A recent Rhode Island Superior Court decision held that a local teacher’s union has standing to bring a declaratory judgment action seeking to prohibit certain records from being provided in response to a Rhode Island Access to Public Records Act request.  This decision has important ramifications since it could be used in the future to add another layer of review to APRA requests and/or delay responses to such requests.

The case, Nat. Educ. Ass’n of Rhode Island v. South Kingstown School Committee, No. PC-2021-05116, 2022 WL 2183109 (R.I. Super. June 09, 2022), began when the parents of a prospective kindergarten student requested records concerning the South Kingstown School District’s teaching of “critical race theory” and other concepts.  The requests included “records relating to teacher discipline and performance, teacher e-mails, and e-mails of various administrators . . . .”  Concerned that the requests implicated documents that were not public records and could involve its members privacy, the local teacher’s union filed a declaratory judgment action.  It sought to:

“(a) prohibit the disclosure of non-public records; and/or (b) for those requests that call for personally identifiable and other personnel-related information about public school teachers, that no records be disclosed until the Court employs a balancing test that properly assesses the public interest in the records at issue measured against the teachers’ individual privacy rights.

While the Court was clear it could not provide injunctive relief, it determined the union had standing to pursue its declaratory judgment action, which could make public entities shy away from making their own decisions on APRA where the Courts get involved.