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Department of Education Must Respond in Court for Severe Pattern of Lack of Transparency

by Centro de Periodismo Investigativo | Published: June 1, 2020 at 01:28 PM

San Juan – The list of schools closed after Hurricane Maria; post-hurricane inspections of all schools; the current Fiscal Year budget detailed by area, office or program, and by school; the agency’s current directory or organizational chart with its offices and contact personnel; the number of internal auditors and the names of the firms hired by the Department of Education’s (DE) to do annual audits. These are examples of just some of the information that the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI, in Spanish) has been requesting for six months now but that after many unsuccessful follow-up efforts, are now before the consideration of Judge Lauracelis Roques Arroyo, after the organization on Thursday submitted a mandamus as a legal remedy to obtain this public information from the DE. “Given what appears to be a severe problem of lack of transparency in the Department of Education, the CPI has no choice but to go to court. Among nearly a dozen accumulated requests, we’re asking for data related to the recovery efforts at schools after Hurricane María and their readiness in case of earthquakes; the agency’s budget, and federal funds returned in past years; and recovery funds received and how they were used. We also asked for the number of unique users of the DE’s online platforms that have been used during the COVID-19 pandemic, data that hasn’t been provided, while trying to project that online education is working.