INDIANAPOLIS | The Indiana State Board of Education is back in legal hot water after a Marion County judge ruled last week a trial is needed to determine whether the board conducted an illegal meeting.
On Oct. 16, members of the governor-appointed state education policy panel — excluding the board's chairwoman, Glenda Ritz, the elected Democratic state superintendent of public instruction — drafted and approved a letter via email requesting legislative assistance in calculating 2012-13 school grades.
The letter, eventually printed on board letterhead and signed by each member of the Republican-appointed board, asked that the nonpartisan Indiana Legislative Services Agency calculate school grades because Ritz was dragging her feet.
When she learned of the letter Ritz sued the board alleging a violation of Indiana Open Door Law, which generally requires public entities make all policy decisions in public.
Her lawsuit was thrown out Nov. 8 by Marion Circuit Judge Louis Rosenberg, a Democrat, because he found only the attorney general is permitted to file suit on behalf of state officials and Republican Greg Zoeller did not approve Ritz's lawsuit.
However, four local school superintendents, including former Merrillville schools chief Tony Lux, took up Ritz's cause.
Their lawsuit, filed Dec. 4, asked that a judge find the board's email exchanges were an illegal meeting and bar the board from continuing to violate the Open Door Law.
Marion Superior Judge Cynthia Ayers, a Republican, said in her July 24 decision allowing the case to proceed that Indiana Open Door Law does not adequately address whether e-mail exchanges between a majority of board members that discuss policy issues constitute a "meeting."
But as the Open Door Law specifically indicates transparency is favored above all, Ayers said she had to reject a request by the board that she rule immediately in its favor.
She instead concluded "a full examination of the facts and circumstances of the events in question is necessary," and ordered board members respond to the superintendents' discovery request for copies of their emails that discuss public policy matters.
A trial date has not been set.
The board's decision to go behind Ritz's back and seek legislative assistance in calculating school grades and her subsequent lawsuit against the board have been ongoing points of conflict during argument-filled monthly board meetings.
Earlier this month, board member Daniel Elsener, of Indianapolis, referenced Ritz's lawsuit while successfully persuading the board to strip Ritz of most of her authority as chairwoman and give board members the power to immediately add action items to the board's agenda without any public notice.