Petition filed by former Riverbend swim coach seeks release of emails and text messages, as well as results of third-party investigation.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
A former Riverbend High School swim coach is seeking the court’s help in getting the school division to release records responsive to multiple requests made under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
Theodore Marcus filed a petition on Thursday asking Spotsylvania General District Court to order the School Board, individual members Lisa Phelps and April Gillespie, and superintendent Clint Mitchell to release records Marcus has requested since January of this year related to the December 2023 incidents involving the varsity swim team.
Those incidents led to the disruption of the swim program and the resignations of both Marcus, who was the assistant swim coach, and head swim coach Rachel Adriani.
Specifically, Marcus asks the court to compel the production of emails and text messages between Phelps, Gillespie, former superintendent Mark Taylor, and former Riverbend principal Xavier Downs concerning the events leading up to, including, and following the contentious December 20, 2023, meeting with swim team coaches, parents, and school administration.
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Downs was placed on administrative leave following this meeting. He was later fired.
Records that have been produced so far in response to Marcus’s requests make clear that such emails and text messages do exist, the petition states.
School Board Chair Lorita Daniels and the division’s human resources director Amy Williams sent letters to Phelps, Gillespie, Taylor, and Downs informing them of the expectation that they comply with FOIA and produce the records, as the Advance reported in June and as the petition states, but the petition argues that the division should have done more to compel production.
“Although the text messages and personal account email records clearly exist, SCPS has failed to produce them after nearly a year of persistent and exhaustive (and exhausting) effort by Petitioner to get them. There is no excuse for this non-production, and SCPS has asserted none,” the petition states. “This Court should find, without more, that SCPS has failed to comply with VFOIA. And, respectfully, the Court now should compel that production, under its watchful eye, and ensure any follow-up necessitated by the facts learned through such production is expeditious and fulsome.”
The petition also asks the court to order the division to produce the results of a third-party investigation into the Riverbend swim team matter, as well as six pages of notes taken by Williams during her initial in-house investigation of the matter.
Unlike other states, Virginia doesn’t give citizens much recourse when their FOIA requests are withheld.
As Virginia Public Media reported in December, “when Virginia agencies don’t comply with records requests or send unreasonable cost estimates, the only recourse for requesters is to sue. There’s no mechanism for an administrative appeal like in other states, including Pennsylvania where the office of public records can review the issue and force agencies to hand over records.”
Virginia is also one of only four states with an exemption for “personnel records” and one of just two states, along with South Dakota, that doesn’t define what “personnel records” means, according to VPM.
According to an analysis of more than 7,000 public records requests, Virginia has a “relatively low” FOIA compliance rate compared with other states, the VPM article states. Only four states had a worse compliance rate.
A hearing date for Marcus’s petition has been scheduled for October 15 at 10:30 a.m. in Spotsylvania General District Court.
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