CLARK COUNTY — The citizen group that fought to obtain the student directory from the West Clark school district has released a statement indicating it has no intention to use it to send an email to parents promoting its position on the referendum being decided Tuesday. However, the referendum attorney for the district, Jeff Qualkinbush, says he never sent the directory to begin with because the group has yet to agree to the district’s terms.
The group “Concerned Citizens of West Clark” lobbied to obtain the email addresses earlier this month after a pro-referendum PAC received the same data from Superintendent Chad Schenck and used it for an email blast, encouraging parents to volunteer, vote and educate themselves. The school board voted to waive its own policy and release the directory to the group under the conditions the group only send a single a email, mirroring what the PAC sent, and then return the information.
At the heart of the matter is the $95 million referendum to fund improvements at each campus in the district, though the majority would be spent at Silver Creek schools, the campus leaders say needs the most work and is forecasted to see the highest growth. Those against the referendum argue that too much will be spent on Silver Creek schools, and there’s too much ambiguity around the tax increases and what exactly will be done and where.
The statement, released by the Concerned Citizens’ attorney Ted Nolting, reads: “...we have no desire to invade the privacy of our citizens, and accordingly, we will not be accessing the directory or sending an email promoting our position. We encourage you to take the time to educate yourself regarding the referendum, the debt being undertaken by the School Corporation, and the effect on your future tax liability. If you own property, your taxes will increase. There are no exceptions.”
According to Qualkinbush, he is only authorized to release the directory to Nolting when the group agrees to the terms set forth by the district. Qualkinbush said he emailed Nolting the terms, which included sending only a single email which mirrors the one sent by the PAC, but never received a response agreeing to those terms.
The district agreed to forfeit the directory after the citizens group threatened legal action and potentially the special election, itself, district attorney Mike Gillenwater previously stated.
“We’re either going to set aside the election, or we’re going to have someone hit the delete button on their computer and eliminate an email they never asked for,” Gillenwater told the News and Tribune in an earlier interview.
When the district agreed to release the directory, it sidestepped legal action from Concerned Citizens of West Clark, but it may have violated federal law when it failed to give parents a reasonable amount of time to remove themselves from the directory.
Parents had until roughly 10:45 a.m. the day following board action to remove their email address from the directory before it was submitted to the district’s lawyer, a window that was unintentional, Schenck said afterward.
According to a spokesman from the U.S. Department of Education, the general rule is when a district changes its directory policy, even temporarily, parents and eligible students should be given a “reasonable” time period to remove themselves from the directory.
— Reporter Elizabeth Beilman contributed to this story.