Lisa Phelps and April Gillespie were asked by School Board Chair Lorita Daniels to comply with a FOIA request regarding the Riverbend High School swim team. The two have still not fully complied.
Spotsylvania School Board Chair Lorita Daniels sent official letters earlier this year to two School Board members asking that they comply with a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
“You are expected to comply with Virginia Code 2.2-3700 and produce any ‘applicable records’ from your personal phone/text message accounts, email account(s), and social media accounts that contain content related to the transaction of ‘school business’,” Daniels wrote in letters to Lisa Phelps and April Gillespie.
The letters, which were shared with the Advance, were sent to Phelps and Gillespie on February 22 by email and U.S. mail.
The FOIA request that Phelps and Gillespie were asked to comply with was made on January 30 by the former assistant varsity swim coach at Riverbend High School.
The request was for “records, including text messages, emails and voicemails, between or among personnel and officials at Riverbend High School, officials at the Spotsylvania County Public School Board, including Superintendent Mark Taylor” and the parent of a swim team member between December 10, 2023, and January 8, 2024.
This FOIA request was restated and re-submitted on May 26.
The school division’s FOIA officer, Dennis Martin, emailed Phelps and Gillespie on January 30, asking them to review the FOIA request and submit to him any applicable public records from their personal phones, email accounts, or social media accounts.
Martin included the Virginia Code definition of “public record,” which includes “all writings and recordings that consist of letters, words, or numbers, or their equivalent … prepared or owned by, or in the possession of a public body or its officers, employees, or agents in the transaction of public business.”
Martin asked Phelps and Gillespie to reply by February 2 either by submitting the records or stating that they either had no responsive records or could not locate the records.
According to the letters from Daniels, neither Phelps nor Gillespie had responded to Martin’s request as of February 22.
“We are in possession of public records that exist and were created through text messages between you and other Spotsylvania County Public School employees in the transaction of school business as it pertains to activities, issues, and matters related to the Riverbend High School Varsity Swim Program,” Daniels wrote to both Phelps and Gillespie.
To Phelps, Daniels said the division was aware of responsive text messages with deputy superintendent Kelly Guempel, then-superintendent Mark Taylor, and Marshall Keene, the coordinator of school safety and security.
To Gillespie, Daniels said she was aware of responsive text messages with Guempel and Taylor.
As the Advance reported on February 29, Phelps did not provide any of these messages and Gillespie did not provide all of them.
The school division also sent formal letters to Taylor and former Riverbend principal Xavier Downs informing them of the expectation that they comply with the same FOIA request.
The letter to Taylor was sent on March 12 and the letter to Downs was sent on February 19. Both were signed by the division’s chief human resources officer, Amy Williams.
According to the letter, which was shared with the Advance, Downs informed Martin on February 1 that he did not have any public records responsive to the request.
“However, we are in possession of public records that exist and were created through text messages between you and other Spotsylvania County Public School employees,” Williams wrote.
In her letter to Taylor, Williams said he had provided eight records but that the division was aware of others.
Both Downs and Taylor are no longer employed by the school division.
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