I entered the main lobby of the San Juan Unified School District at 11:40 a.m. and was promptly greeted by an extremely professional and competent receptionist. After hearing my request to speak to the person in charge of public record records, she immediately got on the phone and asked me to take a seat. A few minutes later, district legal analyst Amy Northam introduced herself and listened carefully to my request. She asked a few questions of clarification and then went back to her office to get me her business card. She took my name and phone number and said she'd call me when the documents were ready.

Ms. Northam called the next day and said that the Form 700s were ready to be picked up at a cost of $0.10 per page. When I went to pick them up, she asked if the written request she received was also mine and I confirmed. She again said she'd be in touch when she had a response to the rest of my request. She called on April 3 to let me know that the determination letter was available at the front counter to pick up.

Overall, this is one of the best experiences I've had as an auditor. With the exception of their unfortunate denials on several of the written request documents, their performance was flawless.

The requested Form 700s were provided within the two-day compliance deadline and the determination letter was also provided within its 10-day deadline. The letter contained a number of boilerplate hedging responses that left some ambiguity as to whether the records would actually be made available. It also said the district does not maintain records of its litigation settlements, and that three other categories would be withheld as legally confidential: staff discipline, pre-litigation claims and expulsion data.