RIGHT TO KNOW LAW
To submit a request for public documents please contact the Open Records Officer,  Heather Stage. If you have a Right to Know Request please contact her through email at stageh@ltsd.org, in writing at the central administrative office, or by phone at (570) 945-5184. Your request will be processed as per policy. For more information, please click Link to PA Open Records Office.  Or you can print and send in a Right-to-Know request form.   What does it cost? [Fee schedule here].

Q: I filed a RTKL request with a local school district, seeking access to all settlement agreements that involve students that were entered into last year. The school district denied access, citing confidentiality clauses and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), arguing that settlements are not public because they are educational records. Can they do that? /font>
A: No. The public's right to access settlement agreements involving public agencies is well settled, and the school district cannot rely on confidentiality clauses contained in a settlement agreement or FERPA to deny public access, although FERPA may require the school to redact certain student-specific identification information. Pennsylvania appellate courts have consistently held that confidentiality clauses in settlement agreements involving public agencies are not enforceable, and settlement agreements are public under both the former, more restrictive RTKL, as well as the revised RTKL. See Morning Call, Inc. v. Lower Saucon Township, 627 A.2d 297 (Pa.Cmwlth. 1993);Tribune-Review Publishing Company v. Westmoreland County Housing Authority, 574 Pa. 661, 833 A.2d 112 (Pa. 2003); Newspaper Holdings, Inc. v. New Castle Area School District, 911 A.2d 644 (Pa.Cmwlth.2006), appeal denied, 592 Pa. 776, 926 A.2d 443 (2007). The New Castle News case is noteworthy because the court ordered the school district to pay the newspaper's legal fees after the school district unreasonably denied access to an executed settlement agreement.
It is not uncommon for settlement agreements to include a confidentiality clause, but these clauses are not enforceable under Pennsylvania law when a public agency is a party to the settlement. In other words, agencies cannot contract away the public's right to know. The Office of Open Records (OOR) has also addressed public access to settlements involving schools and students citing the cases above, and has routinely held that the RTKL requires public access once the records have been de-identified in accordance with FERPA. See e.g., Andren v. West Shore School District, OOR Dkt. AP 2009-1084. FERPA regulations prohibit the release of student-specific educational records without permission, and the OOR considers certain information in settlement agreements to be subject to redaction when they contain student-specific information such as IEP plans, grades, and disciplinary information.