Check CU has received a letter from the Yorkville, Illinois Community School District 115 demanding that we alter the contents of a news article which we published last week. 

Check CU first reported on December 31^st, 2023 about an unlawful closed meeting of the Yorkville School Board, and the resulting order from the Illinois Attorney General that the recording of the illegal meeting be released to the public:
AG: Secret School Board Meeting on Book Banning was Illegal – Yorkville, Illinois

Check CU then published another article on January 9^th, 2024 after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for that meeting recording was denied:
School Board Refuses AG Order to Release Secret Meeting Recording – Yorkville, Illinois

The meeting in question was a closed “executive session” discussion on August 7^th, 2023 about the removal of the book Just Mercy from the curriculum for being “too controversial”.  However, Chief Deputy Attorney General Brent Stratton reviewed the matter after a resident filed a complaint, and he determined that the Board of Education had no right to conceal their discussion from public view.  In his December 27^th 17 page determination letter, Stratton ordered the meeting recording be made publicly available.

However, it has been three weeks and the School Board has not made the recording publicly available, and they have also denied a FOIA request for the recording.  The Yorkville Board of Education has already held two public meetings this month and the matter was not addressed by the Board at either of those meetings.

In what appears to be an attempt to muddy the ongoing conduct of the Yorkville School District, Director of Communications Brent Edwards, who manages the District’s social media channels, issued a press release on January 11^th – two days after the District denied our FOIA request.  The statement included the line, “Relevant documents concerning this matter were released to the public with appropriate redactions in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, in the interests of transparency.”  Edwards failed to mention that they had just denied a FOIA request for the meeting recording.

Now Edwards wants Check CU’s January 9^th article to be altered.  In an email on January 17^th, Edwards wrote:

“Your article inaccurately states that the school board refused an Attorney General order to produce the closed session recording. In fact, the school board hasn’t had a meeting yet to consider whether to comply or challenge the Attorney General opinion…the records are currently prohibited from disclosure by Section 2.06 of the Open Meetings Act…Please correct immediately what appears to be a willful, intentional misstatement of fact in your article that the school board has determined not to comply with the Attorney General’s opinion, or that it has made any decision in that regard.”

The position of the Yorkville School Board appears to be that, even though they violated the Open Meetings Act (OMA), and even though the Attorney General ordered the illegal meeting recording be publicly released, they are still allowed to rely on the same false closed meeting exemptions that got them into trouble in the first place.  They also appear to want the public to think that the actions of their FOIA Officer are entirely separate and independent from the wishes of the School Board.

FOIA Officers, according to state law, are to be appointed by the public body for whom they operate, and they are a representative of that public body.  Yorkville School District FOIA Officer Cathy Anderson denied our FOIA request, and has thus far refused to answer our January 11^th follow up email.

Despite the Yorkville School Board’s desire that this whole situation be seen as a leisurely administrative hiccup, OMA violations are crimes.  Illinois statute lists them as class C misdemeanors, which are punishable by up to 30 days in prison and up to $1,500 in fines.  However, State’s Attorneys almost never prosecute OMA violations.

In this situation, the Yorkville School Board violated the OMA and now appears to be intentionally delaying the release of the August 7^th meeting recording.  If the Board feels like they first need to be publicly seen voting to release the meeting recording, they could have notified the public and called for a special meeting immediately, instead of denying FOIA requests and letting the matter linger for weeks.

Yorkville Director of Communications Brent Edwards’ January 17^th email to Check CU, as well as his January 11^th press release, are provided below.