Rhode Island mom billed $74K for attempting to assessment faculty curriculum: They’re ‘stonewalling dad and mom’
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A Rhode Island mom who was billed $74,000 for attempting to assessment a faculty curriculum instructed “America’s Newsroom” on Tuesday that faculties are “stonewalling dad and mom with exorbitant costs” for public data that taxpayers already paid for.
“I obtained an estimate for, say, $80 for data that I requested,” Nicole Solas mentioned. “After which after I requested comparable data, a month later, the value skyrocketed to $2,600. So faculties will cost you no matter value they wish to cost you. In order that approach you are not going to know what your children are studying at school.”
Solas argued that public data is just not public if it value cash to acquire it and that faculties are attempting to create “boundaries” to make it accessible.
SCHOOL DISTRICTS PRICING OUT PARENTS ON RECORD REQUESTS BY CHARGING TENS OF THOUSANDS IN ‘EXORBITANT FEES’
Mother and father round the US are being charged tens of hundreds of {dollars}, together with some charges into the hundreds of thousands, for public information requests of their faculty districts, Fox Information Digital has discovered.
Fox Information Digital spoke with dad and mom across the county – equivalent to in Michigan, Oregon, and Rhode Island — in addition to with public information consultants who mentioned they believed faculties had been utilizing exorbitant charges so as to value dad and mom out of the data they’re legally entitled to, equivalent to these associated to curriculum.
A mother or father from Frederick County Public Colleges in Maryland instructed Fox Information Digital that she requested emails that spanned one month between varied entities and was requested to pay $5,000. “I by no means received the [records] as a result of that is properly past what I am prepared to pay for data my tax {dollars} already paid for,” she mentioned. FCPS was contacted for remark however didn’t instantly reply.
Solas appeared alongside her authorized consultant, the nationwide litigation director for the Goldwater Institute Jon Riches. Riches hopes to assist Solas obtain the data she wants.
“This data is public,” Riches mentioned.
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“The districts can’t disguise behind these charges to try to stop it… These things should not require legal professionals. It should not require a court docket course of in any respect. College districts ought to be telling dad and mom what they will train our children. Plain and easy. However we’re going to proceed to combat for this data and we’ll get it.”
Fox Information’ Hannah Grossman contributed to this report.