Two Districts, One Petition: East Bridgewater and Natick Ask for 30 More Days in the Same Words

Two fee-and-time petitions reached the Supervisor of Public Records on the same day from two different districts — with the same typo, the same wrong record type, the same rate theory, and one identical paragraph.

On September 28, 2026, East Bridgewater Public Schools and Natick Public Schools each filed a fee-and-time petition with the Massachusetts Supervisor of Public Records asking for thirty additional business days to produce records responsive to the project’s standardized request. The cases could not look more different on the facts: East Bridgewater’s search found about six documents; Natick’s found about 300 pages. But the two petitions share distinctive errors, identical rate theories, and — in one paragraph — identical words, and the side-by-side comparison Parent Data Force filed with its oppositions puts the passages next to each other.

The Numbers First

• 2 petitions, 1 day. Both were filed September 28, 2026; Natick’s is docketed as SPR26/4044.
• +30 business days requested in both — on top of the response time the statute already provides.
• 6 documents vs. about 300 pages. The responsive universes differ by two orders of magnitude; the petition language does not.
• 2 identical errors. Both petitions describe producing “these records south in the request” (East Bridgewater at page 5; Natick at page 6) — and both bill time to review “each page of the invoices sought in the request” (East Bridgewater at page 6; Natick at page 7), though the request seeks settlement and resolution agreements, not invoices.
• ~$270 → $75, twice. Both petitions put counsel’s own rate at about $270 an hour and ask the Supervisor to allow $75 an hour, describing the Office of District Counsel as the lowest-paid person or vendor with the necessary skill for privilege review.
• 1 shared paragraph. The multi-district counsel-capacity rationale quoted below appears in both petitions, verbatim.

The Shared Paragraph, Verbatim

The comparison exhibit filed with Parent Data Force’s oppositions quotes the passage that appears in both petitions — East Bridgewater at page 6, Natick at page 7:

“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 to determine the application of the student record confidentiality exception.”

The same shared framing shows up in the smaller details. East Bridgewater’s petition says the agreements were negotiated with attorneys and prices that review at $75 an hour against counsel’s roughly $270 rate; Natick’s letter to the requester says nearly the same thing in nearly the same words — that the district “will request that the Supervisor allow it to charge $75 per hour to complete the review” because only counsel can apply the student-record exception.

What the Petitions Ask — and What the Oppositions Say

A fee-and-time petition is a district’s request to the Supervisor for more than the statutory window to produce records; the Supervisor decides, and the requester may oppose. Both oppositions went up September 28, the day the petitions were filed. For East Bridgewater — six documents — the opposition asks that the petition be evaluated on East Bridgewater-specific evidence of necessity, burden, staffing capacity, and the work actually required. For Natick — 300 pages — the opposition asks the Supervisor to require enough identifying and workload information to evaluate the attorney-review assertion rather than accepting an unsupported reference to unnamed clients, and to require Natick to account for and credit any prior collection and redaction work from what our filing identifies as an overlapping Boston Globe settlement-records production.

The comparison exhibit is careful about what it does and does not claim: identical errors and shared language do not prove improper coordination or improper template use. What they support is narrower and procedural — a district’s petition should stand on its own facts, and a six-document case should not ride a template written for a three-hundred-page one.

The filings are public: East Bridgewater’s response, fee estimate, and fee-and-time petition (PDF), Natick’s fee-and-time petition (PDF), and the side-by-side comparison exhibit (PDF). The appeals they travel with are here: East Bridgewater’s $350 fee and 30-day extension are now under appeal and Natick’s $275 fee and 30-day extension are now under appeal. The full tracker — every fee, appeal, and production: Massachusetts Student Settlement Records Project.

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: appealed (SPR26/4024).

Two of the ten priced districts asked for thirty more days — in the same words. The whole board — fees, hours, productions, appeals: Massachusetts Student Settlement Records Project.

What This Means for Parents

• Template language is testable. When two districts’ filings share the same typo and the same wrong record type, a requester can document it side by side — and the documentation becomes an exhibit.
• A petition is decided on the district’s own facts. Six documents and 300 pages are different workloads; the Supervisor can be asked to weigh each petition on its own evidence.
• Wrong record types happen — and they are checkable. If a petition bills hours to review “invoices” when the request sought settlement agreements, say so in writing.
• Shared counsel is a fact to note, not an accusation to make. The comparison here claims exactly what it can show — identical language and errors — and asks only for case-specific review.
• Oppositions work best the same day. Both oppositions were filed September 28, while the petitions were fresh; the Supervisor’s docket now holds both sides.

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Sources

• East Bridgewater Public Schools, fee-and-time petition to the Supervisor of Public Records, September 28, 2026, seeking 30 additional business days; included in the merged response PDF (self-hosted, published as received).
• Natick Public Schools, fee-and-time petition to the Supervisor of Public Records, September 28, 2026, seeking 30 additional business days; docketed SPR26/4044; self-hosted PDF published as received.
• Parent Data Force, comparison exhibit “Comparison of East Bridgewater and Natick Petitions — identical shared-counsel language and errors,” September 28, 2026; the quotations above are taken from it.
• Parent Data Force, § 10A appeal and petition opposition (East Bridgewater), filed September 28, 2026, docket pending; § 10A appeal and petition opposition (Natick), filed September 28, 2026.
• Massachusetts Public Records Law, G.L. c. 66, § 10, including § 10(b)(viii), and § 10A; 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.