SLM 521 Neil Fisher

Article Critique #1 Resubmit 9/29/03

Vail, Kathleen. (2002, July) The Perils of E-mail. American School Board Journal, 189, 7. Retrieved May 30, 2003, from http://www.asbj.com/2002/07/0702coverstory2.html.

This article concerned the use of email by school boards and the various pluses and minuses that can occur due to that use. The author emphasized that while email makes communication much faster and easier, it also creates its own set of pitfalls, too. The major problem with board members using email is that their communications fall under the open meeting laws, which state that any communication between school board members is open to the public since they are coming from publicly elected officials. Most school board members don’t realize this, believing that their personal emails to each other are private and seen by only those they send them to. The author cites several examples where school board members’ emails have been used against them because of the open meeting laws. Often, a board member has said something like, “that teacher is a piece of garbage” and then, after the fact, seen his words used against him in court. To avoid problems liked these, the author suggests that school boards educate themselves on the laws governing email communication ASAP, since technology often advances faster than the laws can keep up with them and what may be legal one day may be illegal the next.

I found this article to be very informative since I did not know that publicly elected officials’ emails were considered communications open to the public in much the same manner that a “town meeting” is. It seemed very apparent from the examples the author provided that board members around the country simply do not know that their emails fall under the open meeting laws and that this ignorance is a serious problem. It also showed how one offensive statement can end a board member’s career. I strongly agree with the author that school board members as well as any school employee should be made aware of the open meeting laws as they apply to email. This article definitely hit me with the realization that all email is public and even if you erase it, it still might end up on a server somewhere, waiting to be recovered. It will make me more careful in the future, for sure!