Dracut’s $2,950 Estimate Is Now an Appeal

The largest fee on the board — 120 hours for 45 agreements the district had already found — was appealed the same day it arrived, and the Supervisor of Records docketed it as SPR26/4024.

Dracut Public Schools answered the project’s September 21, 2026 request with the most expensive document in the series: a two-page response letter dated September 23 from Superintendent Steven Stone, transmitted September 25, identifying 45 responsive settlement agreements and pricing their release at 120 hours of search, segregation and redaction — $2,950 after the first two free hours, at the same $25-an-hour rate every district on the board bills — plus per-page printing charges, with records to move only after payment. Parent Data Force appealed to the Massachusetts Supervisor of Public Records the same day, September 25, 2026, under G.L. c. 66, § 10A — and the Supervisor’s office docketed the appeal as SPR26/4024 that same day.

The Numbers First

• $2,950. The largest fee on the board — (120 hours – 2 free hours) x $25 — roughly ten times Peabody’s $300 and nearly forty times Berlin-Boylston’s original $75.
• 45 agreements the district says it has already identified. The records exist; the letter prices access to them.
• 120 hours, undifferentiated — 2 hours 40 minutes per already-identified agreement before any task-level accounting.
• 6 more hours for Superintendent Stone to verify the agreements — hours that never enter the $2,950 arithmetic the letter prints.
• Same day, twice. Response and appeal share September 25, and the Supervisor’s acknowledgment docketing SPR26/4024 is dated September 25 as well.
• $0 paid. The fee is unpaid; production is withheld; the request stays open while the appeal is pending.

The appeal’s own summary of the letter: Dracut “states that it has identified 45 responsive agreements, estimates 120 hours to ‘search, segregate and redact’ them, adds six hours for Superintendent Stone to ‘verify’ them, and demands $2,950, calculated as (120 hours – 2 free hours) x $25/hour.” The arithmetic is correct, the appeal concedes; the estimate itself is not adequately itemized or internally coherent.

What Dracut Said — and What the Appeal Asks

A 120-hour block never answers the questions an itemized estimate exists to answer: how much of the time is search versus compilation versus segregation versus redaction versus reproduction; what search remains after 45 responsive agreements have already been identified; how many pages are involved; what review rate or minutes-per-page assumption applies; and which specific legally required redactions account for the claimed time. The appeal asks the Supervisor to find the estimate noncompliant with G.L. c. 66, § 10(b)(viii) and 950 C.M.R. 32.07(2), and to order a supplemental response and a corrected estimate.

The full paper trail is public: the standardized request as sent (PDF), the district’s two-page response letter (PDF), and the appeal as docketed (PDF). Dracut is copied on the appeal as 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1)(g) requires, and the records request process in Dracut is now a pending matter at the Supervisor of Public Records.

How It Compares

The running board, cheapest to most expensive:

• Tantasqua Regional — $0: 45 pages produced, no fee, the project’s first production.
• Berlin-Boylston — $75, reduced to $50 after the district accepted a narrowed request on September 29.
• North Attleborough — $100: six hours, capped by the superintendent as a cooperative accommodation; a full public-interest waiver was requested September 29.
• Pentucket — $150: six hours itemized to the half-hour.
• Natick — $275: about 300 pages, two search hours, three attorney-review hours, and a 30-day petition — appealed (SPR26/4044).
• Peabody — $300: fourteen hours, invoice with the letter.
• East Bridgewater — $350: about six documents, a two-rate estimate, and its own 30-day petition — appealed.
• Weymouth — $350: a portal fee with a twenty-day withdrawal clock — appealed (SPR26/4062).
• Westwood — $520: 13 hours at $40 an hour, after its own acknowledgment capped the rate at $25 — appealed.
• Amesbury — $750: thirty hours at the statutory ceiling — appealed September 23.
• Dracut — $2,950, 120 hours for 45 already-identified agreements: this appeal, docketed SPR26/4024.

One district produced records for nothing. Ten priced the identical request from $50 to $2,950. Six of those prices are now before the Supervisor of Public Records. The whole board — fees, hours, productions, appeals: Massachusetts Student Settlement Records Project.

What This Means for Parents

• An already-identified list changes the arithmetic. When a district tells you it has found the responsive records and then bills 120 hours to search for them, the gap between those two sentences is the appeal — and it is visible in the district’s own letter.
• Bulk numbers without tasks are the weakest estimates. Hours split into search, review, redaction and reproduction can be checked line by line; an undifferentiated 120-hour block cannot. Massachusetts requires itemization for exactly this reason.
• The Supervisor’s docket is real leverage. SPR26/4024 means an independent officer reviews the estimate — a parent who appeals is not writing letters into a drawer.
• The board turns a $2,950 quote into context. The same one-page request drew $0 in Tantasqua and $50 in Berlin-Boylston; a parent who quotes the board is no longer arguing in the dark.
• Appeals are free and fast. The Dracut appeal was drafted, filed and docketed inside one business day; the roadmap is in the Amesbury appeal, and the tracker logs every outcome.

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Sources

• Dracut Public Schools, response letter dated September 23, 2026 (two pages, Superintendent Steven Stone; transmitted September 25, 2026): 45 responsive agreements; 120 hours at $25/hour — $2,950 after two free hours; per-page printing charges; production upon payment; self-hosted PDF published as received.
• Parent Data Force, standardized public-records request to Dracut Public Schools, sent September 21, 2026.
• Parent Data Force, appeal to the Massachusetts Supervisor of Public Records concerning the Dracut response, filed September 25, 2026; docketed SPR26/4024, acknowledged September 25, 2026.
• Massachusetts Public Records Law, G.L. c. 66, § 10, including § 10(b)(viii) (itemized estimates) and § 10A (appeals); 950 C.M.R. 32.07(2), 32.08.
• Champa v. Weston Public Schools, 473 Mass. 86 (2015).
• Massachusetts Student Settlement Records Project tracker, current as of September 29, 2026: 65 districts, 17 acknowledged, 33 awaiting first response, 3 routed or re-sent, 4 fee-estimate responses, 6 appeals filed, 1 production published.

The project is parent-led and grows by request. If your district is not on the tracker yet, write to the project and it becomes another row on the board.