Schools

D135 Making Transparency Portal Page on Website

Opinions still differ on school board as to whether the district's current website needs more access to information, or if it's good enough.

Orland School District 135 is the latest local governing body to add a transparency page on their website, though the addition will largely be a collection of links to information already available on the district’s site.

Following heated discussion during the Aug. 9 school board meeting , board member Joe LaMargo sought feedback from the Illinois Policy Institute – the organization that worked with Orland Park on their – to see how the district stacked up the on their 10-point checklist. While the IPI gave a 33 percent, LaMargo said during Monday night’s meeting that the village government had to work to get to the IPI’s 100 percent, and that “135 is transparent.”

“We fulfill all (Freedom of Information Act) requests when something is submitted. I’ve never heard anything different,” LaMargo said.  “I wanted to see if the school district could have something user-friendly, a one-stop-shop.”

Find out what's happening in Orland Parkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

District 135 Community Relations Coordinator Bridget McGuiggan’s answer to the IPI’s feedback came in the form of the new website page, titled Open Book. The page will be accessible through a link placed on the district’s home page, and will include administration contact information, meeting minutes and agendas, credit card data, Freedom of Information Act forms, budgets and vendors contracts, among other data and documents.   

Before describing Open Book’s attributes, McGuiggan made the case that District 135’s website provides more access to financial reports and contact information for administrative staff than school district websites from Palos, Skokie, Schaumburg and Consolidated High School District 230.

Find out what's happening in Orland Parkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“It appears (the IPI) is missing a ton that’s on there,” McGuiggan said.

McGuiggan later added that producing the Open Book page would largely involve copying links over to the new page, and would not take much time to complete.

One of the main benchmarks set forth by the IPI is for government entities to have five years worth of records on the site, and District 135 has four years on their website.

“Next year we’ll be complying with their check list because we’ll have five years worth online,” board president John Carmody said.

When asked by board member Lynne Donegan if the village received fewer FOIA requests after setting up their information hub in line with IPI’s suggestions, LaMargo said 15 FOIA requests were eliminated in the first week, since the information requested was available online.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here