A mom wants to see book lists at her kids’ school. Fort Worth ISD wants to her to pay $1,200
When Jenny Crossland filed a records request with the Fort Worth school district asking for a list of books that teachers could assign in each grade-level, she thought the process would be simple.
“I was comparing the curriculum for my children … to see what school I want to put them in next year,” she told the Star-Telegram. “When I talked to charter and private schools they were really proud of their curriculum and could rattle things off.”
In response to her request in June, the district sent a cost estimate totaling $1,267.50 in order to process the request — citing the amount of time it would take to compile the requested information from various sources.
“I thought that was outrageous,” Crossland said, “I was so mad I tweeted about it and people went crazy.”
That June tweet caught the eye of the Goldwater Institute, an Arizona-based conservative leaning think tank, which employs a “network of pro bono attorneys” called the American Freedom Network.
Kristina Denapolis West, another parent in Fort Worth and an attorney, is part of that network.
She filed a similar request in August and was met with a similar cost estimate. In response, she filed a complaint with Attorney general Ken Paxton, saying the costs exceed the amount allowed by Texas state law. West declined to comment for this story.
Paxton’s office confirmed receipt of the complaint and said the next step is to ask the district to respond to questions.
The Goldwater Institute called the incident an “outrageous lack of transparency.”
District says book list would take 84 hours to compile
According to state law, a governmental body is allowed to charge for material, labor and overhead associated with a request. Labor is defined as the time necessary to locate, compile, copy and manipulate data, as well as any time necessary to redact confidential information.
There are also limits. Fees can not be assessed, for example, for requests with responsive paper documents less than 50 pages.
“It is highly unlikely, to the point of improbable that a list of required or suggested reading material – even for thirteen grade levels– surpasses 50 pages,” West said in the complaint. “Therefore the District’s charges also violate the Attorney General’s cost rules.”
In a statement, Fort Worth school officials said that it would take 6.5 hours to pull together the list requested for one grade or more than 84 for all grades.
A district spokesperson did not say whether the responsive documents were over 50 pages, citing the nature of the complaint.
According to the district, “neither requester responded to the district regarding the cost estimate” which the district said was “a good faith estimate on what it would cost to fulfill the request as submitted.”
Fort Worth school library catalogs, which are separate from books required in the classroom, are available for parents to search online.
The district said that “presumably there would be some overlap between the required selections and approved selections and those that might be found in library catalogs.”
Parents question content of books
The records fight come as elected leaders and parents across Texas debate what content is appropriate for children, with some districts adopting stricter policies on the types of books allowed at each grade level.
Crossland said the debates playing out in school districts across the state are part of the reason she filed the records request in the first place.
“I think every parent is worried about that right now,” she said. “If you look at the debates, conservative parents are worried about pornography, which they should be.”
Goldwater Institute Vice President for Litigation Jonathan Riches told the Star-Telegram that open records laws are in place to allow transparency in government-run institutions like schools.
“Parents have a right to know what their kids are going to learn in school,” he said. “School district operations are open to parents and other members of the public and the government entities responsible really shouldn’t even have to sort of force this public records process, they should be producing information about what books are assigned, what information is taught in class.”
Fees can be used to deter records requests
The Goldwater Institute has a guide for community members looking to file Open Records Requests.
The guide, available online at openmygovernment.org has best practices for filing a request and how to respond to obstacles.
One recommendation, which Fort Worth schools said the parents requesting information in this case did not do, is to reach out to the records custodian to discuss narrowing the request.
“Consider discussing and possibly refining the request with the records custodian, but document everything,” the guide suggests. “If the records custodian is having a difficult time understanding the request or claims that a request is burdensome because it is overly broad, consider having a discussion with them to clarify and refine the request.”
This course of action “can help you get the information you want as well as reduce unnecessary productions.”
But unnecessary costs aren’t unheard of.
Kelley Shannon, the Executive Director of the Texas Freedom of information Foundation said governments have used fees improperly in the past.
“In some cases, cost estimates are used as a deterrent to get people to not ask for information,” she said. “So sometimes the cost rules are misused to try to make requesters just want to back off and not ask for the information.”
Shannon clarified that she didn’t know enough about the case in Fort Worth to know if that was the case with the book lists. If costs are found to be too high, however, the attorney general can take action to intervene, she said.
The Office of the Attorney General Cost Hotline is 512-475-2497 or 1-888-672-6787.
If the AG finds that an entity is overcharging they can order them to charge less and “even impose a financial penalty,” Shannon said.
This story was originally published September 2, 2022 at 5:00 AM.