The legalities of board business online - School Law

School Administrator, August, 2003 by R. Craig Wood

Casual, informal e-mails between or among administrators and board members may not immediately violate the Sunshine laws, especially where a quorum is not involved. However, they never know when one of them will forward it to enough others to constitute a violation. When the violation occurs, everyone involved--not just the final offender--is implicated.

Administrators and boards also must not forget the Freedom of Information laws, which allow the press and public to demand copies of most documents created, received or held by a public entity. Emails are electronic documents that are subject to FOIA laws in the same way as official reports and correspondence. If the content of an e-mail addresses a matter of public concern, it doesn't matter that the e-mail was sent from or received by a private computer. The primary factor is the content of the communication, and FOIA laws are generally broader in their reach than open meeting laws. Increasingly, public officials find themselves sorely embarrassed by e-mails they sent or even innocently received that later are quoted prominently in newspaper headlines.

All administrators and boards should adopt and follow acceptable use policies that have been reviewed by legal counsel. The prudent public official then will treat every electronic communication as if it will be the subject of a FOIA request. Public and personal business should never be combined in a single e-mail because the public business makes the entire email subject to a FOIA request.

These simple steps followed consistently and diligently will avoid the majority of legal and ethical issues created by the use of Internet technology. The principles are familiar, only the context has changed. Keep your school board and yourself out of trouble by taking these simple measures before a problem arises.

Craig Wood is an attorney with McGuireWoods, P.O. Box 1288, Charlottesville, VA 22902. E-mail: cwood@mcguirewoods.com. He is immediate past president of the Education Law Association.