He knew CPS had lots of information on this matter because he’d read about it in the Tribune. In that article, CPS officials boasted about how they’d left no stone unturned in their effort to make the selection process as fair and objective as possible. They said the process considers data such as home-ownership rates in the students’ census tracts and the share of homes where English isn’t the primary language.
But as with the longer-day FOIA, CPS responded that “the documents that Mr. Krell has requested are not mandated for retention.”
Which is not the same thing as saying they never existed. It just means that CPS is claiming they’re not required to keep the stuff. Krell stressed that point in his appeal.
Eventually, lawyers for the attorney general’s office got around to pressing CPS officials. As one of the attorneys wrote in a report on the matter: “Specifically, we asked that CPS clarify whether or not the requested documents had ever existed or had once existed but were destroyed.”
Excellent questions! And the response?
“CPS responded [by] stating that the records requested by Mr. Krell ‘have never been maintained by [CPS] and do not exist.'”