Principals warn they are fielding dozens of “vexatious” Official Information Act requests each term – some from disgruntled parents or people with personal animosities – wasting precious school resources and scarce educational funds.
But some of the requests are coming from people outside school communities who are using the regime to push “prejudiced positions” then uploading responses to freedom of speech websites, Auckland Grammar headmaster Tim O’Connor told the Herald.
This comes as the University of Auckland says it is reviewing processes on how to instruct students on collecting data after a law student sent Official Information Act (OIA) requests to nearly 2500 schools as part of a research project.
The mass email campaign sparked action from the Secondary Principals’ Association of NZ (Spanz), which is now seeking legal advice in a bid to exempt state schools from the OIA regime.
O’Connor said he struggled to see the purpose of many of the requests his school received, describing them as at odds with open communication and often coming from people who were “quite antagonistic” and “very litigious”.
O’Connor said he had received 28 requests in the past year, many of which were “vexatious” in nature and being used for personal gain or animosity.
He said the majority were not sent by members of the school community and required him to seek legal advice.
The funds had to be pulled from operational costs that would otherwise go towards furthering student education.
O’Connor typically responded to the requests himself, which took time away from doing his job helping students and running the school.
The school operated an open-door approach, and he said he would prefer people asked questions directly, rather than resorting to formal requests through the OIA.
The requests were coming from a range of sources, he said, and responses were sometimes uploaded to freedom of speech websites.
It appeared many were driven by a “prejudiced position”, with people seeking out specific pieces of information to support their existing views, rather than using the act as intended.
O’Connor said the OIA regime was not supposed to be used by people for personal gain or for reasons of animosity.
“I think we need to be better than that.”
The school had received OIA requests on a wide range of matters, from library contents and book selection methodology to staff salaries, enrolments and curriculum.
O’Connor agreed there were appropriate uses of the act, such as when a student had undergone a disciplinary process, and parents or legal advisers wanted to ensure all relevant information had been provided.
Macleans College principal Stephen Hargreaves said colleagues had shared horror stories of people targeting schools with dozens of requests per term.
“It is very distressing, and the school has no means of pushing back on pointless or vexatious requests.”
He said Macleans College had recently received a time-consuming request for details relating to the cancellation of a school trip, “which took days to collate”.
Some of the requests were “quite unusual”, he said, including how many books were being withdrawn from the library by students.
Darfield High School principal Andy England told Newstalk ZB presenter Heather du Plessis-Allan that people were using artificial intelligence to generate OIA requests.
He called the practice a “cheap shot”.
Colleagues had told him that some parents were targeting schools with multiple OIA requests, sometimes several per week.
Spanz says a growing number of OIA requests are burdening stretched principals and tying up time and resources preparing responses that would otherwise go towards educating children.
The union said the problem, which includes requests from parents, school communities and media, was one of the most significant operational challenges facing principals. It is now surveying its members about the number of OIA requests they receive and the number of hours spent preparing responses.
Spanz president Louise Anaru also wrote a scathing letter of complaint in March to University of Auckland (UoA) Vice-Chancellor Dawn Freshwater after law student Regan Cunliffe sent a mass request for details of school trustees’ use of personal devices to 2422 state and state-integrated schools.
Anaru wrote that Cunliffe’s OIA highlighted the “significant administrative burden” imposed on schools, in this case for a “single piece of student coursework”.
“The OIA is a transparency mechanism, not a tool for building litigation portfolios.”
She said the time taken to respond to the request was time stolen from the young people schools were educating, and as such, should not be considered a “trivial” matter.
“A number of our members have sought legal advice at their own cost in order to respond appropriately.
“For a sector already under severe resourcing pressure, this is a poor use of scarce resources.”
Cunliffe has previously used the OIA process to reveal shortcomings in school child protection policies and highlight issues at his own children’s primary school in northwest Auckland.
He told the Herald that exempting schools from the OIA and open governance regime would “raise significant concerns” and undermine democratic principles.
A spokesperson for the University of Auckland acknowledged the resources and compliance costs involved in responding to OIA requests, and the concerns raised by schools.
They said the university was reviewing its processes to better support students to gather data in ways that were effective and efficient, while taking into account the interests of and impact on participants.
The Ministry of Education says transparency and accountability are important parts of publicly funded education, but acknowledged the difficulties schools face in dealing with such requests.
Rachel Maher is an investigative reporter covering Auckland issues and education. She started at the Herald as a breaking news journalist in 2022, before joining the Auckland team this year.
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