Rhode Island mother billed $74K for trying to review school curriculum
Rhode Island mother Nicole Solas and Goldwater Institute representative Jon Riches on getting billed for requesting information on a school curriculum.
A Rhode Island mother who was billed $74,000 for trying to review a school curriculum told "America’s Newsroom" on Tuesday that schools are "stonewalling parents with exorbitant prices" for public information that taxpayers already paid for.
"I received an estimate for, say, $80 for information that I requested," Nicole Solas said. "And then when I requested similar information, a month later, the price skyrocketed to $2,600. So schools will charge you whatever price they want to charge you. So that way you're not going to know what your kids are learning in school."
Solas argued that public information is not public if it cost money to obtain it and that schools are trying to create "barriers" to make it accessible.
Oregon Department of Education quotes parent a fee of $9,630 for a public records request. (Fox News)
Parents around the United States are being charged tens of thousands of dollars, including some fees into the millions, for public records requests in their school districts, Fox News Digital has learned.
Fox News Digital spoke with parents around the county – such as in Michigan, Oregon, and Rhode Island — as well as with public records experts who said they believed schools were using exorbitant fees in order to price parents out of the information they are legally entitled to, such as those related to curriculum.
A parent from Frederick County Public Schools in Maryland told Fox News Digital that she requested emails that spanned one month between various entities and was asked to pay $5,000. "I never got the [records] because that's well beyond what I'm willing to pay for information my tax dollars already paid for," she said. FCPS was contacted for comment but did not immediately respond.
Solas appeared alongside her legal representative, the national litigation director for the Goldwater Institute Jon Riches. Riches hopes to help Solas receive the information she needs.
"This information is public," Riches said.
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"The districts cannot hide behind these fees to try and prevent it… This stuff shouldn't require lawyers. It shouldn't require a court process at all. School districts should be telling parents what they're going to teach our kids. Plain and simple. But we are going to continue to fight for this information and we'll get it."
Fox News' Hannah Grossman contributed to this report.
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