District 113A Restricts Public Access as Officials Investigate Source of Document Leak

Public access to school board agendas and related documents is suspended indefinitely on the Lemont-Bromberek Combined School District 113A website while officials investigate who or what caused earlier this week.

As of Thursday evening, District 113A's web-based document management system, BoardDocs, was no longer available to the public through the district's website. The page that previously hosted District 113A documents now requires a username and password.

The suspension of BoardDocs comes just one day after District 113A Superintendent Susan Birkenmaier confirmed that the minutes from 10 closed session meetings from July 2011 through January 2012 were posted online for an unknown amount of time between Sunday and Monday.

The documents were up for discussion Tuesday night as part of the board's semi-annual review of closed session minutes, but were not meant to be released to the public, Birkenmaier said.

The incident, she said, was "an unfortunate mistake" that is still under investigation.

"Until we can determine the source of the problem and solutions, public access restrictions have been put in place," Birkenmaier said.

The mistake was brought to Birkenmaier's attention Monday morning by a staff member. She then notified the school board and began looking into who or what caused the error.

As part of the investigation, the district has been in contact with Emerald Data Solutions, the company behind BoardDocs.

"At this point, we're still not sure what happened, but we are working with BoardDocs as we narrow the scope of our investigation," Birkenmaier told Patch on Thursday.

District 113A has used BoardDocs for the past several years to post board meeting agendas and related documents—including past minutes, financial statements, PowerPoint presentations and Freedom of Information Act requests. The site also had a section for district policies.

According to Birkenmaier, BoardDocs has different levels of access that determines what documents are available to view and download. Board members and administrators are able to sign in with a username and password to view confidential items, such as closed session documents and minutes, she said.

"The minutes that were accidentally made public were up for review, so they would have been posted as supplemental documents for Tuesday's closed session," Birkenmaier said.

Because of the late hour, Patch was not able to reach BoardDocs for comment.

Following a brief closed session Tuesday night, District 113A board members voted 4-1 not to release the 10 closed session minutes to the public, which Board President Dave Molitor said "has been standard practice for the board in the past."

Board Member Al Malley cast the dissenting vote. Board members Mike Aurelio and Karen Siston were absent.

On Wednesday, Malley said there were certain documents he thought should be released to the public.

"It is my opinion that some of the discussion contained in the minutes is obsolete at this point," Malley said. "I felt that it would be appropriate to release some of that to the public."

According to the Open Meetings Act, public bodies are required to review closed meeting minutes no less than semi-annually. During those meetings, the public body must determine whether a "need for confidentiality still exists as to all or part of those minutes," or if "the minutes or portions thereof no longer require confidential treatment and are available for public consumption."

As of Thursday, the investigation was primarily focused on what caused the minutes to be made public, not the content of the documents, Birkenmaier said.

This is obviously a very serious matter, but we are taking the proper steps to deal with it and make sure it doesn't happen again," she said.

Check back with Patch on Friday for updates to this developing story.

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