77 A.D.2d 896 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1980
In a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78 to compel the respondents, inter alia, to grant petitioner access to certain test scores of students in the respondent school district, the appeal is from so much of the judgment of the Supreme Court, Rockland County, dated December 20,1979, as denied access to those of the test scores which are compiled in alphabetical order. Judgment reversed insofar as appealed from, on the law, without costs or disbursements, the provisions denying disclosure of certain test scores in alphabetical order are deleted therefrom, and respondents are directed to rearrange the order of the test scores in question, delete the names of the students therefrom, and release the records to the petitioner. The petitioner, a parent of a student in the respondent school district, seeks disclosure of certain standardized reading and mathematics test scores of children who attended grade 3 in the El Dorado School during the 1977-1978 school year. Specifically, the petitioner expressed an interest in the scores of six tests. Of these, the scores on four were tabulated and recorded alphabetically by student surname. The remaining test scores were not compiled in alphabetical order. When respondents refused to release any of the scores, the petitioner instituted a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78, inter alia, to compel disclosure. The court granted the petition in part by directing, inter alia, that the respondents release those scores not compiled in alphabetical order after first deleting the names of the students. The court declined, however, to order the release of scores listed in alphabetical order, holding that such disclosure would violate section 87 (subd 2, par [b]) of the Public Officers Law as well as relevant provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (US Code, tit 20, § 1232g). The court reasoned that those scores, even if released with the names of students deleted, would be identifiable to at least some of the students since their number was sufficiently small—75—to permit correlation to the alphabetical list. Recognizing that this danger could be obviated by directing the respondents to rearrange the scores in other than alphabetical order, the court 'nevertheless declined to do so holding that the respondents had no affirmative duty to prepare a