Today is the last day of Sunshine Week, a nationwide celebration created by journalists to shed light on our country’s state and federal freedom of information laws.

And if you haven’t noticed The Record has been writing quite a bit about transparency recently. In this very issue are two stories about officials at two Whidbey public entities — Langley and the South Whidbey School District — who are looking to improve their responsiveness, their efficiency and dedication to the Washington Open Public Records Act.

For this, our hats are off to them.

At the school district, directors are expected to consider several improvements in transparency next week, from resuming the practice of recording board meetings and posting them online to administrative changes that could enhance staff’s efficiency in responding to records requests. And perhaps most importantly, the board will consider a change in a controversial policy of identifying requesters on the district’s website. A description of the information sought and an estimate of the time and cost to fulfill the request would remain but names would be replaced with a non-identifier, such as a number or a letter.

District officials have maintained the practice was meant to keep the board informed about the cost of public records requests, which hover around $400,000 since 2011. But with those expenses revolving nearly entirely around a single person, one who’s been labeled an abusive requester by school leaders, critics have rightly cried foul, saying the policy appears more like retaliation than a means of keeping the board informed. Indeed, it’s hard to claim this was about finances when names do absolutely nothing to communicate matters of dollars and cents.

Under state rules, the names of requesters are in fact public records, so it seems backward to argue that the district should stop broadcasting those details in the name of transparency. But that’s just what needs to happen. The board’s original intent is irrelevant. What matters is that people feel less free to ask for information, and a policy that does that is contrary to the spirit of our sunshine laws.

Langley’s situation is less complicated. City hall has seen a rise in requests and the records officer is swamped. To address the issue, Langley is spending money on additional help, and looking to streamline its processes.

This is the right way to handle the issue. Rather than pursuing measures that dissuade the public from exercising its right to ask for records, the city is focusing on how it can better perform its state-mandated obligations.

Despite the differences in how Langley and the school district approached the problems associated with records requests and arrived where they are today, it’s encouraging that both are looking to improve transparency. Government is a tough and often thankless job, and officials who are willing to accept public feedback, make changes where needed and sharpen the tools of their own accountability demonstrate why they deserve our trust.