2417 Yonkers St
Plainview TX 79072
806-293-6000
10 May 2023
Via email to: ivan.monarrez@plainviewisd.org, rosie.licerio@plainviewisd.org
PROJECT CODE: PLAINVIEW ISD TPIA REQUEST #001
Dear Plainview ISD TPIA Officer:
This is a noncommercial FOIA request from a member of the news media for electronic production of documentation per the Texas Public Information Act, §6252-17a et seq. (TPIA), to this email address, to my attention, using the above-referenced research project code.
TPIA requires that you "promptly produce" the requested records unless, within 10 days, you have sought an Attorney General's Opinion. If you deny any or all of this request, please cite each specific exemption you feel justifies the refusal to release the information and notify me of the appeal procedures available to me under the law.
All documentation should be produced as PDFs or CSV files, with the exception of photographs (which should be JPEG), audio files (which should be MP3), and video (which should be MP4 or MOV). If documentation files are too large to transmit in an email, transmit them to me either using a free file sharing service (such as Dropbox) or by sending multiple emails (as many as needed).
I seek the following numbered categories of documentation for my research pursuant to news articles and a book I am writing that has interest and value to the public:
1) Documentation of a listing of all materials in the school’s library or libraries that are for the educational use of school children. This could be a printout of a database containing all records of what books or other learning materials are contained within the library or libraries. Do not include any records of a personal nature about any individual. Librarians or media specialists maintain databases that comprise such lists. This should be a simple export to a computer file of the records contained in that database in comma separated variable format. I expect this export to take at most five minutes.
2) Documentation of a listing of all materials in the school’s library or libraries online databases like SORA, OverDrive, EBSCO, Gale, etc., that are for the educational use of school children. This could be a printout of a database containing all records of what books or other learning materials are contained within the library or libraries online resources. Do not include any records of a personal nature about any individual. Librarians or media specialists maintain databases that comprise such lists of what’s available online. This should be a simple export to a computer file of the records contained in that database in comma separated variable format. I expect this export to take at most five minutes.
3) Documentation of the "status" of the "Texas Educator Certificate" of each librarian or media specialist. I expect this export to PDF to take at most five minutes per employee and that such information would be available from https://tealprod.tea.state.tx.us/ECOS-External/EcosOnline/VirtCert
4) Documentation of each librarian and media specialist’s curriculum vitae (CV). I expect this to take at most five minutes per individual.
5) Documentation of each librarian and media specialist’s membership in American Library Association (ALA) and ALA’s American Association of School Librarians (AASL). I expect this to take at most five minutes per individual.
6) Documentation of each librarian and media specialist’s membership in Texas Library Association (TXLA) and TXLA’s Texas Association of School Librarians (TASL). I expect this to take at most five minutes per individual.
7) Documentation of each librarian and media specialist’s attendance online or in person of all ALA and AASL events, including the name of all events attended. I expect this to take at most ten minutes per individual.
8) Documentation of each librarian and media specialist’s attendance online or in person of all TXLA and TASL events, including the name of all events attended. I expect this to take at most ten minutes per individual.
9) Documentation of the presence of the following book within the school libraries, school classroom libraries, and any other collection of books within the school: Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe. I expect this to take at most five minutes per library.
10) Documentation regarding the following book within the school libraries, school classroom libraries, and any other collection of books within the school: Flamer by Mike Curato. I expect this to take at most five minutes per library.
11) Documentation of the presence of the following book within the school libraries, school classroom libraries, and any other collection of books within the school: This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson. I expect this to take at most five minutes per library.
12) Documentation of the presence of the following book within the school libraries, school classroom libraries, and any other collection of books within the school: This Book Is Gay by James Dawson. (This request is framed this way merely to avoid gamesmanship in responding to the previous question.) I expect this to take no time at all if the above is honestly answered.
13) Documentation of lists of recommended books provided to teachers by the school’s librarians and media specialists. I expect this to take at most five minutes per individual.
14) Documentation of any financial donations or gifts or awards to the school system by ALA, AASL, TXLA, TASL. I have to ask this since ALA makes a habit of influencing local communities with quiet money. In Highland Park, TX, for example, Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF), an ALA entity now with Texas connection Dorcas Hand on the board, gave $5,000 dollars to local advocates of ALA’s political positions. See page 10: http://www.ala.org/aboutala/sites/ala.org.aboutala/files/content/governance/officers/eb_documents/2014_2015ebdocuments/ebd12_12_exec_dir_rpt_11dec14.pdf. I expect this to take at most five minutes.
15) Documentation of all communications of the school librarians and media specialists from the date of the incident of the first graders forcing another first grader to engage in oral sex while another first grader filmed the event to present. I expect this to take at most five minutes per individual given to super limited time nature of this request.
I am a reporter on library matters where I publish on SafeLibraries®. As such I may publish anything you send me. Thus, I ask that all fees for the production of TPIA responses be waived: "If a governmental body determines that producing the information requested is in the 'public interest' because it will primarily benefit the general public, the governmental body shall waive or reduce the charges." "Shall," not "may." Source: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/2018-06/PIA_handbook_2018_0.pdf 194; Gov’t Code § 552.267(a). That this is a matter of public interest is evident by the international media attention the school has received as a result of the first grader being raped in school by other first graders in a manner consistent with the visual images displayed in school books like Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, Flamer by Mike Curato, and This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson.
Where emails are involved, also provide the BCC as well as the CC and the TO. As you know, BCC is for the convenience of the sender, not for circumventing public information laws. If senders/recipients include distribution lists the school created, then please provide the document that lists the individual recipient email addresses in any distribution list; again, distribution lists are for the convenience of the sender, not for circumventing the law. Further, if school business has been conducted via the use of personal emails, then please provide those emails as well. Conducting school business on personal emails is not a valid means for circumventing TPIA.
Any document written or recorded is included as well. That includes voice mails, audio recordings, video recordings, transcripts or minutes of any public meetings. School board executive session recordings or minutes are not included in my request if they have not already been made public.
Written or recorded documents also include those made in any telephonic, electronic, or physical meeting with anyone acting on behalf of any library association such as the ALA. ALA trains librarians that written or recorded documents from ALA-provided trainings, meetings, conferences, etc., are ALA proprietary and may not be released publicly. That ALA claim is false. TPIA controls, not ALA. If a public employee attended anything at public expense, then anything learned/recorded at such an event or as a result thereof has been made public and is discoverable under TPIA no matter what ALA claims. The public has a right to know what business has been conducted at public expense, especially where the school goofed, allowing a first grader to force another into oral sex.
Be clear ALA top leadership uses personal email to direct librarians to destroy public documents precisely to prevent production under state sunshine laws like TPIA. Example from the private email of the current Director Deborah Caldwell-Stone, Esq., of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom: “Subject: URGENT - must delete all documents related to 17 Dec crisis communications workshop .… Remove these from your servers today and destroy hard copies. This is an attempt by two individuals to obtain privileged information …. we cannot allow anything from 17 Dec to be produced in response to FOIA.” See: “Librarians Ordered to Destroy Public Documents Revealing Homophobia at American Library Association and Crime in Libraries,” by Dan Kleinman, SafeLibraries®, 26 April 2018, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2018/04/librarians-ordered-to-destroy.html
To bring it home to Texas, TXLA advises librarians to use personal emails as well, precisely to attempt to evade Texas law, precisely to keep parents in the dark, precisely about the sexualization of their children in school, and here we are with first graders acting out something they’ve obviously seen somewhere—while librarians are trained to hide public records from the public:
Kleinman, Dan. “School Librarians Train to Violate FOIA Law to Keep Parents In the Dark About Sexualizing Children.” SafeLibraries® (blog), December 5, 2022. https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2022/12/school-librarians-train-to-violate-foia.html.
Thank you very much for your attention to this matter.
NOTE: If anyone wishes to contact me privately/confidentially, perhaps to provide some of this documentation, use SafeLibraries@pm.me.
Sincerely,
Dan Kleinman
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NOTE ADDED 19 MAY 2023:
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