Student Journalists in Kansas Win Fight for Public Interest Records
Lawrence, Kansas parents and taxpayers spent months in the dark about how their school district was paying for student-email surveillance. In late 2025, student journalists at Lawrence High and Free State High used the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) to ask a simple public-money question: what did the school buy when it quietly dropped Gaggle and switched to ManagedMethods, what did the contracts and invoices say, and how was the software configured? The district sat on the requests, then quoted $12,815—including lawyer time at $200 an hour—before a federal judge stepped in.
Kansas law gives agencies three business days to produce records, explain a delay, or cite a specific exemption.
This story relates to our ongoing project on school accountability in Idaho.
Idaho’s Public Records Act gives more time to the agency. Instead of the 3-day production, Idaho custodians have 3 days to grant or deny, and then may take up to the 10th day to gather records requiring more time to produce. Critics say that the 10-day clock is often run as a convenience and not because of any particular burden.Ryan Suppe, Public officials exploit grace period in records law, delaying release of documents (Idaho Education News / BoiseDev, May 4, 2026), says that custodians treat the 10-day allowance as customary, fire off an extension within hours, and use the full window even for a single document.https://www.idahoednews.org/top-news/public-officials-exploit-grace-period-in-records-law-delaying-release-of-documents/
Instead of an itemized bill for staff time and copies, the Kansas families got months of “under review,” a claim that no contract even existed, and a fee large enough to choke a student newspaper. Superintendent Jeanice Swift later told the court she held the files over student-privacy worries, the size of the request, and the pending lawsuit. Judge Kathryn Vratil rejected all three excuses. Public-records law already allows names to be blacked out. It does not let a school district hide how it spends tax dollars on monitoring software, or treat a journalism request as forbidden discovery.
In April 2026 the court found a KORA violation; in June it said the denial was not in good faith and ordered weekly status reports. By late July the district was ordered to pay more than $113,000 in fees and costs. The larger case still asks whether scanning student Google accounts without real notice is constitutional. The records fight is narrower and more basic: when a public school spends public money, the public is entitled to see contracts and invoices, without a five-figure gate.
References
https://lawrencekstimes.com/2025/10/29/usd497-new-monitoring-tool/
https://lawrencekstimes.com/2026/03/09/usd497-delays-record-request/
https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/education/article316698542.html
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70989873/tell-v-lawrence-board-of-education/
