School still not releasing harassment files
A Daily Herald effort to obtain findings from an internal sexual harassment investigation of a former school principal remains under review six months after a new law took effect to make it easier for the public to get government documents.
Pending since January is the newspaper's Freedom of Information Act request for the documents detailing claims of sexual harassment by Eric Vance when he was Plainfield North High School's principal in 2009. He was hired as Grayslake North High School's principal for the 2009-10 academic year.
However, Vance resigned last December after Grayslake High School District 127 Superintendent Catherine Finger said she never knew about the sexual harassment investigation until a FOIA reply from Plainfield was presented to her by the Daily Herald.
Plainfield Unit District 202 acknowledged in the FOIA response there was a summary of the investigation issued in 2009 involving claims made against Vance by a woman who reported to him. District 202 refused to allow the public to see the findings and recommendations, citing legal exemptions.
Under the revised Freedom of Information Act that took effect Jan. 1, the attorney general's office can force a governmental unit to disclose documents through a binding opinion. Those seeking information can appeal a denial with the attorney general.
Cara Smith, the attorney general's public-access counselor now in charge of deciding FOIA disputes, said she's found in the first six months of the new law that the process can become time-consuming if a determination requires a review of hundreds of documents. She said the goal is to render a decision as soon as possible.
"No one worries more about the cases we have pending than I do," Smith said.
Meanwhile, in another Daily Herald case, the attorney general's office issued a July 1 letter stating officials at Stevenson High School District 125 in Lincolnshire went too far in censoring the contents of archived e-mails following a Freedom of Information Act request from the newspaper.
In early January, the Daily Herald sought copies of e-mails between board members and top administrators regarding the Statesman student newspaper and a series of controversies that eventually led many teenagers to leave the staff.
As a result of the attorney general's binding opinion, some of the Stevenson communiques have been released, a spokesman said.
Stevenson officials were right to protect the identities of parents, students or other community members who had communicated electronically with the district, according to the attorney general's office. However, the office labeled as "overbroad" Stevenson's redaction of the entire content of communication.
Noting exemptions to the state's public documents law, Stevenson officials gave the paper hundreds of pages with significant sections electronically censored. In many instances, entire e-mail messages were blacked out.
•Daily Herald staff writer Russell Lissau contributed to this report.
Cases: Stevenson censored too much, attorney general ruled