Akron Public Schools’ Superintendent Michael Robinson and his chief of staff have allegedly been sending work-related emails that were set to self-delete from the recipients’ email inboxes, a process that may violate, or at least go against the intention of, state public records laws.
The allegations first surfaced in public during a Board of Education meeting on Nov. 25.
At that meeting, school board member Gregory Harrison said he asked the superintendent to send a copy of the administration’s plans to cut more than $10 million from the budget in its five-year forecast. Harrison received the plans in an email that was locked. It could not be printed and was set to automatically delete from his Gmail inbox on Nov. 29.
“I’m a public official; you can’t send me an email that dissolves,” Harrison said at the board meeting. “Because not just the school district, but I have a responsibility and an obligation to save records.
“I cannot live in someone else’s paranoia.”
The issue is twofold: Whether the emails are being retained by the district; and whether sending self-deleting emails prohibits the recipient — especially if they’re elected or work for a public entity — from being a custodian of a public record they can produce on demand, as mandated by state law.
“Emails sent using Gmail’s confidential mode are not destroyed,” the district said in a statement to Signal Akron. “While these emails may have limitations on forwarding, copying, or downloading, records of their existence and content are retained within the district’s email system.”
Andy Geronimo, the director of the First Amendment Clinic at Case Western Reserve University, said the consequences for public records law violations aren’t very severe. The law has a cap of $1,000 in damages that a public body in violation of the law can be fined.
Geronimo said that if the district can produce the confidential emails, then they may not have violated the letter of the law, but the use of Google’s confidential mode certainly violates the spirit of the law.
“Any attempts to conceal records risks losing the public’s trust in the institution, and that’s why these laws exist,” Geronimo said.
Public records laws exist to help inform the public and allow them to meaningfully participate in their democracy. Geronimo said he expects the district to curb its use of Google’s confidential mode following public scrutiny.
“I would guess that they would move to some policy that would prohibit the use of this confidential mode,” he said.
Board President Diana Autry said she had no comment until she is able to further investigate the matter.
“I stand firmly by my professional conduct and ethical standards,” Robinson said in an email to Signal Akron.
State has procedures for the handling of public records
The Ohio Public Records Act, also referred to as the state’s “Sunshine Laws,” has a process for disposing of public records, such as emails sent from the superintendent of a public school district.
“Records of a public office may be destroyed, but only if they are destroyed in compliance with a properly-approved records retention schedule,” the law states.
The law requires that public entities develop their own records retention schedules, but gives them some leeway as to how they’re structured. It also mandates the schedules be easily accessible by members of the public. Signal Akron could not find a copy of the district’s record retention policy on its website, but one was provided by the district.
The retention policy, which was adopted on June 1, 2003, does not state how long records should be kept by the district before their disposal. It does, however, lay out guidelines, which largely match the state’s, for the disposal of records. It does not mention self-deleting emails.
Teachers’ union: problems with public records began in March
After Signal Akron submitted a public records request and asked about the administration’s use of confidential emails, with a list of specific emails that had disappeared, Akron Public Schools produced emails and attachments that were sent to Harrison using Google’s confidential mode.
The contents of the emails included two presentations that were made publicly at the Nov. 25 board meeting. They also included two copies of a “Restructure and Reorganization Fiscal Realignment” document that outlined forecasted cuts to be included in the next five-year forecast.
This is not the first time the district has faced scrutiny about its handling of public records. In July, the Akron Education Association, the district’s teachers’ union, filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge against the district and laid out several instances where it accused the administration of not complying with public records requests beginning in March 2024.
The union said in a statement on Monday that it planned to file a new lawsuit against Akron’s Board of Education for the district’s “continued refusal to honor legitimate public records requests.”
“We believe Dr. Robinson’s admitted tampering with public email records—sending emails
that disappear under his control in an attempt to manage “sensitive” topics—is a clear violation of Ohio public records laws,” the union said in its statement. “… Such obstruction not only violates public records laws but also further erodes trust in district leadership.”