Joseph Rounds v. Canton, Town of - Public Schools (SPR 20253644)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records December 23, 2025 SPR25/3644 Brian Lynch Records Access Officer Canton Public Schools 960 Washington Street Canton, MA 02021 Dear Mr. Lynch: I have received the petition of Joseph E. Rounds appealing the response of the Canton Public Schools (School) to a request for public records. See G. L. c. 66, § 10A; see also 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). On November 26, 2025, Mr. Rounds requested the following: 1. All Emails Involving Teachers, Administrators, [specified individuals] a. Emails involving [a specified individual] - Teachers - Principals - Counselors - Administrators - Assistant Superintendent - Superintendent b. Emails involving [another specified individual] c. Internal staff emails referencing any of the following names or keywords: - [list of names] - “parent concern” - “51A” - “DCF” - “conference” - “math concern” - “after school” - “bug,” “pest,” “infestation” - “safety” - “custody” or “court order” - “communication” 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

Brian Lynch SPR25/3644 Page 2 December 23, 2025 2. All Internal School Documents Related to [specified individuals] - Teacher notes - Principal notes - Counseling notes (non-privileged) - Staff communication logs - Incident reports - Meeting notes - Internal summaries - Draft emails or communications - Documents prepared for legal counsel - Safety logs - Internal discussions of my formal complaint 3. All Mandated Reporting Documentation (School-Side Only) - Teacher notes - Principal notes - Counseling notes (non-privileged) - Staff communication logs - Incident reports - Meeting notes - Internal summaries - Draft emails or communications - Documents prepared for legal counsel - Safety logs - Internal discussions of my formal complaint 4. All Records of Meetings Concerning Any of [specified individuals] - Teacher notes - Principal notes - Counseling notes (non-privileged) - Staff communication logs - Incident reports - Meeting notes - Internal summaries - Draft emails or communications - Documents prepared for legal counsel - Safety logs - Internal discussions of my formal complaint 5. Policies, Procedures, and Training Materials a. Parent communication protocols b. After-school dismissal and attendance procedures c. Mandated reporting guidelines d. Staff training logs and certificates The School responded on December 10, 2025, providing a fee estimate. Objecting to the fees, Mr. Rounds petitioned this office, and this appeal, SPR25/3644, was opened as a result.

Brian Lynch SPR25/3644 Page 3 December 23, 2025 Status of the Requestor Please note that the reason for which a requestor seeks access to or a copy of a public record does not afford any greater right of access to the requested information than other persons in the general public. The Public Records Law does not distinguish between requestors. Access to a record pursuant to the Public Records Law rests on the content of the record and not the circumstances of the requestor. See Bougas v. Chief of Police of Lexington, 371 Mass. 59, 64 (1976). Accordingly, Mr. Rounds’ status will play no role in a determination as to whether the records should be disclosed or redacted under the Public Records Law. The Public Records Law The Public Records Law strongly favors disclosure by creating a presumption that all governmental records are public records. G. L. c. 66, § 10A(d); 950 C.M.R. 32.03(4). “Public records” is broadly defined to include all documentary materials or data, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by any officer or employee of any agency or municipality of the Commonwealth, unless falling within a statutory exemption. G. L. c. 4, § 7(26). It is the burden of the records custodian to demonstrate the application of an exemption in order to withhold a requested record. G. L. c. 66, § 10(b)(iv); 950 C.M.R. 32.06(3); see also Dist. Attorney for the Norfolk Dist. v. Flatley, 419 Mass. 507, 511 (1995) (custodian has the burden of establishing the applicability of an exemption). To meet the specificity requirement a custodian must not only cite an exemption, but must also state why the exemption applies to the withheld or redacted portion of the responsive record. If there are any fees associated with a response, a written good faith estimate must be provided. G. L. c. 66, § 10(b)(viii); see also 950 C.M.R. 32.07(2). Once fees are paid, a records custodian must provide the responsive records. Fee Estimates - Municipalities A municipality 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). Municipalities may not assess a fee for the first 2 (two) hours of employee time to search for, compile, segregate, redact or reproduce the record or records requested unless the municipality has 20,000 people or less. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iii). Where appropriate, municipalities 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

Brian Lynch SPR25/3644 Page 4 December 23, 2025 per hour. Id. However, municipalities may charge more than $25 per hour if such rate is approved by the Supervisor of Records under a petition under G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). 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 of Records under a petition under G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iii); 950 C.M.R. 32.06(4). The School’s December 10th Fee Estimate In its December 10, 2025 response, the School provides hyperlinks to records responsive to Item 5 of the request, and gives a total fee estimate of $41,600 for the remaining records. The School provides the following information in support of the fees: [E]ven if you are willing to pay the requested fee, any responsive information to these requests likely would be exempt from disclosure under Section 7(26)(a), the statutory exemption, based on the District’s obligation to maintain the confidentiality of personally-identifying student information, beyond directory information, under federal and state law and regulations (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 C.F.R. 99; 603 CMR 23.00), as well as Section 7(26)(c), the privacy exemption. Specifically, education records are exempt from disclosure pursuant to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”). Education records are records, no matter their form or location, which directly relate to a student and are maintained by an educational agency or institute. See Champa v. Weston Public Schools, 473 Mass. 86, 91-92. Personally identifiable student information includes a student’s name, name of the student’s parents or other family members, address of the student or student’s family, or any other information that alone or in combination is linked or linkable to a specific student. See 34 C.F.R 99. As you have requested information regarding specific students, it is unlikely that records could be sufficiently redacted to comply with this law. Additionally, the District does not maintain logs regarding staff training and training certificates are maintained in individual personnel files and are exempt from disclosure pursuant to Section 7(26)(c), which excludes from the definition of a public record “personnel and medical files or information and any other materials or data relating to a specifically named individual, the disclosure of which may constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” See G. L. c. 4, §7(26)(c). Good Faith Fee Estimate The District may charge a reasonable fee for time spent searching for and compiling records responsive to a public records request, as well as segregating and redacting records as required by law. . . . Here, because the District is within a community with a population of more than 20,000 people, it will not include the first two hours in its fee petition. The District will charge $25 per hour to search for, compile, segregate, redact and produce the requested records based on the

Brian Lynch SPR25/3644 Page 5 December 23, 2025 aforementioned exemptions. That rate is justified given that the lowest paid employee who is capable of performing the task has an effective hourly rate that exceeds $25 per hour. The District estimates that it will take approximately 1,666 hours to search for, compile, segregate, and redact records pursuant to FERPA in response to your request. This conservative calculation is based on an initial search for emails involving [specified individuals], with the understanding that while other physical records may need to be searched for, this digital search would likely contain the bulk of the requested records. This search resulted in 100,000 emails. The District estimates that it will take approximately 1 minute to review each potentially responsive email. This equals approximately 1,666 hours to search through approximately 100,000 emails. The fee estimate to produce the records sought in the request is therefore $41,600 (i.e. ((1,666 – 2 Hours) X $25)). The actual fee to produce these records may vary based on the actual time spent to complete the necessary search and review process. Should you wish to narrow or revise the scope of this request, for example, by narrowing the timeframe, the District would be happy to recalculate a good faith fee estimate accordingly. Appropriate Definitions, Parameters, and Time Frames In Friedman v. Div. of Admin. Law Appeal and Bureau of Special Educ. Appeals, the Suffolk Superior Court, in its Memorandum of Decision and Order on Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, stated: [The requester] has a right to seek public records from his government, provided he does so in a reasonable manner. [The agencies], in turn, have a right not to be inundated with drain-the-ocean records requests, provided they fulfill the basic expectations of the [Public Records Law] in a fair and transparent manner. See Friedman v. Div. of Administrative Law Appeal and Bureau of Special Educ. Appeals, Suffolk Sup. No. 2284CV02061-C, at 3 (February 14, 2023). The Court in Friedman noted, “the extraordinary volume of records called for in this case has compelled the Defendants to produce responsive materials in a ‘rolling’ fashion, rather than in accordance with deadlines contemplated by the [Public Records Law].” Id. at 1. The Court stated that: [T]he parties shall be expected to agree upon, to the greatest extent possible, the following: (a) appropriate definitions, time frames, and parameters regarding substance and scope for the identification of requested documents; (b) appropriate search terms to be used for the retrieval of responsive documents; (c) a reasonable time frame for the production of requested documents, if the statute’s presumptive deadlines are not realistic;

Brian Lynch SPR25/3644 Page 6 December 23, 2025 (d) appropriate rules to govern the withholding of documents falling within the scope of a statutory privilege or privacy doctrine; and (e) an appropriate methodology for computing the reasonable fees that may be charged for responsive document production. Id. at 2. This office encourages Mr. Rounds and the School to communicate directly in order to facilitate providing records more efficiently and affordably. Mr. Rounds may consider narrowing the scope of his request to enable the School to provide the records more efficiently and affordably. The School must use its superior knowledge of the records to suggest any potential reasonable modifications to the request. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(b)(vii) (a municipality shall suggest a reasonable modification of the scope of the request or offer to assist the requestor to modify the scope of the request if doing so would enable the municipality to produce the records sought more efficiently and affordably). Conclusion If outstanding issues remain after Mr. Rounds and the School communicate further as described above, Mr. Rounds may file an appeal within ninety (90) days. See 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). Sincerely, Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records cc: Joseph E. Rounds