East Bridgewater, Natick and Quincy each asked the Supervisor of Records for 30 extra business days and an hourly rate three times the statutory cap. Within 24 hours they got the same extension, the same ceiling, and the same case law — on the same reasoning, in the same words.
On Oct. 5 and Oct. 6, 2026, the Massachusetts Supervisor of Records issued the same disposition in three separate fee-and-time petitions. Two came down on October 5. The third came down on October 6. In each, a thirty-business-day extension of time to produce records was granted, and a fee above the statutory hourly cap was approved but limited to $75.00 per hour for attorney review.
The consistency is the news. Three districts asked for the same extraordinary rate, on the same reasoning, within a day of each other, and received the same ceiling in return.
The three matters
Each of these petitions arises from the Massachusetts Student Settlement Records Project — the standardized request Parent Data Force sent to 65 districts on Sept. 18, 2026 and after, for final or executed student settlement, resolution, memoranda of understanding and mediation agreements dating from Sept. 18, 2021 forward.
- East Bridgewater Public Schools — docket SPR26/4069. Determined Oct. 5, 2026. The district said its search had identified approximately 6 documents, requiring roughly 3 hours of attorney review. Its fee estimate accompanying the petition was $350.
- Natick Public Schools — docket SPR26/4044. Determined Oct. 5, 2026. Natick’s search identified a much larger universe — about 300 pages — and its estimate was $275 for five hours.
- Quincy Public Schools — docket SPR26/4087. Determined Oct. 6, 2026. Its estimate was $450 for ten hours.
None of these districts produced records in response to the petition. Each asked for more time and a higher rate first.
What the districts asked for
The ask was the same in all three, and it had two parts.
Time. Thirty additional business days beyond the ten the statute gives a public body to respond. The stated reason was counsel capacity: shared attorneys cannot review and redact responsive documents for every client they represent within the statutory window.
Rate. An hourly fee above the statutory cap of $25.00 per hour. The districts’ reasoning was that determining whether attorney-client privilege requires withholding is legal work, and only counsel can do it — which places the review component under the higher professional rate.
What makes the rate request notable is that the districts were not asking for their attorneys’ actual billing rate. They asked for $75.00 an hour, while telling the Supervisor in the same documents that their attorneys’ own rates were in or around $270 an hour. The gap between the requested rate and the stated market rate is roughly three and a half to one.
What the Supervisor decided
In each of the three determinations, the disposition has two halves and both were granted in part.
- The thirty-business-day extension of time was granted.
- A fee in excess of $25.00 per hour was approved, but limited to $75.00 per hour for attorney review.
In docket SPR26/4087, the Quincy determination goes one step further and expressly provides that the district may not charge more than $25.00 per hour for search time. So in that matter the approved rate is component-specific: attorney review may be billed at up to $75.00 per hour, search may not exceed $25.00.
That is a meaningful ceiling rather than a rubber stamp. The districts asked for $75.00 and received $75.00. They did not receive the $270 their own attorneys bill.
The legal spine: Champa
The East Bridgewater determination grounds its reasoning in Champa v. Weston Public Schools, 473 Mass. 86 (2015), and the reasoning explains why the review component is chargeable at all.
The Supreme Judicial Court held there that a student settlement agreement is not itself a public record, because it qualifies as an education record and therefore falls within Exemption (a). But the holding does not end there. The agreement must be redacted to protect personally identifying information, and once redacted, it shall be disclosed. The presence of protected student information does not license a custodian to withhold an entire agreement categorically.
That is the distinction the determinations are built on, and it runs in the districts’ favor on the fee question. If Champa meant the records are disclosable only after counsel sorts them, the sorting is attorney work, and attorney work can be billed above the statutory search rate. The Supervisor accepted that premise and still set a ceiling on what that work costs.
It is worth stating what this does not do. The rulings approve a rate; they do not release a single agreement. No settlement agreement from East Bridgewater, Natick or Quincy has been produced as a result of these determinations.
The same sentence in two petitions
The two October 5 petitions, East Bridgewater’s and Natick’s, are not merely similar in outcome. They overlap in language, down to a single sentence:
The District is only seeking $75 an hour, despite its attorney’s hourly rate being in or around $270.
Parent Data Force documented the overlap earlier, when the petitions first arrived, and filed a side-by-side comparison exhibit with its oppositions. That exhibit noted that the two petitions also shared the same errors — describing producing “these records south in the request,” and billing time to review “each page of the invoices sought in the request,” when the request sought settlement and resolution agreements, not invoices.
That comparison was careful about what it claimed: shared language does not prove improper coordination, and shared counsel is a fact rather than an accusation. What it asked for was narrower — that each petition be decided on its own district’s facts and evidence of necessity.
What has now happened is that two of those near-identical petitions received near-identical dispositions on the same day, and a third received the same disposition the following day.
Why the consistency matters
Two readings are available, and the documents support the narrower one.
What is established: three districts asked for the same rate on the same reasoning in the same window, two of them used verbatim-identical language including the same $75-versus-$270 sentence, and all three received the same capped rate from the same Supervisor within 24 hours.
What is not established: that the districts coordinated, that any of them acted improperly, or that the petitions were prepared from a common template. Those are inferences from a pattern, not findings.
What the pattern does establish is a single, consistent policy at the Supervisor’s office, and that policy now has a price attached: attorney review of student settlement agreements in Massachusetts is billable at no more than $75.00 per hour, search at no more than $25.00 per hour, with thirty extra business days available to get there.
For a requester, that is a usable number. Three districts have now been told the ceiling, and the ceiling did not move between October 5 and October 6.
Reconsiderations are pending on all three
Parent Data Force filed a reconsideration in each matter, limited to the $75.00 hourly rate. The extension was not contested on reconsideration. The dispute is the rate and only the rate.
All three reconsiderations are pending. The Supervisor has ten business days from the petition to rule, and these were filed Oct. 5 and Oct. 6, 2026 — so decisions fall due in the window of Oct. 19 to Oct. 20, 2026.
If the reconsiderations are denied, $75.00 per hour becomes the operative rate for attorney review in these three matters. If any is granted and the rate moves, it moves for that docket. Each determination stands on its own until the Supervisor says otherwise.
Where this is tracked
Every district named here appears on the Massachusetts Student Settlement Records Project tracker, which carries each district’s status, its fee estimate, its docket number, and the documents it has produced. Earlier reporting in this dispute includes Two Districts, One Petition: East Bridgewater and Natick Ask for 30 More Days in the Same Words, East Bridgewater’s Second Fee Dispute, and the wider settlement fee escalation.
The project is parent-led and grows by request. If your district is not on the tracker, write to the project and it becomes another row on the board.
Sources
- Determination in SPR26/4069, East Bridgewater Public Schools, fee-and-time petition, Oct. 5, 2026: 30-business-day extension granted; fee in excess of $25.00 per hour approved but limited to $75.00 per hour for attorney review; reasoning grounded in Champa v. Weston Public Schools, 473 Mass. 86 (2015).
- Determination in SPR26/4044, Natick Public Schools, fee-and-time petition, Oct. 5, 2026: same disposition.
- Determination in SPR26/4087, Quincy Public Schools, Petition Determination, Oct. 6, 2026: 30-business-day extension granted; fee approved but limited to $75.00 per hour for attorney review, with the determination expressly barring more than $25.00 per hour for search time.
- Fee-and-time petitions of East Bridgewater and Natick, Sept. 28, 2026, including the shared sentence on the $75.00 requested rate against an attorney rate in or around $270 per hour; Parent Data Force comparison exhibit filed with its oppositions, Sept. 28, 2026.
- Reconsideration requests limited to the $75.00 per hour rate, filed Oct. 5 and Oct. 6, 2026; pending.
- District fee estimates as recorded on the project tracker: East Bridgewater $350, Natick $275, Quincy $450.
- Champa v. Weston Public Schools, 473 Mass. 86 (2015); Massachusetts Public Records Law, G.L. c. 66, § 10(c) and § 10(d).
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