District 113A Claims System Problems Caused Confidential Documents to Go Public; BoardDocs Cites Human Error

Officials in  concluded Thursday their investigation into public access of closed session minutes, reporting that the cause was "unrelated to staff actions."

District 113A Superintendent Susan Birkenmaier released a statement detailing its investigation, which began July 16 after the administration learned closed session minutes from 10 closed session meetings from July 2011 through January 2012 were visible to the public for an unknown amount of time.

On July 19, Birkenmaier revealed that private documents dating back to October 2008 were also visible on BoardDocs, the online document management system used to post board meeting agendas and related items—including past minutes, financial statements, PowerPoint presentations and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Following the 10-day investigation, District 113A found that procedures and practices related to BoardDocs have been followed consistently since 2008 without incident, leading administrators to believe the error was not caused by staff, Birkenmaier said.

The documents inadvertently made public were marked "private" when they posted to BoardDocs, she added.

"We had a reasonable expectation that any document marked 'private' in the BoardDocs system would be viewable only by authorized system users," Birkenmaier said in an email.

On Monday, however, a representative from Emerald Data Solutions, the company behind BoardDocs, told Patch that they believed the leak was caused by human error, rather than issues with the system.

"Our report (to the district) indicated that the files were stored in a way that's inconsistent with training," said Ari Ioannides, president of Emerald Data Solutions.

On Thursday, Ioannides said he had yet to see a report from District 113A, but maintained that the documents were stored stored incorrectly.

"We haven't changed the way documents are posted to BoardDocs," he said. "The report indicates that the district posted an agenda item that was restricted from the public, but the attached documents were public."

When reached by phone Thursday afternoon, Birkenmaier said she could only speak for District 113A, not BoardDocs.

"All I can tell you is what I know, which is that the documents have been posted the same for years, and this has never happened," she said. "I know they modified some coding, but other than that... all I can say is that we're going off what we know, and those documents were marked 'private.'"

In her email, Birkenmaier did say the review and training on the use, functions and effect of BoardDocs "has been reciprocal as BoardDocs and (District 113A) staff share their knowledge about the system operations and the events that occurred leading up to the public release of private records."

As of Thursday morning, BoardDocs has been restored to the District 113A website. However, the only agenda packets available are those dating back to January 2012.

Meeting agendas and minutes dating back to 2010 are available to the public under the "Board of Education" tab on the District 113A website, www.sd113a.org.

BoardDocs was immediately shut down Thursday after District 113A learned of the additional confidential documents that were visible to the public. Since then, Emerald Data Solutions has modified the programming code for the district's website to prevent the files from coming up in the search engine.

"We believe that as a result of this process, BoardDocs has strengthened their product and we have strengthened our practices," Birkenmaier said. "We expect that this issue has been fully resolved and appropriate safeguards are in place."

Although the investigation has been closed, the district has still been unable to determine how many people viewed the confidential documents before they were restricted last week.

"We appreciate everyone’s patience and support during this unfortunate situation," Birkenmaier said in the email. "The protection of sensitive and confidential matters is critical to our district.”

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