Watertown Sends 59 Agreements, No Fee: A Settlement Records Project Update

The largest single production of the project — 59 final settlement agreements — arrived from Watertown on September 30, free and unpetitioned, while Somerset became the twelfth district to price the same request and the sixth to take a fee fight to the Supervisor of Public Records. Wachusett, meanwhile, may become the first district to re-produce redacted records inside the free two hours.

The Numbers First

• 65 Massachusetts school districts have received the same standardized public-records request for final student settlement agreements.
• 17 districts have acknowledged receipt as of September 30, 2026.
• 28 have not responded at all.
• 8 appeals are now on file with the Supervisor of Public Records — six of them carrying docket numbers, the newest SPR26/4099.
• 59 settlement agreements arrived from Watertown in two emails on September 30 — the largest single production of the project, sent with no fee, no invoice, and no petition for more time.
• 1 production has been published after student-information review (Tantasqua’s 45 pages); Pembroke’s full envelope and now Watertown’s 59 are in the review queue.

Watertown Just Handed Over the Records

Watertown Public Schools never acknowledged the September 23 request, and on September 30 it went straight past the fee stage entirely. At 11:34 a.m., Barbara Stewart of the district’s Special Education Office emailed “Records — Part 1,” twenty-five settlement agreements attached; four seconds later came “Part 2,” thirty-four more. Fifty-nine agreements in all, from September 18, 2021 to the present — the project’s entire records window — with no fee, no invoice, and no petition for more time.

Fifty-nine is more than three times the biggest previous single production: Tantasqua’s 45 pages on September 25 and Pembroke’s full envelope on September 29 were the only comparables, and both arrived without a fee either. Three free productions now stand against the twelve districts that priced the request. The copies are in the project’s review queue for student personally identifiable information, and the reviewed set will publish on the records library of the Massachusetts Student Settlement Records Project when that review is complete — the tracker’s Watertown card already records the production as received.

Somerset: The Twelfth Price, Docketed the Same Day

Somerset Public Schools’ response finally landed on September 30 — a letter dated September 23, signed by Records Access Officer Robin Vaccaro — and it came as a pair: a fee estimate plus the district’s own petition asking the Supervisor of Public Records for a $75/hour outside-counsel rate, about ten additional search hours, and thirty extra business days. The petition states Somerset has already identified approximately 1,000 responsive records, then alternates between calling them pages and documents; it also bills review time against “the invoices sought in the request,” though the request sought settlement agreements, not invoices. The letter arrived scanned, so no fee total is machine-readable and the tracker records the itemization facts without inventing a number.

Parent Data Force answered the same morning — 11:22 a.m. — with an opposition to the petition and a Section 10A appeal, citing Hohler v. Sharon Public Schools (SPR25/1092), where the Supervisor declined a $75/hour request because the district had not shown why $25 an hour was insufficient, and pointing to Tantasqua’s two-day and Pembroke’s six-day productions of the same request category. The Supervisor’s office acknowledged the petition as SPR26/4099 the same afternoon; the five-business-day determination window is now running. The Somerset card on the project board carries both the district letter and the appeal as filed.

Wachusett May Do It for Free

Wachusett Regional School District’s reply on September 29 was the cooperative counterpart to Somerset’s petition. Barry Sclar, the district’s Director of Technology and Communication, wrote that Wachusett will re-produce the settlement-agreement set it already redacted for a 2023 request, plus any agreements signed since — and that the district expects the work to stay within the two free hours the public records law grants before fees begin. Parent Data Force agreed the same afternoon. No other district in the project has yet produced records inside the free window; if Wachusett completes the plan as stated, it becomes the first.

Six Docket Numbers on the Board

Every contested fee in the project now carries its docket number on the tracker: Dracut SPR26/4024, Natick SPR26/4044, Weymouth SPR26/4062, Westwood SPR26/4078, Quincy SPR26/4087, and Somerset SPR26/4099 — acknowledged by the Supervisor’s office the same day Somerset’s petition arrived. A parent can take any of those numbers straight to the Supervisor’s office and follow the determination, instead of waiting for a district to volunteer the outcome. The full board — fees, hours, productions, appeals, and the reader queue — updates as the responses arrive.

If your district is one of the twenty-eight that has not answered, the fastest way onto the board is to ask: request it by email and it joins the queue, or use the vote buttons on the board itself.

What This Means for Parents

• The free column is growing. Tantasqua, Pembroke, and now Watertown produced the same request with no fee at all — a request for every final settlement agreement since September 2021. A district claiming it cannot search without a four-figure fee now has three counterexamples.
• Districts petition the Supervisor against their own requesters. Somerset did not merely estimate a fee; it asked the Supervisor for a higher rate and more time. The petition is public, the opposition is public, and the docket number lets anyone watch the outcome.
• A scan can hide a number. Somerset’s letter arrived as an image with no text layer, so its fee total is not machine-readable. The itemization facts — $75 an hour, ten more search hours, thirty extra days — still made it onto the board.
• Cooperation has a name. Wachusett plans to re-produce records it already redacted and stay inside the free two hours. Districts that cooperate deserve the same publicity as the ones that bill.
• The queue works. Three districts — Billerica, Belmont, and Stoneham — entered the queue this week on reader suggestion alone, alongside twenty-nine others waiting for their request.

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Sources

• Barbara Stewart, Administrative Assistant, Special Education Office, Watertown Public Schools, emails of September 30, 2026, 11:34 a.m. (“Records — Part 1,” Agreements 1–25; “Records — Part 2,” Agreements 26–59; 59 settlement agreements, September 18, 2021–present).
• Robin Vaccaro, Records Access Officer, Somerset Public Schools, combined fee estimate and fee-and-time petition, letter dated September 23, 2026, received September 30, 2026 (scanned letter, no text layer, published as received).
• Patrick Pierce, Senior Clerk, Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, Public Records Division, SPR26/4099 petition acknowledgment, September 30, 2026.
• Parent Data Force, opposition to the Somerset fee-and-time petition and appeal under G.L. c. 66, § 10A(a), filed September 30, 2026, 11:22 a.m.
• Barry Sclar, Director of Technology and Communication, Wachusett Regional School District, email of September 29, 2026.
• Hohler v. Sharon Public Schools, SPR25/1092 (April 24, 2025); Champa v. Weston Public Schools, 473 Mass. 86 (2015).
• G.L. c. 66, §§ 10, 10A; 950 C.M.R. 32.08.