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Document
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MO-1367
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Institution/HIC
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Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
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Summary
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NATURE OF THE APPEAL: This order deals with two related appeals from decisions of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (the Board) made under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act ). The appellant in both appeals is the mother of a student in attendance at a secondary school within the Board during the academic year 1998-1999. On June 8, 1999, her son (at the time 18 years of age) was injured in an incident involving a door with a glass pane at the secondary school. The first request (which is now Appeal MA-990315-1) was initiated in September of 1999, when the appellant made a request under the Act for information concerning the use of Georgian Polished Wire (GPW) glass in schools within the Board, in the following terms: Could you please advise as to the following per year for the five (5) school years commencing in 1994 [i.e., 1994-1995, 1995-1996, 1997-1998, 1998-1999]: The number of schools within the jurisdiction of the Ottawa Carleton School Board which have doors equipped with GPW glass; The number of school doors which have panels of GPW doors; The number of school doors for which new GPW glass was installed during the period noted above; The number of the installations described in (2) above that were necessitated by a breakage of one or more panels of glass within each door; The number of broken panels described in (3) above which resulted in injury to one or more human beings; and In the instance described in (4) above, any details available as to the nature of the injury and how it occurred. The appellant also requested a "list of the current safety requirements for doors as established by the School Board." The Board's decision stated that there were no records directly responsive to any of the appellant's requests. However, with respect to paragraph 1 above, the Board stated that plant staff advise that all schools typically (although not necessarily) have some doors that have GPW glass. On that basis, all 158 of the schools within the Board may have at least some doors with GPW glass. With respect to the other numbered requests, the Board stated that repairs are not specifically identified by the type of glass that is broken and repaired. However, it indicated that records exist which may be indirectly responsive to the requests in paragraphs 3 and 4 above, in the form of work orders. The Board stated that identification and location of relevant work orders would require an extensive manual search and individual review of all work orders processed by the Board for the relevant time periods. The Board estimated that the search would require a minimum of 16 hours of search time. At the rate of $7.50 per fifteen minutes, the estimated total cost would be $480.00, plus photocopying at the rate of 20 cents per page. The Board requested a cheque in the amount of 50% of the estimated cost in order to proceed. With respect to the request about safety standards, the Board referred the appellant to the local building codes. The second appeal (MA-000006-1) arises out of a request by the appellant for copies of all accident reports prepared in relation to her son's injury. Enclosed with the appellant's request was a signed authorization from her son stating: "I authorize you to disclose to my representative [appellant's name] any and all information relating to myself, [appellant's son's name], which is, or has been, in the possession of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (or its predecessor)". In responding to the appellant's request for these accident reports, the Board accepted the authorization and dealt with the appellant, for the purposes of the Act , as the representative of her son. I find that the "appellant" in Appeal MA-000006-1 consists of the named appellant, and her son. In this decision, to simplify matters, I will refer mainly to the named appellant. In further correspondence to the appellant, the Board provided further information about its search for records. Among other things, the Board stated that its policies require that all copies of incident reports recording student injuries be forwarded to the Ontario School Board Insurance Exchange (the OSBIE). With respect to employee injuries, the Board stated that it has conducted a search of a database recording these incidents and has not located any records which are responsive to the appellant's request. The Board stated that these policies represent the system wide reporting requirements within the Board for accidents and injuries to employees and students. It stated that beyond this, it is possible that schools may have in their possession records which contain information about individual accidents and injuries, for example, in individual student or employee files. In order to locate the specific records the appellant is seeking, the Board states that it would have to search through all of its student and/or employee files. The Board has not undertaken this search, and has not indicated that it is willing to do so in response to the appellant's request. With respect to the new request relating to reports of her son's accident, the Board provided the appellant with a copy of a Critical Incident Report signed by the Principal and a Critical Incident Review Committee Student Summary Profile dated June 16, 1999. Further, the Board identified four witness statements about the accident. Two of these statements have been disclosed, on the basis of consents received from the affected parties, and with identifying information removed. Access to the other two has been denied access on the basis of section 38(b) of the Act . In these appeals, the appellant asserts that records of other accidents must exist, and that more records exist relating to her son's accident. In Appeal MA-000006-1, the appellant also appeals the refusal to provide access to the witness reports. A further issue arising from these appeals is whether records which have been forwarded to the OSBIE by the Board are nevertheless under the "control" of the Board for the purposes of the Act . It should be noted that during the course of this appeal, the appellant has narrowed the scope of the request wh
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Legislation
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Subject Index
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Published
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Nov 27, 2000
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Type
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Order
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Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. All Rights Reserved.
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