On June 1, the San Diego Unified School District will delete thousands of emails from its server as part of a new policy enacted, the district says, to save money on data storage costs (the district hasn’t provided backup on financial reasons for the change). The only emails that won’t be deleted are those employees manually archive. Going forward, the district plans to delete all emails after one year.

The San Diego chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is concerned that important public records will be deleted in the email purge.

The new policy was introduced a year ago and approved by the district’s board of trustees, though it didn’t take effect immediately. At the time, we expressed concern about the policy’s lack of specifics, including whether employees would be properly trained on which emails to archive. We noted that other large California school districts retain emails for at least two years.

Since last July, we’ve regularly asked when the policy would take effect and what guidance and training staff was being given. We learned earlier this month that the policy would take effect June 1.

We continue to have concerns about the new policy. Despite repeated requests to the district over the last two weeks, we have yet to see any evidence that staff was adequately trained on which emails should be archived.

Californians Aware, a statewide group that advocates for government transparency, is also troubled by the change. Former San Diego City Councilwoman and longtime CalAware board member Donna Frye said the group believes the change may violate state law.

“The state law governing retention of school district disposable records, in effect, requires at least a three-year preservation period,” Frye said.

Additionally, attorney Cory Briggs says that he intends to sue the district for adopting the new policy.

San Diego SPJ urges the San Diego Unified School District to reconsider the serious concerns we and others have raised about the new policy — and to provide more detail on how it will be implemented — before deleting tens of thousands of public records from its server.

On Thursday, the San Diego chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists sent a letter to Mayor Kevin Faulconer and members of the City Council, asking staff to prioritize access to public records and information when allocating resources for the city’s upcoming fiscal year.

To read the letter, click here.

As stated in the letter, SPJ President Lisa Halverstadt and Advocacy Chair Tom Jones met with the city’s public records staff to discuss the results of a survey conducted on the city’s NextRequest public records system. More than 175 people took the survey, and many mentioned a need for additional city staff to process public-records requests and answer questions about them.  Of those surveyed, 46 percent said records were not released within the timelines initially offered by city staff.

SD-SPJ hopes the city will ensure it has adequate resources, both within the department managing the NextRequest system and within other individual departments, to respond to public-records requests.

The Board feels a more transparent government and access to information will result in a more informed San Diego community.

Would you like to serve on the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists’ board of directors? If you are a member of the society, you are eligible to run for the board.

The board meets monthly to plan SPJ events, oversee the annual awards contest, and weigh in on issues concerning local journalists, among other things.

The election will be held in June. If you’d like to run for the board, please submit your bio (200-word limit) by May 23 via email to Megan Wood at meganwoodsdspj@gmail.com (subject line: SPJ Election.)

Election results will be announced in late June. Need to renew your membership? Click here.