$350 for Six Documents: East Bridgewater’s Second Fee Fight Is Not the Redaction Fight

Same district, same records officer, four months apart — and an entirely different dispute. A $350 estimate, a $75 hourly rate, a 30-day extension justified by a lawyer’s other clients, and two new dockets. This is a separate fight over separate records, and merging it with the redaction appeal would misdescribe both.

East Bridgewater Public Schools is in two public-records disputes at once, and they have almost nothing to do with each other. This article is about the second one.

The first is the 2,243-page email production: 47 redacted pages, an unproduced attachment set, a missing School Committee letter, and a state supervisor who upheld some redactions and sent the rest back for explanation. That dispute is covered in What the Supervisor of Records Decided About East Bridgewater and in East Bridgewater’s 47-Page Blackout and the Record It Says It Does Not Have.

The second began on September 18, 2026, with a request for student settlement agreements. On September 28 the District answered with a $350 fee estimate and a request for 30 more business days. The fee dispute was appealed the same day and is now before the Supervisor as SPR26/4068, with a separate fee-and-time petition pending as SPR26/4069.

The original fee dispute was reported when the estimate arrived: East Bridgewater’s $350 Fee and 30-Day Extension Are Now Under Appeal. The petition language was reported alongside Natick’s in Two Districts, One Petition: East Bridgewater and Natick Ask for 30 More Days in the Same Words. This article does not repeat them. It explains what makes this a separate matter, and what the $350 is actually made of.

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Why these are two matters and not one

The distinction is not a technicality. Merging them would misdescribe both.

Different records. The first dispute is about 2,243 pages of district email containing the word “stapler,” produced under Exemption (a) and FERPA. The second is about final or executed student settlement and resolution agreements from September 18, 2021 forward, estimated at six documents. There is no overlap in the records sought.

Different exemptions. The redaction dispute turns on FERPA as it operates through Exemption (a), the statutory exemption. The fee dispute anticipates redacting under the same Exemption (a) but is not about whether a redaction is lawful — it is about what searching and reviewing should cost.

Different dockets, different questions. The redaction matter is SPR26/3207, determined August 28, 2026, with the issue being explanation. The fee matter is SPR26/4068 and SPR26/4069, both opened September 28–29, 2026, with the issue being rate, time, and format.

Different clocks. SPR26/4068 carries a ten-business-day determination expectation from the District’s response. SPR26/4069 carries five business days from the petition. Both were still pending as of October 1, 2026.

Same district. Same records access officer. Genuinely separate fights.

The request

On September 18, 2026, Parent Data Force sent East Bridgewater Public Schools a request for final or executed student-related agreements resolving, compromising, settling, memorializing, or otherwise disposing of a dispute, claim, complaint, appeal, due-process matter, grievance, or other contested educational issue involving the district, covering the period from September 18, 2021 through the date of response.

The request was drafted to be grantable. It specified the record types by name — settlement and settlement-and-release agreements, resolution agreements, memoranda of understanding, memoranda of agreement, mediation agreements, stipulations and consent agreements, side agreements and side letters, and amendments, addenda, or extensions materially altering such agreements. It covered both special-education matters under IDEA, BSEA, Section 504, ADA-related access, evaluations, eligibility, placement, services, and transportation, and general-education matters including discipline, bullying and harassment complaints, civil-rights complaints, and enrollment disputes.

Three exclusions did the most work:

• No employment records. The request expressly disclaimed any agreement whose subject is a district employee, applicant, administrator, teacher, staff member, bargaining unit, or employment relationship, and excluded collective-bargaining agreements, employee grievances, personnel settlements, separation agreements, and workers’ compensation matters.
• No commercial settlements. Ordinary vendor, procurement, construction, and property settlements unrelated to student educational matters were carved out.
• No student personally identifiable information. The request stated expressly that it was not seeking PII, and invited the District to redact names, guardian names, addresses, contact information, student identification numbers, and dates of birth.

It also asked for an existing log or index if one was already maintained — while noting it was not asking the District to create one. It asked for searchable electronic copies rather than printed and rescanned documents, for rolling production if records could be produced in batches, and for a fee waiver or reduction on public-interest grounds under G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(v).

The request also cited Champa v. Weston Public Schools, 473 Mass. 86 (2015), for the proposition that the presence of protected student information does not permit categorical withholding of an entire agreement: personally identifiable information may be redacted, but segregable non-exempt portions are subject to disclosure. It noted the Supervisor’s application of Champa in SPR17/661, Alexander v. Wellesley Public Schools (May 25, 2017), rejecting the argument that Champa was limited to out-of-district agreements.

That citation sets up what happened next. The District’s response accepted the Champa framing and used it as the basis for its fee.

Six documents, $350

The District’s September 28, 2026 fee estimate opens by conceding the volume: “The District is in possession of approximately 6 documents that are responsive to your request for these types of agreements.”

Then it does something structurally interesting. It argues at length that responsive records will need redaction or withholding under Exemption (a), citing Champa, the FERPA regulations, and 603 CMR 23.00 — and, in the course of that argument, recites what Champa actually held: that a settlement agreement is an education record, and that “while Exemption (a) exempted the agreement from the definition of a public record, the Champa, court nonetheless ruled that the agreement should be redacted to protect personally identifying information; and that once redacted, the agreement shall be disclosed.”

Read carefully, the District’s own recitation of Champa describes a redaction-and-disclose obligation, not a withholding obligation. The redaction work it describes is the work it then bills at $75 an hour.

The arithmetic:

• Search: “the lowest paid employee who has the necessary skill required to search for the records requested is a salaried employee whose effective hourly rate exceeds $25 per hour. Notwithstanding that rate, a rate of $25 per hour will be used for search time. The District has spent five (5) hours searching for the records for a total of $125.”
• Review and redaction: “The District conservatively estimates that it will take approximately three (3) hours, using one minute per page to review all 6 documents and segregate and potentially redact any information that is exempt from disclosure… Three (3) hours multiplied by seventy-five $(75) per hour yields a total of $225.”
• Total: “$225 plus the time to search is a total of three hundred and fifty dollars ($350).”

Three observations, each of which is arithmetic or text rather than argument.

The $25 search rate is a concession, not a demand. The District says its own lowest-paid qualified employee’s effective rate “exceeds $25 per hour” and then charges $25 anyway. The search half of the bill is priced below the District’s own stated floor. That is worth noting precisely because it is unusual, and it isolates the dispute onto the $225 review line.

The $75 rate is attributed to the attorney-client review. The District’s explanation of the higher rate runs through the Office of District Counsel: because determining whether the attorney-client privilege requires withholding is legal work, only counsel can perform the review. The statute cited, G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iii), permits a rate equal to or less than the hourly rate of the lowest-paid employee with the necessary skill — the same standard the District applied downward for search.

The one-minute-per-page assumption implies a document count that has not been stated. Three hours at one minute per page is 180 pages. Six documents averaging thirty pages each is plausible for settlement agreements with attachments, and the District said “conservatively estimates.” But the estimate does not identify the page count it applied the assumption to, and the assumption drives 64% of the total.

The District also advised that the estimate “may be reduced if you narrow the scope of your request,” specifically the time period.

The 30-business-day extension, and why it is the weakest part

The District’s justification for more time is not about East Bridgewater’s records. It is about its lawyer’s calendar:

> Parent Data Force appears to have made an identical request to numerous school districts in the state. As a result, legal counsel will have to complete the necessary redactions for each of the districts it represents. It is not possible for legal counsel to review and redact the responsive documents of all its clients within 10 business days. The District will be unable to produce the records during normal business hours of operation without an extension in light of the fact that its attorneys will have to respond to similar requests for other districts and only counsel is able to review the responsive documents.

The legal basis is G. L. c. 66, § 10(c), and the District filed its petition within the required window.

The reason this is the weakest part is structural rather than moral. A custodian’s inability to complete a request is generally a custodian’s problem to solve — by allocating time, by narrowing, or by producing in stages. The District’s stated reason for delay is that a shared attorney is busy at other clients. That is a statement about the District’s chosen service provider, not about the six documents in front of it.

It is also a statement that generalizes. A requester who files the same well-drafted request across many districts and receives the same “our counsel is busy elsewhere” answer from each has learned something: the constraint is not the record set, it is the review model. Whether the Supervisor accepts that as a sufficient basis for a maximum extension is the question now pending.

The September 28 filing also attached a comparison of the East Bridgewater and Natick petitions, identifying shared language and errors, and a Tantasqua comparator showing the same form request and prompt production. The petition’s near-duplication across districts is therefore part of the filed record, not an outside observation.

Two dockets, two questions

SPR26/4068 is the appeal from the September 28 response, filed under G. L. c. 66, § 10A(a). Acknowledged September 29, 2026, with a ten-business-day expectation for a determination.

SPR26/4069 is the petition challenging the fee and the time extension. Acknowledged September 29, 2026, with a five-business-day expectation.

They are related but not identical, and the filing treats them as such — the September 28 submission served as both the appeal and the opposition to the fee-and-time petition.

The positions asserted in that filing, attributed to the requester and not adopted here as findings:

• The lack of request-specific support for the $75 rate.
• The lack of itemization for the search and review work, where the request expressly asked for the actual tasks, time, rate, and factual basis for each component.
• The reliance on counsel’s obligations to other district clients as a principal basis for delay.
• The absence of facts showing why six identified documents require three hours of attorney review.

The filing expressly did not challenge the District’s position that the special two-hour no-charge rule for municipalities over 20,000 does not apply to East Bridgewater. That is a concession, and it is worth noting that it was made: the objection is about rate and itemization, not about the threshold.

What is established

• The request was sent September 18, 2026 and expressly excluded employment and commercial records and disclaimed any request for student PII.
• The District’s September 28, 2026 response states it is “in possession of approximately 6 documents that are responsive.”
• The fee estimate is $350: $125 for five hours of search at $25, and $225 for three hours of review at $75.
• The District states its lowest-paid qualified search employee’s effective rate “exceeds $25 per hour” and charges $25 regardless.
• The $75 review rate rests on the review being attorney work requiring District Counsel.
• The three-hour review estimate uses a one-minute-per-page assumption across the six documents.
• The District requested an additional 30 business days under G. L. c. 66, § 10(c).
• The stated reason for the extension is that District Counsel must also serve the District’s other clients and cannot complete all of them within ten business days.
• The District’s response recites Champa for the proposition that a redacted settlement agreement is to be disclosed.
• SPR26/4068 and SPR26/4069 were both opened following the September 28 filing, and both were acknowledged September 29, 2026.
• Neither docket had a determination as of October 1, 2026.

What is not established

• Not established that $350 is unreasonable. No one has so held. The Supervisor has not ruled.
• Not established that $350 is reasonable. Equally, nothing upholds it. Pending is not permitted.
• Not established that the $75 rate is unlawful. The requester’s position is that the District has not shown a request-specific basis for it. That is an argument, not a finding.
• Not established that the six documents are 180 pages. The one-minute-per-page assumption implies it; the District has not stated a page count.
• Not established that the District’s other clients caused the delay. That is the District’s stated reason, not a demonstrated fact, and it has not been tested.
• Not established that the petition is identical to another district’s. The September 28 filing made that comparison and attached the documents; the Supervisor has not weighed it.
• Not established that this dispute affects the redaction matter. The two share a district and a records officer. They share no records, no exemptions at issue, and no dockets.

What can reasonably be assumed

Inference, not finding.

• The $25 search rate probably will not be contested. The District priced it below its own stated floor. The dispute is almost certainly about the $225.
• The review probably will not be performed at $25. The District says only counsel can determine whether attorney-client privilege applies. A Supervisor ruling that the privilege question can be answered by non-attorney staff would be a substantial change in how these reviews are billed statewide, which is a reason to expect careful treatment rather than a quick one.
• The 30-day extension probably turns on the shared-counsel rationale. If the Supervisor accepts that a custodian’s vendor workload is a valid basis for delay, that reasoning becomes available to every district sharing counsel. If it is rejected, East Bridgewater produces within the original window. The reasoning is doing more work than the amount.
• The six documents probably will not be released without payment. The response frames the redactions as unavoidable and the estimate as a precondition. Production would follow payment, and the fee is unresolved.
• The District’s Champa recitation probably was not intended as a concession. It reads as an argument for why redaction is required, drawn from a case that also establishes redaction is followed by disclosure. But it is the District’s text, and it says what it says.

None of the above is a finding.

Open questions

• Will the Supervisor accept $75 an hour for review? Pending in SPR26/4068.
• Will the 30-business-day extension be granted? Pending in SPR26/4069, on a five-business-day clock.
• How many pages are the six documents? The review estimate’s one-minute-per-page assumption is unverified.
• What is the itemized task breakdown? The request asked for it. The estimate provided hours, rates, and a per-page assumption, not tasks.
• Will the response be rolled? The request asked for rolling production; the District’s response did not address it.
• Will a fee waiver or reduction be considered? The public-interest basis was stated in the request; no determination has addressed it.
• Has anything been produced? No. As of October 1, 2026, no responsive document from the September 18 request had been released.

Sources

• Public records request to East Bridgewater Public Schools dated September 18, 2026.
• East Bridgewater Public Schools fee estimate dated September 28, 2026, including the $350 calculation and the 30-business-day request.
• East Bridgewater Public Schools fee and time petition filed September 28, 2026.
• Public Records Division acknowledgement of appeal, SPR26/4068, September 29, 2026.
• Public Records Division acknowledgement of petition, SPR26/4069, September 29, 2026.
• Parent Data Force’s combined appeal and opposition to the fee and time petition, September 28, 2026.
• Champa v. Weston Public Schools, 473 Mass. 86 (2015); Alexander v. Wellesley Public Schools, SPR17/661 (May 25, 2017).

The earlier reporting on this dispute is East Bridgewater’s $350 Fee and 30-Day Extension Are Now Under Appeal and Two Districts, One Petition. This matter is documented at the East Bridgewater Public Schools Public Records Project, alongside the separate redaction dispute in What the Supervisor of Records Decided About East Bridgewater. Other Parent Data Force records projects are listed at the projects index.

If you have documents responsive to the September 18, 2026 request — a settlement agreement, resolution agreement, or side letter involving an East Bridgewater student — or a fee estimate from another district served by the same counsel, write to joey@parentdataforce.com. Settlement agreements are public records once student identifiers are removed. Six documents is a small enough number that everyone should be able to say what they are.