Position Switch: E-mails and Public Information, from Fear to Accountability to Wrong Again
Back in April, Wes Fryer admonished teachers to “Be wary of saying it in e-mail,” which advised the following:
“The recommendations said you should never write what you:
- would not say aloud
- would not write in a letter to someone else with your name at the bottom
- don’t want published in a newspaper”
… and later in the piece, “Be careful what you write ANYWHERE, including email messages.”
I thought then - as I do now - that Fryer has the wrong attitude toward e-mail in public service. It’s really quite simple - communication undertaken as a public employee [teacher, municipal servant, etc.] is owned by the public. It’s a wonderful bit of common sense accountability/transparency, and that isn’t something to be feared.
I think Fryer is so wrong because public employees shouldn’t run scared, tiptoe, or otherwise panty-wad. They should embrace the transparency of e-mail and uphold their professional responsibilities.
Fryer invoked ye olde specter of Enron as having brought to the forefront of public communication regulation these issues of accountability. I replied then:
“Some people have conservatively said that schools must archive EVERYTHING on their networks which is sent by users.”
This depends largely on the state in which your district operates.
For example, in New York and Florida, archiving e-mail isn’t something that “some people” say should happen - and it certainly isn’t a conservative assessment of the situation. It’s the law.
In those states, e-mail within public schools is a matter of public record. Obviously there are restrictions on what can/can’t be made available via a Freedom of Information Law [or similar] request - I couldn’t have access to e-mails containing confidential information - but communication, as with other public institutions, is to be archived.
Public right-to-know, Sunshine, and FOIL acts pre-date the Enron fallout by decades.
No one replied to that comment and there was no discussion.
Fryer posted today to “Assume your inbox is public record,” and he’s still wrong - this time about a different facet of the e-mail issue:
“Reminders like this [that e-mails are public records] are important for not only teachers, but also parents and others who communicate with teachers, principals, and other school employees via email. Don’t assume an email message is going to remain private with the person to whom you are intending to send it. If a subject is touchy or sensitive, don’t address it with an email.”
E-mails are public records - which is precisely why you should document contentious issues in e-mail.
Parents of students with IEPs will be the first to tell Fryer and others how important it is to have proper, solid documentation of contentious issues. Cynics and realists call it a “paper trail,” but in truth, having access to clear, hard evidence of communication goes a long way for both parties.
Stop fearing this stuff and start using it, folks.
“Meet face-to-face or discuss it on the phone.”
In-person discussions are obviously a good way to handle minor problems - I record those as well. Phone conversations are notoriously weak evidence. I tend not to have them when I communicate with public officials about anything remotely serious, and when I do, I record them.
“Not only can email messages be readily misinterpreted (especially when they concern sensitive topics) and readily forwarded to others (intentionally or unintentionally)– they can also be subpoenaed as public records.”
E-mail messages are writing - which is loosely defined as putting on paper or typing those words and thoughts that are in your head. If you want to [or need to] look back to an important communication, it’s better to have a hard copy of the words than to rely on one’s recollection. This is why the grocery store gives you a paper receipt instead of saying, “Be sure to remember what you bought, including prices, and if there’s a problem we’ll take your word for it!”
If your e-mails are “misinterpreted,” that’s your problem. Have someone help you write a solid communication to a teacher or administrator - there’s no shame in it.
That communications can be forwarded wrongly is a real issue, but it’s not one we should fear. If it happens, then we hold the offender to account like we do with any other violation of statute.
It’s also worth noting that non-tangible communication [conversations, telephone calls, etc.] can be forwarded as well. We call it “gossip,” and it’s a much larger problem than e-mail forwarding.
Fryer wraps up with:
“Don’t assume your email inbox is a space for private communications.”
I think that Fryer has a problem with clarity here, though I can’t be sure. I think that he’s trying to suggest that “private communications” - say, writing to a friend that you’ve got a crush on the girl in the next cubicle over, or writing on a listserv about how much you hate Political Candidate A, B or C - aren’t as private as one might think. He’s right about that.
But e-mail has offered the public and the employees of its government a tremendous opportunity to archive conversations. The benefits of the accurate record-keeping are many, and they benefit the most contentious situations the most.
Matthew: I certainly agree documentation is very important, and I am not discouraging educators from taking the time to document situations thoroughly and properly. I wanting to highlight that as teachers write an email message, a word processing document, a note by hand, or anything else, it is important to remember the public nature of the document which is being crafted. Based on the actual examples of educator emails Celynda Brashner shared in that METC 2007 session I referenced in the post, it is clear some teachers have in the past not had this perception of email. She recounted multiple examples where comments were made which were not appropriate or professional in email, messages were inadvertently sent to all recipients rather than just a colleague, etc.
I did not intend nor do I think I wrote in either today’s post or the previous one the message “don’t document classroom situations thoroughly” or “fear your email.” Instead, what I wrote was an encouragement for teachers to recognize the potentially public nature of email. I think this is an important and quite reasonable position to take. We need to be aware of the potential for litigation and the way the words we write can be utilized in court. I do not equate raising awareness of these issues with promoting fear or non-use of email by educators.
Wesley,
You didn’t write those phrases and I didn’t quote them. If I didn’t put quotation marks around it, I didn’t attribute it to you.
The comment you’ve written here has a very different tone - and I’d argue a different meaning - than your two posts.
Well, this is certainly a good example of why/how open commenting on blog posts can be very positive for clarification purposes. Thanks for your push-back, Matthew. I’ve added additional comments to each of the posts you linked here which hopefully clarify this.
Your comments make sense - I’d like to see teachers and administrators embracing the benefits of the accountability/documentation that e-mail provides.