Data Requests

Pursuant to the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act and District Policy 113, members of the community may submit requests for public data by emailing datarequest@edinaschools.org. Upon receiving a data request the district will confirm receipt and provide a tentative timeline for fulfillment.

Prior to fulfilling a request, the district may contact the requestor for the following reasons:

• To ask for clarification or additional information to help fulfill the request;
• To indicate that the request may involve a charge or require pre-payment;
• To discuss scheduling partial or rolling productions of data.
• Upon request to a responsible authority or designee, the requestor will be permitted to inspect and/or copy public government data at reasonable times and places, and, upon request, will be informed of the data's meaning.

If the person requests access for the purpose of inspection, the responsible authority may not assess a charge or require the requesting person to pay a fee to inspect the data.

Pursuant to SF 2909, the Judiciary and Public Safety law, an educational agency or institution may not designate a student’s home address, telephone number, email address, or other personal contact information as directory information under this subdivision. This paragraph does not apply to a postsecondary institution. Beginning upon the effective date of this section, a student’s personal contact information subject to this section must be treated by an educational agency or institution as private educational data, regardless of whether that contact information was previously designated as directory information.

As such, we are no longer able to furnish this data to organizations outside of Edina Public Schools.

In order to complete a request the district will do one of the following:

• If the district does not have the data, the requestor will be notified in writing as soon as reasonably possible.
• If the district has the data but the data are not public, the requestor will be notified as soon as reasonably possible and specify in writing the legal authority for the decision to withhold or release the data.
• If the district has the data, and the data are public, the district will respond to the request appropriately and promptly, within a reasonable amount of time by doing one of the following:
  • Arrange a date, time, and place to inspect data, for free, if the request is to look at the data.
  • Provide copies of the data as soon as reasonably possible.

The requestor may choose to pick up copies, or it will be mailed or faxed. Electronic copies (such as email or CD-ROM) will be provided upon request if the data is currently kept in an electronic format.

The Minnesota Government Data Practices Act does not require the creation or collection of new data in response to a data request, nor is the District required to provide data in a specific form or arrangement if not kept in that form or arrangement.

The Minnesota Government Data Practices Act does not require the district to answer questions that are not requests for data.

If a person requests copies or electronic transmittal of the data to the person, the responsible authority may require the requesting person to pay the actual costs of searching for and retrieving government data, including the cost of employee time, and for making, certifying, and electronically transmitting the copies of the data or the data, but may not charge for separating public from not public data.

However, if 100 or fewer pages of black and white, letter or legal size paper copies are requested, actual costs shall not be used, and instead, the responsible authority may charge no more than 25 cents for each page copied.

For requests totaling more than 100 pages, the district may charge the “actual costs” for producing the data, plus a per-page-cost for each paper copy produced.

• “Actual costs“ for producing public data of more than 100 pages are computed by applying DHS staff hourly pay rates to the time required for:
  • Searching for and retrieving data (if the requestor is not the data subject).
  • Making, certifying, sorting, and electronically transmitting or mailing the data, including the cost of employee time.
  • There is no charge for redaction.
  • There is no charge for separating private data from public data.