North Attleborough Waived Its $100 Fee: A Settlement Records Project Update

The first district in the project to price a request and then voluntarily waive the bill in full — in the same week Westwood’s estimate fell back to $300, Methuen’s portal closed with nothing in it, and Holbrook’s page count went to the district’s lawyer.

The Numbers First

• 65 Massachusetts school districts have received the same standardized public-records request for final student settlement agreements.
• 14 have priced it. The estimates run from $50 (Berlin-Boylston Regional) to $2,950 (Dracut), and $6,462.50 in aggregate.
• 1 has now waived the fee it assessed: North Attleborough, today.
• 10 fee estimates are under appeal to the Supervisor of Public Records; 7 of those carry docket numbers.
• 6 districts have produced records. 22 have acknowledged the request in writing.
• North Attleborough’s own line, end to end: 10+ hours anticipated → 6 hours estimated → 4 chargeable at $25 after the two free statutory hours → $100 → $0.

What North Attleborough Said

• Sept. 23, 1:09 p.m. — The request went to Superintendent John Antonucci rather than the district’s published school Records Access Officer, Lori McEwen, Ph.D., who does not appear in the district’s current staff directory and for whom no current working address could be verified. The submission date of September 23 was preserved, and receipt was requested. Antonucci confirmed receipt in writing the same day. The card on the project board carries the request and the confirmation.
• Sept. 29, 9:32 a.m. — The fee estimate. In the district’s words: the time required to search, assemble, review and redact “will be at least 10 hours”; the district is “willing to limit its fee estimate to six hours of work, despite anticipating that the actual time required will be considerably greater”; the first two hours are free under the Public Records Law, leaving four hours at $25.00 — $100.00, payable before processing would begin. The full letter is published as the district’s fee estimate response.
• Sept. 29, 10:15 a.m. — The public-interest waiver request, citing G.L. c. 66, § 10(d)(v), and noting that North Attleborough had been added to the project because residents asked for it.
• Oct. 1, 1:20 p.m. — The waiver: “We are willing to waive the fee. However, please understand that this is a one-time exception and should not be viewed as a guarantee that fees will be waived in the future… Please be on the lookout for our response next week.” Published as the district’s fee waiver.
• Oct. 1, 1:28 p.m. — Parent Data Force acknowledged the waiver the same afternoon. No records have been produced yet; the district expects to respond next week.

The North Attleborough row on the tracker now shows both the $100 estimate and a fee waived Oct 1, 2026 badge, with both letters attached.

The Ask, and Why It Worked

Two things happened here that have not happened together before in this project.

The first was the district’s own reduction. Antonucci’s estimate was not a maximum-demand letter. The district said the work would take at least ten hours, then priced six. That is a district voluntarily billing itself for less than it believed it was owed, in writing, before anyone asked.

The second was the ask. The request itself flagged the public-interest waiver under G.L. c. 66, § 10(d)(v), which requires a public agency to waive fees “if the requester is nonprofit and the record is in the public interest.” The follow-up named the specific gap — $100 — rather than arguing in the abstract, and said plainly what a waiver would make possible: public recognition of a district that had already cooperated.

The arithmetic was easy to check, which is part of why it worked. The district’s own letter said ten hours anticipated, six hours estimated, two hours free under 950 C.M.R. 32.00, four hours chargeable at $25. The waiver eliminated a $100 bill that the district had already reduced from a larger one.

How North Attleborough Compares

Every district that has priced this request, lowest to highest, with North Attleborough at zero:

• Berlin-Boylston Regional — $50 (2 hrs)
• Amherst-Pelham Regional — $100 (4 hrs)
• North Attleborough — $0, waived in full (priced at $100, 6 hrs)
• Methuen — $137.50 (5.5 hrs)
• Pentucket Regional — $150 (6 hrs)
• Westfield — $200 (4 hrs)
• Natick — $275 (5 hrs)
• Peabody — $300 (14 hrs)
• Westwood — $300 (12 hrs, revised down from $520)
• East Bridgewater — $350 (8 hrs)
• Weymouth — $350 (14 hrs)
• Quincy — $450 (10 hrs)
• Amesbury — $750 (30 hrs)
• Dracut — $2,950 (120 hrs)

Two of those lines already have their own write-ups: Westwood quoted itself $25 an hour, then billed $40 — the estimate it revised this week, in the same week it filed the revision with the Supervisor — and Peabody wants $300 before it looks.

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Also Today: Five More Districts

Westwood — the $520 came back down to $300. The Town’s School Department reviewer originally billed 13 hours at $40 for $520, despite the District’s own September 23 acknowledgment capping the rate at $25. On October 1 Westwood revised the estimate to 12 hours at $25 — $300 — cancelled the prior estimate, and filed the revision with the Supervisor in SPR26/4078. The request stays on hold pending payment; the appeal stays pending.

Methuen — the portal closed without the records. Request PRR-2026-478 now shows “Completed” with no documents added to the request page, and a reply reporting the defect was rejected because the request had already been closed. Methuen’s September 30 written response separately identifies approximately 45 potentially responsive agreements and demands $137.50 — 5.5 hours at $25 — before it will “commence gathering and redacting” anything, with no production timeframe stated. Parent Data Force appealed to the Supervisor on October 1 and filed a supplemental appeal the same day, disputing the chargeable segregation time and the unsupported ten-minutes-per-agreement assumption. No docket number yet.

Holbrook — a production that is facially incomplete. Four settlement and mediation agreements arrived from Co-Records Access Officer Bridget Baker, and one of them is wrong: “Settlement Agreement.pdf” runs to two pages with the second marked “Page 2 of 3.” The other three paginate consecutively. Baker is consulting the district’s attorney on the discrepancy and will forward the missing page.

Braintree — completed through the portal, response document not stable. Superintendent Tim MacDonald closed out portal request #2026-2200 with a response document and a download link, stating the District had “completed the work in reference to your request.” The download is a portal landing page rather than a stable public link, so the response document stays in student-information review and is not republished here.

Somerset — a scope question, and a petition still pending. Somerset asked whether Problem Resolution System complaint records fall inside the request. The answer given: signed settlement agreements attached to or associated with a PRS process are in scope; standalone PRS documents are not. Somerset said it would confirm with the Director of Special Education. Its fee-and-time petition in SPR26/4099 remains pending.

What This Means for Parents

• A waiver is legally ordinary, and it is still worth recording. Section 10(d)(v) obliges a public agency to waive fees for a nonprofit requester where the public interest is served. North Attleborough’s letter says as much in its own words — that is why the law lets districts charge in the first place. One district saying yes is a data point; every district’s answer is a fact a parent can put next to its own bill.
• The estimate is the thing to check. Antonucci’s six-hour estimate came from a district that had already told itself the work was ten. When an invoice arrives, the number of hours a district says the work will take, and the rate it says it charges, are both checkable against the district’s own prior statements.
• “One-time exception” is a real answer, not a commitment. The District was explicit that the waiver is not a guarantee. Parents should read it as a cooperative resolution of one request, not as a policy change at 6 Morse St.
• A portal marked “Completed” with no documents is a records defect, and it is visible. Methuen’s request page is public evidence of a request that was closed before the records arrived. Districts using portals should be asked in writing what “completed” means.
• Partial productions deserve a second look. Holbrook’s production arrived and was short a page. Counting pages is free, and it is the fastest way to catch a production that stops early.

If your district has not received this request, ask for it by email or use the vote buttons on the project board.

Sources

• Parent Data Force, public records request to North Attleborough Public Schools, September 23, 2026 (routed to Superintendent John Antonucci; receipt confirmed the same day).
• John Antonucci, Superintendent, North Attleborough Public Schools, fee estimate email, September 29, 2026, 9:32 a.m. (at least 10 hours anticipated; limited to six hours estimated; two hours free under G.L. c. 66, § 10; four hours at $25.00 = $100.00).
• Parent Data Force, public-interest fee waiver request, September 29, 2026, 10:15 a.m. (G.L. c. 66, § 10(d)(v)).
• John Antonucci, Superintendent, North Attleborough Public Schools, fee waiver email, October 1, 2026, 1:20 p.m. (one-time exception; response expected the following week).
• Leeann Plouffe, Westwood Public Schools fee estimate, revised October 1, 2026; SPR26/4078 (revision filed with the Supervisor of Public Records).
• Methuen Public Schools PRR-2026-478 request page and September 30, 2026 response; appeal filed October 1, 2026.
• Bridget Baker, Co-Records Access Officer, Holbrook Public Schools production, September 30, 2026 (four agreements; in student-information review).
• G.L. c. 66, §§ 10, 10(d)(v), 10A; 950 C.M.R. 32.00, 32.08.
• Parent Data Force, Massachusetts Student Settlement Records Project tracker (65 districts; fee estimates, docket numbers, productions, and source documents as filed).