The Weston Reconsideration: SPR26/3432, a $5,416.67 Fee Estimate, and the Friedman Decision

A reconsideration request now before the Supervisor of Records asks whether a determination that leaned on a request’s breadth can stand after the Appeals Court held that breadth alone does not make a request unreasonable — and after Weston acknowledged it ran no electronic searches for its own fee estimate.

This piece is separate from the sixty-five-district Massachusetts Student Settlement Records Project. The settlement-records project requests agreements between districts and parents; this matter is a single-employee records dispute with the Weston Public Schools, with its own docket, its own fee history, and its own precedent question. It appears here because it is Massachusetts public-records law in practice, and because the same statutory sections are at work.

What the Original Request Was

On July 31, 2026, Parent Data Force sent Weston Public Schools a public-records request about one named employee — Shannon Sheldon — in one identified position, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator, covering one fixed three-month period: September 18 through December 18, 2023. The request was organized into five defined categories: the role, assignments, and expected work; work files and work product; substantive work-related email and electronic communications; meetings and calendar records; and existing file inventories and audit exports. It gave concrete examples within each category, identified repositories and systems, requested native electronic formats, and expressly excluded student personally identifiable information, private personnel information, payroll and benefits material, purely personal messages, private appointments, automated notices, spam, and non-substantive scheduling communications. It invited rolling production beginning with the job description and onboarding materials.

The Fee, the Appeals, and the Admission

Weston’s August 14, 2026 response assessed a fee of $5,416.67 and reformulated the request its own way, telling the requester: “Essentially, it appears that you are seeking all documents that in any way relate to Shannon Sheldon or the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator position, including their metadata.” The district predicted “tens of thousands” of pages and at least 40 additional hours of search and compilation time.

Parent Data Force appealed to the Supervisor of Records in SPR26/3192. Weston sent a supplemental response on August 28, 2026, and Parent Data Force filed a second appeal the same day, docketed SPR26/3432. Weston’s written responses contain this statement: “[t]he District did not conduct electronic searches for purposes of its fee estimate.”

On September 14, 2026, the Supervisor of Records issued a determination in SPR26/3432. The determination quotes the February 14, 2023 Superior Court decision in Friedman v. Division of Administrative Law Appeals, including its “drain-the-ocean” language, in treating the request as very broad.

The Reconsideration Request

On September 18, 2026, Parent Data Force requested reconsideration of the September 14 determination in its entirety. The request rests on four points, each taken from the record:

• The determination relies principally on the breadth of the request without finding that it fails the reasonable-description requirement of G.L. c. 66, § 10(a)(i).
• The determination quotes the 2023 Superior Court order without addressing the Massachusetts Appeals Court’s subsequent published decision, Friedman v. Division of Administrative Law Appeals, 103 Mass. App. Ct. 806 (2024), which vacated the dismissal of two of the five Friedman claims — including the claim concerning a request that yielded approximately 11,000 potentially responsive emails — and held that a request is not unreasonable as a matter of law merely because it is extensive and extremely burdensome. The key inquiry, the Appeals Court held, is whether responsive records can be identified with reasonable effort, and the Public Records Law supplies mechanisms for large requests, including extensions of time and reasonable fees under G.L. c. 66, § 10(c)-(d).
• Weston’s August 14 response characterized the request as “all documents that in any way relate” to Ms. Sheldon or the DEI position — a formulation that strips away the three-month date limit, the five categories, the examples, and the express exclusions that the actual July 31 request contains.
• Weston’s own statements are difficult to reconcile: the district describes the request as too vague for its employees to identify responsive records while simultaneously stating that it “attempted to formulate searches,” referred to searches of its electronic and “various recordkeeping systems,” predicted tens of thousands of pages, and determined that at least 40 additional hours would be needed — all while its written responses admit that no electronic searches were conducted for purposes of the fee estimate. The request also lists separately identifiable records — the job description, job posting, statement of duties, organizational chart, reporting structure, onboarding plan, first-90-day plan, written work plan, authored work product, calendar entries for the defined period, and existing Workspace or Drive file inventories — that Weston neither produced, denied existing, identified as withheld, nor addressed.

What Happens Next

On September 23, 2026, Barbara Durgin, Assistant Director of the Public Records Division, replied that, in keeping with the timeframes in SPR Bulletin 04-17, the decision on the reconsideration will be due 15 business days from the day the request for reconsideration was received. The reconsideration is pending as of September 29, 2026.

What This Means for Parents

• A request should be judged as written. The July 31 request named one employee, one position, and one three-month window. The determination’s breadth analysis is being tested against the request the custodian received, not the unlimited reformulation the custodian wrote.
• Breadth alone is not the test. The Appeals Court’s 2024 Friedman decision holds that even a request producing roughly 11,000 emails is not unreasonable merely because it is burdensome; the statute’s extension and fee mechanisms exist for exactly that situation.
• Fee estimates rest on search work actually done. Weston’s admission that it “did not conduct electronic searches for purposes of its fee estimate” is part of the record. A parent disputing any fee estimate can ask what searches produced the hours being billed.
• Reconsideration exists and has a clock. SPR Bulletin 04-17 sets a 15-business-day decision window once a reconsideration request is received; the Weston decision is due under that timeframe.
• Records-law work now has its own home. This matter and future fee disputes, appeal dockets, and determinations will be covered under the site’s Public Records section, distinct from the settlement-agreement tracker.

Sources

• Parent Data Force public-records request to Weston Public Schools, July 31, 2026 (one named employee; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator position; September 18–December 18, 2023 window; five defined categories; express exclusions).
• Weston Public Schools response and fee estimate, August 14, 2026 ($5,416.67; “all documents that in any way relate” characterization; “tens of thousands” of pages prediction).
• Parent Data Force appeal SPR26/3192; Weston supplemental response of August 28, 2026, containing the statement “[t]he District did not conduct electronic searches for purposes of its fee estimate”; Parent Data Force second appeal SPR26/3432, filed August 28, 2026.
• Supervisor of Records determination in SPR26/3432, issued September 14, 2026 (Grace Hudson, Public Records Specialist, transmission email of September 14, 2026).
• Parent Data Force request for reconsideration of the September 14, 2026 determination in SPR26/3432, sent September 18, 2026.
• Barbara Durgin, Esquire, Assistant Director, Massachusetts Public Records Division, email of September 23, 2026 (15-business-day reconsideration timeframe per SPR Bulletin 04-17).
• Friedman v. Division of Administrative Law Appeals, 103 Mass. App. Ct. 806 (2024); Friedman v. Division of Administrative Law Appeals (Superior Court, February 14, 2023).
• Massachusetts Public Records Law, G.L. c. 66, § 10(a)(i), § 10(c)-(d); SPR Bulletin 04-17 (timeframes for reconsiderations).