, the Reporters Committee Local Legal Initiative staff attorney in Oklahoma who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the news outlet and the reporter. ![]() “Epic Charter Schools has provided no legitimate basis to withhold the requested records, and their insistence on demanding fees they are not entitled to under the Open Records Act is particularly concerning,” said Kathryn E. Inventing and inflating fees is merely a tactic to subvert the law and keep the public away from what’s rightfully theirs, from work they’ve already paid for with their taxes.” “The law is clear that the public is entitled to see their own documents. “These records are owned by the public,” said Ted Streuli, executive director of Oklahoma Watch. ![]() ![]() In their lawsuit, Palmer and Oklahoma Watch ask the Oklahoma County District Court to order, among other things, that Epic Charter Schools’ withholding of the requested records is unlawful that the news outlet is entitled to the prompt disclosure or inspection of the requested records at little or no cost and that the school system is breaking the law by demanding legal review payments in response to Open Records Act requests. Palmer then narrowed the date range of her request the next month, but school officials still insisted on charging almost $5,000 to fulfill the request - including more than $3,000 in “legal review” costs that have no basis in law and amount to a violation of the Open Records Act. In response to Palmer’s public records request, Epic Charter Schools proposed charging more than $40,000 in fees to copy the documents. On May 7, Oklahoma’s Multicounty Grand Jury released a report that raised concerns over what it calls a lack of transparency in the school system’s operations, and said it was “ripe for fraud.” The May 11 lawsuit - the first filed as part of the Reporters Committee’s Local Legal Initiative in Oklahoma, which launched last November - centers on a state Open Records Act request Oklahoma Watch reporter Jennifer Palmer submitted to Epic Charter Schools last July seeking emails sent to and from the school system’s co-founder, Ben Harris.Įpic Charter Schools, which enrolls nearly 60,000 students, has recently been the subject of a series of federal and state investigations into allegations of wrongdoing, including an allegation that school officials received state funding for “ghost students” that received no actual instruction at the school. On behalf of Oklahoma Watch and one of its reporters, attorneys from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press are suing the state’s largest school system and its superintendent over their refusal to provide access to email records requested by the nonprofit news organization. Update: On June 10, 2022, the parties agreed to dismiss the lawsuit after Epic Charter Schools produced more than 14,000 documents to Oklahoma Watch and Palmer.
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