FOIA Requests

• Citizens of the Commonwealth and representatives of the media have the right to request to inspect or receive copies of public records, or both.
• Citizens of the Commonwealth and representatives of the media have the right to request that any charges for the requested records be estimated in advance. 
• If you believe your FOIA rights have been violated, you may file a petition in district or circuit court to compel compliance with FOIA. Alternatively, you may contact the FOIA Council for a nonbinding advisory opinion.

You may request records by U.S. Mail, fax, e-mail, in person, or over the phone. FOIA does not require that your request be in writing, nor do you need to specifically state that you are requesting records under FOIA.

Your request must identify the records you are seeking with "reasonable specificity." This is a common-sense standard. It does not refer to or limit the volume or number of records that you are requesting; instead, it requires that you be specific enough so that we can identify and locate the records that you are seeking. Your request must also ask for existing records or documents. FOIA gives you a right to inspect or copy records; it does not apply to a situation where you are asking general questions about the work of the School Board of the City of Roanoke and/or RCPS, nor does it require RCPS to create a record that does not exist.

You may choose to receive electronic records in any format used by RCPS in the regular course of business.

If RCPS staff have questions about your request, please cooperate with staff's efforts to clarify the type of records that you are seeking, or to attempt to reach a reasonable agreement about a response to a large request. Making a FOIA request is not an adversarial process, but there may be a need for additional discussion to ensure RCPS understands the records you seek.

Under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, RCPS must respond to your request within five working days of receiving it. "Day One" is considered the day after your request is received. The five-day period does not include weekends or holidays.

The reason behind your request for public records from RCPS is irrelevant, and you do not have to state why you want the records before we respond to your request. FOIA does, however, allow RCPS to require you to provide your name and legal address.

Within a five-day time period, RCPS must respond in one of the following ways:

• We provide you with the records that you have requested in their entirety.
• We withhold all of the records that you have requested, because all of the records are subject to a specific statutory exemption. If all of the records are being withheld, we must send you a response in writing. That writing must identify the volume and subject matter of the records being withheld, and state the specific section of the Code of Virginia that allows us to withhold the records.
• We provide some of the records that you have requested, but withhold other records. We cannot withhold an entire record if only a portion of it is subject to an exemption. In that instance, we may redact the portion of the record that may be withheld and must provide you with the remainder of the record.  We must provide you with a written response stating the specific section of the Code of Virginia that allows portions of the requested records be withheld.
• We inform you in writing that the requested records cannot be found or do not exist (i.e. we do not have the records you want.) However, if we know that another public body has the requested records, we must include contact information for the other public body in our response to you.
• If it is practically impossible for RCPS to respond to your request within the five-day period, we must state this in writing, explaining the conditions that make the response impossible. This will allow us seven additional working days to respond to your request, giving us a total of 12 working days to respond to your request.
  • If you make a request for a very large number of records, and we feel that we cannot provide the records to you within 12 working days without disrupting our other organizational responsibilities, we may petition the court for additional time to respond to your request. However, FOIA requires that we make a reasonable effort to reach an agreement with you concerning the production or the records before we go to court to ask for more time.

A public body may make reasonable charges not to exceed its actual cost incurred in accessing, duplicating, supplying, or searching for the requested records. No public body shall impose any extraneous, intermediary, or surplus fees or expenses to recoup the general costs associated with creating or maintaining records or transacting the general business of the public body. Any duplicating fee charged by a public body shall not exceed the actual cost of duplication. All charges for the supplying of requested records shall be estimated in advance at the request of the citizen as set forth in subsection F of § 2.2-3704 of the Code of Virginia.

You may have to pay for the records that you request from RCPS. FOIA allows us to charge for the actual costs of responding to FOIA requests. This would include items like staff time spent searching for the requested records, copying costs, or any other costs directly related to supplying the requested records. It cannot include general overhead costs. If we estimate that it will cost more than $200 to respond to your request, we may require you to pay a deposit, not to exceed the amount of the estimate, before proceeding with your request. The five days that we have to respond to your request does not include the time between when we ask for a deposit and when you respond.

You may request that we estimate in advance the charges for supplying the records that you have requested. This will allow you to know about any costs upfront, or give you the opportunity to modify your request in an attempt to lower the estimated costs.

If you owe us money from a previous FOIA request that has remained unpaid for more than 30 days, RCPS may require payment of the past-due bill before it responds to your new FOIA request.

The following is a general description of the types of records held by RCPS:

• School Board meeting minutes and materials.
• Records of contracts between RCPS and vendors.
• Educational records concerning students of RCPS.
• Personnel records concerning employees and officials of RCPS.    
• If you are unsure whether RCPS has the record(s) you seek, please contact Dr. H. Alan Seibert directly at (540) 853-2007 or foiaofficer@rcps.info. 

The Code of Virginia allows any public body to withhold certain records from public disclosure. RCPS commonly withholds records subject to the following exemptions:

• Personnel records (§ 2.2-3705.1 (1) of the Code of Virginia)
• Records subject to attorney-client privilege (§ 2.2-3705.1 (2)) or attorney work product (§ 2.2-3705.1 (3))
• Vendor proprietary information (§ 2.2-3705.1 (6))
• Records relating to the negotiation and award of a contract, prior to a contract being awarded (§ 2.2-3705.1 (12))
• Educational Records protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (§ 2.2-3705.4)

The general policy of RCPS is to invoke...

• the personnel records exemption in those instances where it applies in order to protect the privacy of employees and officials of RCPS.
• the contract negotiations exemption whenever it applies in order to protect RCPS's bargaining position and negotiating strategy.
• the educational records exemption in those instances where it applies in order to protect the privacy of students of RCPS.