Nevada court rules CCSD Interact email addresses of teachers is public record

Monday, June 1, 2015 | 6:45 p.m.

The Clark County School District must hand over teacher email addresses to a nonprofit think tank through a public records request, the Nevada Supreme Court has ruled.

The three-judge panel reversed a Clark County District Court decision to dismiss a claim by the Nevada Policy Research Institute requesting all the work emails of teachers in the district. The size of the database is about 17,000 email addresses, according to court documents. District Judge Douglas Smith had ruled the email addresses were confidential, however, the Supreme Court on Friday determined the addresses were public record. State law has very brief language on databases containing email addresses.

When NPRI stated it would take the school district to court, CCSD general counsel responded in a letter that the email directory could be "considered part of the employee's personnel records and must be safeguarded." In addition, CCSD's letter stated the Nevada Public Education Foundation, not CCSD, owned the license to the InterAct database. However, the foundation later clarified in a letter that while it had developed the InterAct through a partnership, it did not have administrative rights to the database.

Joseph Becker, NPRI chief legal officer and center director, said the emails are for communicating with teachers, such as surveying them. The Nevada Policy Research Institute focuses on education as one of its big issues.

In addition, teachers are allowed to withdraw from their union, but can only do so during a two-week period in the summer, he said. The organization wanted to send out notifications and email is the best way to reach teachers, he said.

Most of the other school districts in Nevada have complied with his organization's request for teacher email addresses, Becker said.

The ACLU Foundation of Nevada filed an amicus brief supporting the Nevada Policy Research Institute. In the document, it states a similar case filed in 2009 by Karen Gray v. CCSD determined communications or email information from InterAct is considered public record. Gray's request differed in that it was for all email addresses utilized by school board trustees through the InterAct system.

CCSD general counsel Carlos McDade in a 2013 letter to the nonprofit stated, "In light of the fact you have previously demonstrated your ability to email thousands of our teachers through InterAct, it is unfortunate that you feel the need to waste public resources litigating this issue."

Since the Supreme Court disagreed with the District Court findings, CCSD will assume legal costs for both parties. In addition to in-house attorneys, CCSD was represented by Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP.

"Not only are we not going to be paying our own [legal fees], they're going to be paying ours," Becker said.

Sun reporter Cy Ryan contributed to this report.