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Op-Ed: Hidden bathroom camera investigation
records should be public
[The Center Square] Matthew DeFour |
Your Right to Know
Two years ago this month,
a Madison East High School teacher chaperoning a Minneapolis field trip
creeped into students’ rooms using copies of their room keys and planted
hidden cameras in their bathrooms. |
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 On Nov. 22, a few weeks after the teacher, David Kruchten, was
sentenced to 12 years in prison, Madison School Board finally updated its field
trip policies to prohibit chaperones from holding on to student room keys.
Why did it take the local Wisconsin school board longer to make field trips
safer for students than it took the courts to bring the creepy teacher to
justice?
One reason is the school district’s decision to withhold from
the public investigative records related to the incident. A report prepared by
an outside attorney at a cost to taxpayers of $8,000 was completed in June 2020.
But the district kept the report from parents, reporters and even the Madison
School Board until it was accidentally released to the newspaper Isthmus in
August 2021.
The report includes recommendations for new field trip policies and revelations
– including the outrageous claim that no “reportable abuse” occurred – that
might have spurred the school board to take action before this school year
started. But the district didn’t forward new field trip policy recommendations
to the board until after the accidental release of the report.
“I’m surprised it’s taken this long to get it, and it’s unfortunate board
members have to see it in the news,” former Madison School Board president
Gloria Reyes told the Wisconsin State Journal. “We need to be transparent about
these issues even if we don’t have all the answers.”
 Releasing the report also would have reassured families the district was
addressing their concerns transparently and expeditiously. Now the students are
suing the district and Kruchten for the psychological damage his actions caused.
[to top of second column] |
Even though the district accidentally released the
full report, it continues to deny requests for the same record, as
well as a $30,000 third-party review of another hidden camera
incident in an East High locker room. The locker room cameras were
supposedly put in place to catch a custodian napping on the job, but
they were in a location where special needs students changed
clothes.
The district says it won’t release either report
because they are protected from public disclosure by attorney-client
privilege.
A 1996 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision in Wisconsin Newspress, Inc.
v. School Dist. of Sheboygan Falls affirmed that a letter between an
outside attorney and a school board did not have to be disclosed
under the state public records law. But the law does not prohibit
releasing such records..
That’s what should have happened here, in both cases, because of the
undeniable public interest in this matter. Now, in addition to the
lawsuit over the hotel cameras, the district faces a lawsuit from
East High families over its failure to release the report into the
locker room cameras.
Perhaps both lawsuits could have been avoided if the district had
followed through on Superintendent Carlton Jenkins’ pledge when he
started in August 2020 “to be transparent.”
Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by
the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group
dedicated to open government. Council member Matt DeFour is city
editor of the Wisconsin State Journal.
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