How to FOIA educational data

While individual student scores cannot be released due to privacy concerns, most high schools have aggregate numbers that can be released. Fairfax County had nonetheless not shared this aggregate data. Obtaining the information was a simple matter of submitted a Virginia Freedom of Information Act (VFOIA) request.

Fairfax County hosts a website that describes the process for obtaining information, which includes email addresses, forms, instructions, and categories of shared information. A quick search for “Fairfax County FOIA” with “public schools” results in a link describing the guidelines for FOIA requests.

It also explains that reasonable fees will be assessed in responding to these requests – for example, $0.50 will be charged for a CD-Rom, $.20 per photocopy, and $35 per hour will be charged for FOIA requests that require basic administrative work (including photocopying). As they note in a summary report, the average fee paid for a FOIA request is $12, but some requests result in fees over $1,000. Subsequently, a web-form was developed to receive these requests, making pursuing the data even easier. The turn-around is pretty fast – by Virginia law, the County must provide some kind of answer within 5 days; in our experience, it typically responds within that time frame saying that they need additional time—an additional 7 business days are allowed.

For Fairfax County Public School Data, one individual responded to our formally submitted requests for data, so subsequent requests have been sent directly to her. Here’s an email we sent in 2018 to acquire data on AP exam scores across the county (as well as some information about IB scores, National Merit semi-finalists, and IB candidates) in 2017 and 2018. The cost for this data was $54.39.

The response to this particular request was a combination of data provided by a CD (for AP and IB test scores organized by subject across schools and by school across subjects) and an email with additional information. The email response explained that FCPS does not collect the appropriate data (in the case of the number of IB diploma candidates) and that some information is already available online, by provided links (in the case of National Merit Semifinalists).

Most of the data we have requested over the years have been put on FCAG’s website, including the AP/IB data. If you download any of these Excel files, you will find that plenty of “boxes” that say “ts” (too small) rather than providing a number. Concerns about privacy result in a “ts” entry from the County. For example, if only one student took the exam in a subject, then revealing the average score and the fact that only one student took it, would reveal the individual student’s score. Fairfax County routinely enters “ts” when the student count is above 0 and below 5. (Some numbers are filled in even though they are between 0 and 5, because they were easy to deduce based on summary data.)

Submitting a FOIA request is actually quite easy; the biggest hurdle is finding a concise way to ask the questions, so that the county can easily provide answers. Of course, far more than just data are available through a FOIA request. Emails, written records of any kind, and recordings are also available—one just needs to know what to request. The more specific one can be, the better. Importantly, do not expect data collectors to provide any analysis. The key to a successful request is that it’s about data.