School boards to refund fees for class-size data
Postmedia request was in public interest, privacy commissioner’s office says
EDMONTON Public school boards in Edmonton and Calgary are refunding Postmedia more than $650 in fees the school districts charged to release data on class sizes earlier this year.
After Postmedia in June appealed the fees charged by Edmonton Public Schools and the Calgary Board of Education, a manager in Alberta’s Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner told both boards the request for class size information was in the public interest, and recommended they refund the money.
Postmedia Edmonton’s editor in chief, Mark Iype, is pleased the privacy commissioner’s office decided the information was in the public interest and has recommended the districts refund the $658.25.
“As our reporting showed, despite nearly $3 billion of public money being spent over 14 years, class size data was not being properly tracked, guidelines were ignored and successive governments and school boards were not being held accountable,” Iype said on Friday. “This is important for Alberta’s school kids and teachers.”
In January, Postmedia filed freedom of information requests to six school districts — Edmonton public, Edmonton Catholic, Calgary Board of Education, Calgary Catholic, Red Deer public, and Red Deer Catholic. Each application cost $25.
Mindful of the limitations in existing reports, which include only class size averages, Postmedia requested tallies of classes in the 2017-18 school year that met or exceeded class size guidelines established in 2003 by the Alberta Commission on Learning. Also requested were numbers of junior and senior high classes with 35 or more and 40 or more students registered, basic descriptions of the district’s largest classes and class size averages for core academic subjects.
Edmonton Catholic and both Red Deer districts provided the information within the 30-day limit set out in legislation for no additional fee. Edmonton Public Schools provided a copy of an already-published report that did not contain most of the requested information.
Although Calgary Catholic initially requested more money, they waived the fee upon appeal.
Edmonton and Calgary public both said it would take employees many hours to compile the data, because they didn’t collect or summarize it in the way Postmedia had requested it.
Ultimately, Postmedia paid $398.25 to the Calgary board and $260 to the Edmonton board.
In June, the Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, and Edmonton and Calgary Sun newspapers published a series of stories on class sizes stemming from the numbers obtained in the requests.
Earlier this month, a senior information and privacy manager assigned to review the files told both boards releasing the information was in the public interest and recommended refunds.
Calgary Board of Education spokeswoman Joanne Anderson said in a Friday statement the fees were to cover the cost of manually creating data sets.
“In the spirit of co-operation, the CBE waived the remaining fees as recommended by the mediator,” she wrote.
Edmonton public requested the fees to provide the information in the format requested in compliance with provincial privacy law, spokeswoman Carrie Rosa said in a Friday email. The district reviewed and accepted the recommendations from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, she said.
Following a February report by Alberta’s auditor general, and days after Postmedia published its class sizes series, Education Minister David Eggen released 14 years of raw class size data online for every public and charter school in the province. The Alberta Teachers’ Association had been asking for the information for five years.
Class size data was not being properly tracked, guidelines were ignored and successive governments and school boards were not being held accountable.