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Records director orders some seclusion data released, denies demographic breakdowns
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Summary
Director Lonnie Pearson granted in part and denied in part Courtney Johns’s consolidated appeal: USBE must provide aggregate statewide seclusion totals (including list of 27 schools with more than 10 incidents) and redacted compliance letters; demographic breakdowns and a supplemental compiled dataset were denied as requiring creation of new records.
Director Lonnie Pearson issued a mixed ruling in a consolidated appeal by Courtney Johns seeking records from the Utah State Board of Education about school seclusion practices and USBE oversight.
Johns asked for aggregate school‑level seclusion totals and statewide demographic breakdowns from 2023 to 2025, plus records documenting how USBE oversees seclusion (monitoring, audits, compliance letters) and revision history for LRBI manuals. Johns emphasized she was not seeking student names or individually identifiable records and argued GRAMA requires segregation and release of non‑exempt portions.
Miss Beal, representing the Board of Education, said historic LRBI manuals and ESI policy checklists had been supplied for review but warned that demographic breakdowns and school‑level lists risk reidentification. She reported there were “1,148 seclusion incidents statewide” and that “only 27 schools had more than 10 incidents,” noting the board follows a practice of suppressing cells smaller than 10 to mitigate reidentification risk and that the ESI reporting process is new and contains data‑entry errors.
After a brief in‑camera review of materials, the director denied Johns’s request for a supplemental response and found USBE was not required under GRAMA to compile new demographic tables because the requested demographic breakdowns would require creating new records from individual student‑level entries. However, Pearson found aggregate state‑level totals are not protected by FERPA and ordered production of those totals, including a list of the 27 schools that recorded more than 10 incidents (without demographic breakdowns).
Pearson also ruled that finalized LRBI manuals made publicly available satisfied the request for policy text and that drafts or correspondence regarding revisions could be properly classified as protected drafts where applicable. He found that ESI compliance letters were not properly classified as protected under 63G-2-305(10) and ordered those letters produced with school names redacted and any student‑identifying information redacted.
The director said the appeal was granted in part and denied in part and that a written decision would be issued within seven business days; either party may appeal to district court within 30 calendar days.