Our View: Teachers' e-mails at work are public records

Wausau Daily Herald via a kind reader's email:

Sometime in the spring of 2007, Don Bubolz of Vesper didn't like what he heard at a meeting of the Wisconsin Rapids School Board.

He filed an open records request on April 16 of that year seeking the release of all e-mail messages sent to and from the accounts of five teachers in the district, for a period of about six weeks. At the time, he told the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune that he wanted to find out -- and wanted school administrators to know -- whether the teachers were "doing their job the way it's supposed to be done."

The district superintendent indicated he would release the e-mails. The Wisconsin Education Association Council, representing the five teachers, filed an injunction to block their release.

The case made its way through trial court, and last month the Appeals Court certified it for consideration by the state Supreme Court. The appeals court said that there is no existing legal guideline in Wisconsin about whether personal e-mails constitute public records. If it chooses to rule on the case, then, the Supreme Court's decision would have far-reaching implications.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 12, 2009 10:24 AM
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