Rachel Fiore v. Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School (SPR 20250031)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records January 16, 2025 SPR25/0031 Kathleen Wang Principal Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School 317 Russell Street Hadley, MA 01035 Dear Principal Wang: I have received the petition of Rachel Fiore appealing the response of the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School (School/PVCICS) to a request for public records. See G. L. c. 66, § 10A; see also 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). On October 25, 2024, Ms. Fiore requested “… a copy of the parent survey from last year … [and] any other parent surveys and all SEPAC surveys (including comments) that have been completed since the last expansion request.” Prior Appeal This request was the subject of a prior appeal. See SPR24/3199 Determination of the Supervisor of Records (December 11, 2024). In my December 11th determination, I ordered the School to revise its fee estimate or provide further explanation of how said fee estimate was consistent with G. L. c. 66, § 10(d). The School provided a response on December 20, 2024. Unsatisfied with the response, Ms. Fiore petitioned this office and this appeal, SPR25/0031, was opened as a result. Subsequent to the opening of this appeal, the School provided a supplemental response on January 9, 2025. Fee Estimates – Agencies An agency may assess a reasonable fee for the production of a public record except those records that are freely available for public inspection. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d). The fees must reflect the actual cost of complying with a particular request. Id. A maximum fee of five cents ($.05) per page may be assessed for a black and white single or double-sided photocopy of a public record. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(i). One Ashburton Place, Room 1719, Boston, Massachusetts 02108 • (617) 727-2832• Fax: (617) 727-5914 sec.state.ma.us/pre • pre@sec.state.ma.us

Kathleen Wang SPR25/0031 Page 2 January 16, 2025 Agencies may not assess a fee for the first four (4) hours of employee time to search for, compile, segregate, redact or reproduce the record or records requested. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(ii). Where appropriate, agencies may include as part of the fee an hourly rate equal to or less than the hourly rate attributed to the lowest paid employee who has the necessary skill required to search for, compile, segregate, redact or reproduce a record requested, but the fee shall not be more than $25 per hour. Id. A fee shall not be assessed for time spent segregating or redacting records unless such segregation or redaction is required by law or approved by the Supervisor under a petition under G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iii); 950 C.M.R. 32.06(4). The School’s December 20th and January 9th Responses In its December 20, 2024 response, the School assessed a fee of $125.00 to provide Ms. Fiore with an estimated five responsive records. In its January 9, 2025 response, the School provided a further breakdown of its fee estimate as follows: As indicated in our prior responses, the reason the school is estimating four hours for locating the requested documents is due to the age of some of the surveys being requested. It will take the school significant time to search through its records for all the surveys you are requesting. The school does not believe that all the survey results are located together. As such, the School estimates 4 hours to locate the requested documents. The School believes that the Principal is the lowest paid employee who can locate these documents, since the Principal is the employee who has the historical knowledge to determine which surveys may be located where. As such, the School provided a cost of $25.00 per hour to locate the requested documents. The school then estimated 60 minutes to conduct legally required redactions to each document. This estimation is based on the fact that the 2024 SPED Parent Survey (which was sent to you earlier) has 37 pages and the School believes other SPED Parent Surveys are of similar length. The School is making an estimation of a little under two minutes per page to determine if and what redactions are legally required. The surveys contain open-ended comments from parents that contain student names and identifiable information that are exempt from disclosure under the public records law under M.G.L. c. 4, § 7(26)(a). While not all pages contain these open-ended comments, two minutes per page is a fair calculation for determining the cost to assure redactions that are required to protect student information which are exempt from disclosure and legally protected under FERPA and 603 CMR 23.00. In all actuality two minutes per page is an underestimation of the time the School is taking to ensure compliance with student privacy law requirements.

Kathleen Wang SPR25/0031 Page 3 January 16, 2025 The lowest paid employees that are able to determine and execute the appropriate redactions are the Principal, MS/HS Education Directors, Director of Education and/or the Director of Student Services all who are compensated at a rate over $25 per hour. The charter school is considered a state agency, and therefore, under the Public Records Law (M.G.L. c. 66, § 10) it is legally required to waive the first four hours of time responding to this request. Therefore, based on all the above, the PVCICS has requested to charge $125 to respond to the additional records request for “all SEPAC surveys (including comments) that have been completed since the last expansion request.” Fee Waivers G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(v) provides the following with respect to waiving a fee for the production of responsive records: the records access officer may waive or reduce the amount of any fee charged under this subsection upon a showing that disclosure of a requested record is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requestor, or upon a showing that the requestor lacks the financial ability to pay the full amount of the reasonable fee. Please be advised, although the Supervisor may encourage fees to be waived, the Supervisor may not mandate that a records access officer waive fees assessed for complying with a public records request; rather, as described above, the records access officer may waive or reduce the amount of any fee upon a showing of various factors. See G. L. c. 66, § 10 (d)(v); see also 950 C.M.R. 32.07(2)(k). Reasonableness of the Fee Estimate Where the School has explained the amount of time it requires to locate, segregate, and redact the requested records and confirmed that the lowest paid individual with the skill necessary to perform those tasks is paid more than $25.00 per hour, I find that the School has met its burden to establish that it would take this amount of time to produce the responsive records. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d) (a records access officer may assess a reasonable fee for the production of a public record). Conclusion Accordingly, I will now consider this administrative appeal closed. If Ms. Fiore is not satisfied with the resolution of this administrative appeal, please be advised that this office shares

Kathleen Wang SPR25/0031 Page 4 January 16, 2025 jurisdiction with the Superior Court of the Commonwealth. See G. L. c. 66, §§ 10(b)(ix), 10A(c) (pursuing administrative appeal does not limit availability of judicial remedies). Sincerely, Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records cc: Rachel Fiore