South Carolina Department Of Education Responds To Florence Four FOIA Request

Thank you for submitting a records request to the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) to be processed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Your request was received on March 01, 2022, and is being processed in accordance with S.C. Code Ann. § 30-4- 10. Your request has been assigned the reference number F000998-030122 for tracking purposes.

Records Requested: Please provide the following: 1. The contract for Dr. Richard O'Malley for being the acting superintendent of Florence County School District Four. 2. The salary (all compensation being paid) to Dr. Richard O'Malley for acting as superintendent of Florence County School District Four. 3. The recording of the Zoom meeting held on February 2, 2022, at 1 pm between Superintendent Spearman's staff, Dr. O'Malley, Porter Stewart, Patricia Caulder, Scott Price, Debbie Elmore, Lillie Joe, Darrick Echols and any other participants. 4. Plans reported between Superintendent Spearman, Dr. O'Malley and others involved in the ongoing "consolidation" of Florence Four into Florence One. The SCDE has 10 business days within which to inform you of the availability of the non-exempt “public records” that you have requested and to provide a time and cost estimate to make available those public records to you. For records more than 24 months old, the agency has 20 business days to respond on availability and cost. We do not guarantee that a records search will result in any responsive records being located.

Please note that it is against South Carolina law to obtain or use personal information from public records for commercial solicitation. S.C. Code Ann. § 30-2-30 and -50. That law defines “personal information” as:

[I]information that identifies or describes an individual including, but not limited to, an individual's photograph or digitized image, social security number, date of birth, driver's identification number, name, home address, home telephone number, medical or disability information, education level, financial status, bank account numbers, account or identification number issued by or used, or both, by any federal or state governmental agency or private financial institution, employment history, height, weight, race, other physical details, signature, biometric identifiers, and any credit records or reports.

There are criminal penalties involved for noncompliance with the state’s prohibitions against using information secured through a FOIA records request for commercial solicitation.

We do not make public, and will not produce in response to your request, those records that may be exempted under state law, including, but not limited to, trade secrets, personal information of students, confidential proprietary information, privileged communications, or protected information. We do not provide personally identifiable student or educator information. For a partial list of exemptions under the law, please see S.C. Code Ann. § 30-4-40. Additionally, we abide by all laws and regulations pertaining to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the S.C. Family Privacy Protection Act, and do not make public any records protected under these Acts.

You can monitor the progress of your request at the SCDE Public Records Center. You'll receive an e-mail when availability and cost have been determined.

Sincerely,

The South Carolina Department of Education