Hinsdale D86 To Wipe More Records From Website
DARIEN, IL – Many are preparing to celebrate on New Year’s Eve. But a top Hinsdale High School District 86 staffer has a job to get done before doing so.
On that day, Deborah Kedrowski, the administrative chief of staff, is tasked with removing 2021 public records requests from the district’s website. On Dec. 31, 2023, she removed nine years’ worth of requests.
The online portal lets residents examine records produced in response to previous Freedom of Information Act requests.
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As officials point out, District 86’s posting of the responses goes beyond what state law requires. It is an openness that few other public bodies provide.
Among the others are Hinsdale School District 181 and the village of Bensenville. District 181’s records on its website go back to 2014, while Bensenville’s data back to 2016.
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Last year’s removal was unannounced. After Patch spotlighted the action in the fall, board President Catherine Greenspon said the district could have done a better job in communicating its plan.
At Thursday’s school board meeting, Kedrowski detailed the planned New Year’s Eve removal of website records. In a memo, she let residents know how they can export the records before they are wiped away from the website.
The district prefers to use the word “archiving” when referring to the removal. It says all the records are still available upon Freedom of Information Act requests.
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Officials have only given one reason for the annual removal – broken links to documents. They have not said why they could not put a disclaimer in the records portal about the issue.
They also have not identified a public benefit to deleting the records from the website.
Asked again Friday, the district’s spokesman, Alex Mayster, did not give a reason.
“We have responded to many of these questions already, and the topic has been discussed at several Board of Education meetings,” Mayster said in an email to Patch. “As stated last night, we are moving forward with our outlined procedures. While this topic is important, there are a wide variety of other important issues that demand our time and attention.”
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