Lyons Township High's Bid For Secrecy Falters

LA GRANGE, IL – Lyons Township High School's reason for keeping student survey results secret is to protect the survey company's intellectual property.

The problem: The firm said it had no issue with the school divulging the survey questions

Besides, neighboring Hinsdale High School District 86 has released its survey results for five years.

In response to Patch's request, the school has released the summary of results, but not the portion with questions and results.

In its denial, the school said the questions were the intellectual property of Boston-based Panorama Education.

Patch asked Panorama whether schools can divulge the questions.

In an email, Michael Reynolds, senior director of legal and government affairs, said his firm does not preclude schools from posting questions and results.

"(D)epending on the location of the client, it may be a policy or legal requirement with which we certainly would not interfere," Reynolds said. "In jurisdictions where there is no requirement to publish survey questions, that decision to publish or not belongs to the school district client."

He also said schools are allowed to select from Panorama's library of survey questions, create their own questions or select a combination of the two.

"The decision is theirs," Reynolds said.

Patch left a message about Panorama's response on Wednesday with the school's spokesperson, Mary Lin Muscolino, who did not respond.

On Nov. 4, Muscolino wrote the denial to Patch, stating, "Panorama owns the intellectual property rights to the survey questions."

As such, she said, the documents containing the questions fall under the Freedom of Information Act's exception for information that federal or state law prohibits from releasing.

The school is also keeping under wraps the results of the surveys for teachers and other staff. It said such records contain "preliminary recommendations in which actions are formulated."

Again, Hinsdale District 86 has posted teacher survey results online for years.