Lawsuit seeks to open the book on closed-door meeting

By Alyssa Hertig | Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON — An Appleton Area School District committee charged with reviewing and recommending a reading list for the public school system’s ninth-graders proved anything but an open book, according to the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.

In a lawsuit against the school district, Milwaukee-based WILL, a libertarian-leaning public interest firm, asserts the Communication Arts I Materials Review Committee met in secret before handing down its fiction recommendations to a subcommittee of the Appleton School Board.

“They didn’t follow the open meetings law” said Tom Kamenick, associate counsel and open government specialist at WILL. “These meetings were completely closed off to the public; they didn’t know anything about it until John started asking questions.”

The “John” in question, is Appleton resident John Krueger, who has a child in the district and brought the meetings to WILL’s attention. He exchanged emails with the principal. The principal wrote back saying the informal meetings with the 17-member committee, made up of district administrators, teachers and staff, did not fall under state open meeting laws.

Au contraire, argues WILL in the lawsuit.

Read more at WisconsinReporter.com

http://bit.ly/17vEK7a