Rim of the World Unified School District v. Superior Court

Petitioner, Rim of the World Unified School District, seeks a writ of mandate directing the trial court to vacate its order overruling petitioner’s demurrer to real party in interest’s petition for writ of mandate and enter an order sustaining the demurrer. At issue is a school district’s authority and duty to disclose its records of student expulsions to the public upon request. We conclude that federal law clearly prohibits such disclosure and preempts state law to the contrary. Therefore, we grant the writ.

Statement of Facts

Real party in interest made a request to petitioner under the California Public Records Act (CPRA) (Gov. Code, § 6250 et seq.) “to review all documents pertaining to any and all suspensions over three days, and all expulsions acted on by [petitioner] during the period[] January 1, 1998, through the present.” Petitioner denied the request on the basis that the documents were student records, the disclosure of which would be an unwarranted invasion of privacy under Government Code section 6254. Petitioner offered to provide statistical information. In a second request, real party in interest limited the inquiry to expulsions only. Real party in…