One week. Four modules, a live hour with the instructor, and a challenge assessment. Less a refresher than a working session on execution — the part the Supervisor now tests hardest — anchored to one hard request and keyed to what actually changed this cycle. For records access officers who hold the certification and intend to keep it.
WHAT THE 2026 EDITION ADDS:
New this cycle
Body-Worn Cameras, POST-Era Discipline, and the Surveillance Records Nobody Planned For
The 2025 edition treated body-worn camera footage in a single context: the domestic-violence call. That is no longer the hard question. The hard question is a clip on a vendor’s cloud — a public record, because control governs, not location — holding a victim, a juvenile, a bystander, and an officer at once, with a segregability analysis, a redaction burden, and a fee estimate that all have to survive an appeal. Alongside it: POST-era certification and discipline records against a department’s own internal-affairs file, and the retention gaps opened by automated license-plate readers, drones, and acoustic gunshot detection.
WHAT CHANGED SINCE YOUR LAST CYCLE:
✦ The misconduct carve-out has an edge. It reaches sworn law-enforcement officers, using the c.6E definition, and for those records sustained-versus-exonerated is not probative. It does not reach non-sworn or civilian personnel – those still run the (c) balance.
✦ The witness shield doesn’t cover the officer. Exemption (f) reaches a private witness by voice and identifying context. A public official acting officially is not a shielded witness.
✦ Section 97D is narrower than people think. Operating through (a), it reaches the report and the victim-officer communications. Not the whole file.
✦ Fees are timed from this request. Sample the actual footage in front of you; an average borrowed from past jobs is the estimate that gets cut.
✦ Over-redaction is its own failure. Blur generously and you lose too. Expect in camera review against the unredacted original.
✦ The technology outran the schedule. Plate readers, drones, and gunshot detective generate records on vendor platforms, purging on a cycle you did not choose.
WHAT CARRIES FORWARD, UPDATED:
— Control, not location. Vendor, contractor, counsel, and personal-device records count. “Not in our system” is not an answer – you are expected to demand it, and to document the ask.
— Segregation. If any part can be released, it generally must be. Full withholding is the exception and needs its own explanation.
— Volume is a scoping problem. Clarification, extensions, and fees – never a denial for size. And a vague request gets narrowed, not refused.
— Fees inside the limits. The two-hour municipal and four-hour state tiers, the $25 cap, chargeable redaction time, and an estimate broken into to tasks, time and rates.
— The four workhorses. (a) identify the law then apply it; (c) classify then balance; (f) start with the harm; (n) name the vulnerability and the path to it.
— What you don’t owe. No duty to create a record, answer questions, or do research – and the Supervisor decides compliance, not accuracy.
Prerequisite: current certification in Basic Public Records Law
Delivered on MPI Litmos and Zoom
Emerging technology is revised annually and anchors each cycle.