Parent at Littlestown Area SD meeting says officials deleted emails to avoid Right-to-Know disclosures

Suzanne Johnson, a district parent and resident, told the Littlestown Area School District board during public comment that she believes district officials have improperly deleted email records after Right-to-Know Law requests and urged greater transparency.

Johnson told the board she had observed what she described as a "brash disregard" for open-government laws and said board members last month discussed deleting emails instead of producing them in response to records requests. She cited guidance from the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records that warns agencies against destroying records before or after a Right-to-Know request, saying that such practices can lead to bad-faith findings or, in some cases, criminal charges.

"It's very disturbing that the board wants to celebrate Right-to-Know appeal findings as successful because there were no records to provide as a result of deleting records," Johnson said. She asked the board for specifics on the district's backup and recovery plan and on the record-retention schedule for emails, adding, "That isn't the intent of laws put in place to ensure open government."

Johnson also raised budget priorities tied to facility work, noting the district has a $500,000 facility grant but is, she said, requesting an additional $2,900,000 from capital reserves to cover work including replacement of 1990s windows, gym HVAC and ground-floor HVAC and pneumatic upgrades. She questioned the timing and priority of those expenditures in relation to an ACTI project she described as an important investment.

The board acknowledged Johnson's remarks but took no formal action on her allegations during the meeting. Board policy updates referenced during the discussion included policy 9-3 (public comment procedures), a planned update to policy 801 (public records), policy 830.1 (data governance, substance, storage, and security) and a recently passed policy 800 (records management); Johnson said the district's record-retention schedule itself was not provided in the materials she has seen.

The meeting record does not show a staff presentation or written response that addressed the specific records-retention practices Johnson described, and no vote or staff directive on records policy was recorded in the provided transcript segment. The board is scheduled to consider updated public-records and data-governance policies this month, according to materials read aloud at the meeting.