FOILed demand for schools info
When it comes to the Department of Education, there’s no such thing as a routine Freedom of Information Law request.
Diane Tinsley of Community Education Council 5 in Harlem submitted what she thought was a minor FOIL application to the DOE in April 2016.
Concerned by a severe shortage of school librarians, the CEC — representing the Harlem Council of Elders advocacy group — simply wanted to know which of the 16 schools in her district staffed them.
But instead of getting answers, Tinsley found herself trapped in a bureaucratic farce that has lasted for well over a year.
The DOE rejected her request two months after she filed it, arguing it would require the mass mobilization of its tech department.
“A compilation of the requested data does not exist, and responding to your request would involve more than a simple extraction of data from a single computer storage system,” explained DOE FOIL officer Joseph Baranello in a June 2016 rejection letter.
“FOIL does not obligate a public agency such as the DOE to match data across computer storage systems in order to respond to a FOIL request,” Baranello wrote.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Tinsley said. “It was disrespectful; it was dismissive.”
She won her appeal in August 2016 — but has since received 10 consecutive monthly extension letters from Chancellor Carmen Fariña’s DOE.
Asked about the FOIL request Tuesday, a DOE spokesman said Tinsley would get her answers by the end of the week.