Keller ISD, GCISD among 151 Texas agencies suing to keep public records secret
Records obtained by the Star-Telegram show governmental agencies in the state will fight to withhold information that has been deemed public, raising questions about transparency while taxpayers shoulder litigation costs.
The Texas Public Information Act says any entity falling under the jurisdiction of the state or having one or more elected or appointed members must make records available to the public upon request. The exception is if the requested records contain certain types of sensitive or confidential information.
If a governmental body believes that to be the case, the recourse is to appeal to the Texas Attorney General’s Office to block the records’ release. A lawyer working for the attorney general will then make a determination.
In most cases, a ruling from the Attorney General’s Office settles things. But in some instances, governmental bodies sue the attorney general to avoid having to release records that were determined to be public.
According to records from the Attorney General’s Office, there were 151 of those lawsuits pending in Travis County as of June 12, including some filed by Tarrant County agencies.
“It just flies in the face of transparency,” said Rachel Wall, a parent who has been waiting two years for records she requested from the Grapevine-Colleyville school district that the Attorney General’s Office said should be public.
In 2024, Wall asked for invoices showing fee details for work performed by attorney Tim Davis and the firms he was employed by while serving as counsel for Grapevine-Colleyville’s school board.
The request was made, Wall said, after she noticed discrepancies between what Davis said he billed and what the district actually paid. Wall said she also questioned why the school board reportedly paid Davis more than $270,000 in 2022 and 2023.
Davis did not respond to a request for comment. Some parents, like Wall, have scrutinized Davis’ work for Texas school districts because of the impression the right-leaning Davis pushes a conservative political agenda. Davis is now chair of the Tarrant County Republican Party.
“My tax dollars are paying those bills,” said Wall, arguing she’s entitled to view the attorney’s invoices. “Right now we’re sitting at around $600,000 in legal fees going back to 2022. At the same time, parents are being told the district doesn’t have enough money to pay for programs and doesn’t have enough money to keep schools open.”
Wall is herself a lawyer; she said she understood that certain things in the invoices were protected by attorney-client privilege, and she has no problem with those items being redacted. But she’s said all along that basic fee details are not privileged — a stance supported by the Attorney General’s Office, which ruled in Wall’s favor in 2024 after Grapevine-Colleyville appealed to withhold the invoices.
Instead of releasing the records, though, Grapevine-Colleyville sued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton saying the requested information was, in fact, privileged and should not be public.
Wall made a similar records request in 2025, with the same result. The Star-Telegram also requested copies of Davis’ unredacted invoices from Grapevine-Colleyville last year. The Attorney General’s Office ruled in the newspaper’s favor, resulting in Grapevine-Colleyville filing another lawsuit against Paxton.
The exact same thing happened when the Star-Telegram requested Davis’ invoices from Keller, whose school board Davis also represented. He has since parted ways with both Grapevine-Colleyville and Keller, though Davis now serves as counsel for the Texas Board of Education.
The lawsuits filed by Keller and Grapevine-Colleyville to block the records sought by the Star-Telegram have been pending since September 2025. When asked if the lawsuits involving Davis’ fees would be withdrawn, a spokesperson for Grapevine-Colleyville said the school board is reviewing the invoices, and the district couldn’t speculate before that process is complete.
A spokesperson for Keller did not respond when asked about that district’s lawsuit last month.
In addition to the two lawsuits related to Wall’s request and the lawsuit related to the Star-Telegram’s request, Grapevine-Colleyville sued Paxton in 2022 to continue withholding a list of educators who were being “monitored” for their political beliefs.
At the time, former school board trustee Tammy Nakamura had accused a number of district educators of espousing liberal viewpoints, calling them “poison.” Rumors swirled that Nakamura and other trustees maintained a list of those educators.
According to the 2022 lawsuit filings, such a list exists, but Grapevine-Colleyville argued it’s not subject to public disclosure because it’s essentially a confidential employee performance evaluation.
The Attorney General’s Office, however, determined portions of the records were not confidential because they pertained to personnel who didn’t fall under the umbrella of licensed teachers or administrators. That could include interns, librarians, counselors and aides, according to the ruling.
The original public information request was filed by Wayne Carter, an education reporter for KXAS-TV. Carter did not respond to an email requesting comment on the request’s status.
Of the 151 cases pending against Paxton that were filed by governmental bodies to withhold records, three were in appeals, with one case having made it to the Texas Supreme Court.
The oldest case on the list of active ones is from 2014. A hearing in that case is set for November, according to court records. Some of the cases dating back several years show little or no movement, though.
The Attorney General’s Office did not respond when asked about the backlog of lawsuits.
All told, the pending cases have cost the state more than $150,000 in legal fees, according to billing records the Star-Telegram viewed.