In the past year, Jonathan Groves and I both did open records projects with our classes that went beyond the usual “make students file an FOI request” assignment. Dr. Groves, with his students at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, sought documents from local schools on mandatory reporting under the Missouri Safe Schools Act. My class at TCU sought vaccination exemption request information from elementary schools in the Fort Worth ISD.
The goal of these projects was to partner with a local journalist to use the information gathered by dozens of students as part of an investigative reporting project. Coordinating with local news media allows for some real-world investment by students, while also building connections between journalism schools and the community. By meeting with an education reporter or investigation team editor before the semester to see what kind of projects they may be interested in, we were able to come up with a relevant and timely topic, with the power of 25 to 30 students each filing individual requests that a single reporter would be unable to do. Then, the professional reporter can take the results of those requests to inform an investigative story about local schools – always a high-level topic of interest to readers in the community.
Here’s how we did it, step by step:
Step 1 – Coordinate with local news media
The first step can be the most challenging. You need to set up a meeting with someone at your local news media outlet to be your partner on the professional side. I met with the executive editor and the investigations team editor over coffee to talk about some potential ideas. We brainstormed to find things that (a) would be of interest to their readers, (b) were not records that were readily available in compiled form, (c) involving simple enough records requests that could be responded to in a 16-week semester, and (d) could, with some work, turn into a story depending on what we found.
In my case, we got down to a few topics, mostly in public schools coverage. The newspaper used to have a team of 8-10 education reporters about a decade ago; now, it was one or two, with education sometimes assigned out to general assignment reporters. They were not going to have the kind of time it takes to invest in a months-long FOI project requiring dozens of requests when it’s all they can do to cover the school board meetings in the region.
Once we narrowed down to a topic – student vaccination rates at elementary schools, of which there were 81 in our district, and no central hub for reporting or collecting those at the district or state level – I worked with the students to learn about FOI and our project.
Step 2 – Teach about FOI
This is the usual module in a media law class where we talk about open records laws. I like to use Cuillier & Davis’ The Art of Access to give tips on making requests, and then provide links to useful websites with letter templates, such as NFOIC.org or, because we are in Texas, foift.org. I did this in week three of a 16-week semester, after letting them know we’d be doing the project in week one. This can also be a good time to bring a reporter to your class to talk about how he or she uses FOI and what they hope to get from the project you’re working on.
Step 3 – Give assignments
A level of specificity is helpful here. In the past, we’ve allowed students to come up with their own topics for requests, which sometimes means they want FOIA the federal government about Area 51 or other things that will never, ever result in a responsive, meaningful request. In the vaccination request assignment, I gave each students three public schools, and sent a list of addresses and principals that the school district already had publicly available.
Step 4 – Students draft and send letters
This needs a deadline for a grade so it gets done. In our case, that was week five of the course. We talked about it in class, and students can help each other with the requests. I looked at letters in advance if students asked, but did not read every one until they had been submitted for a grade. Then, I gave tips in case something was in error – for example, if the student used a federal FOIA template instead of the state records law template (this happens quite frequently, despite me telling them not to do this several times).
Step 5 – Students follow up and negotiate
Was the request received? Is it being acted on? These are questions reporters have to do when FOI requests are made, and students get the chance to make a call or schedule an appointment with the school staffer who has to handle their request. They often hate to do this – students do not like talking on the phone, and their emails often are ignored. But it’s an essential part of the process. Email alone often isn’t going to get the job done.
Some students will also get lucky and receive records quickly. Within two weeks of letters being sent out, make time in class for students to talk about their successes and struggles.
Step 6: Students discuss and reflect
This is a gradeable part of the assignment. I’ve done this as a series of blog post requirements (one introducing the topic, one with the actual requests, two on the negotations and hopefully reception of documents, and a final reflection) or short reflection papers. It’s a place for students to get used to documenting their experiences seeking records. You can make these due throughout the semester, every few weeks, with a final post/paper due in the final weeks of the course. Here’s a good example of a student blog on the FOI project seeking vaccination data.
Step 7: Students get records or final denials
By the end of the semester, after 10-15 weeks of writing and negotiation, either students will have the records, or they’ll have a denial, or they’ll have been ignored for so long that it’s worth writing about. This is the source material for the story that the local news reporter will work on. If students are able or interested, they can gather the information or data and work with the reporter on the next steps – what story do the records tell you, and what more reporting needs to be done to put that data/information in context? This may also involve data cleanup and analysis, or perhaps building a spreadsheet.
And if some public officials are non-responsive or give a final denial, that’s a part of the story, too!
Step 8: Local journalist writes story using the data/information from the project
Remember that this takes time and may not be done until the following semester; an investigative reporting project isn’t done overnight, and pure data from records alone does not make a complete story.
In the vaccination version of this project, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote this story using the data.
Media Law Prof blog 