WLCSC Open Door Violation

We’re big proponents of transparency. The Indiana Open Door Law is one such law that helps promote transparency in local government. The law states that “government agencies must hold official meetings of a majority of their governing body, such as council or board meetings, publicly. As a citizen, you have the right to attend and record these meetings.” The importance of such a law is clear - school boards, city councils, and larger governing bodies should make their decisions that affect constituents in public.

As many of you know, WLCSC created a diversity committee in February 2021. However, the diversity committee’s meetings were private, and members of the committee were forced to sign NDAs in order to be able to participate. This was pretty shocking to us - we recognize that there are times the public shouldn’t be able to listen in on meetings. But the diversity committee’s sole goal was to inform diversity recommendations for the district.

Why should the public be excluded from this? Why were committee members signing NDAs?

We’ve already seen multiple instances in which public oversight, specifically for the diversity committee, was needed. As some of you may remember, the board originally did not plan on making the diversity committee application public, and when the diversity committee list was first posted, none of the members listed were Asian (in a district where 22% of students are Asian).

Long story short, we filed an open door violation on the diversity committee, and Indiana’s Public Access Counselor issued an advisory opinion ruling that the diversity committee is subject to the Open Door Law. In other words, the school board was breaking Indiana code when they held these diversity committee meetings in private and made committee members sign an NDA.

Transparency was a major buzzword during the 2020 school board election, and the school board told the community that they heard these concerns and would make a better effort to be transparent going forward.

However, that isn't the case. Since then, community members have questioned why public access was denied, but the school board never reconsidered their position, leading us to escalate to the Indiana Public Access Counselor’s office.

As we’ve seen in the past, the school board and administration continue to use chilling tactics to make sure parents, students, alumni, and teachers don’t feel comfortable speaking up.

When the school board became aware of our open door violation claim, we were met with hostility. Now Board President Rachel Witt sent us the following email:

“Ila and Daniel,

Given your filing of an open door claim, which in alleges wrongdoing on the part of the school corporation and effectively calls me personally a liar, I no longer feel the book club you have organized is a safe place for me to have the kind of honest and open conversations the topic of race deserves. I will search out a more inclusive environment that places a value on respect, personal integrity and trust.

Best, Rachel”

Apparently, the school board views holding publicly elected officials accountable as a violation of “respect, personal integrity, and trust.”

What this means going forward: citizen committees informing school board and district policy must be publicly accessible, and members can’t be forced to sign NDAs. We hope the board continues to work to make their decision making process more accessible and transparent.

You can view our full open door violation claim, the school board’s response, the Public Access Counselor’s ruling, and Rachel's email here.