Following nearly six months of silence and a federal court order, Lawrence USD 497 began turning over public records to two student journalists at The Budget and Free Press this week. Every document arrived stamped “Confidential”—under a proposed protective order which the court has not signed—and accompanied by a unilateral request that the students not share the materials with anyone.
The court ordered production pursuant to the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA), after two student journalists from The Budget and Free Press filed KORA requests in October 2025 (Read a timeline of the requests). The records arrived a day after U.S. District Judge Kathryn H. Vratil’s court-ordered April 13 deadline, and 6 months after the KORA requests were submitted by student journalists. In an email to plaintiffs’ attorneys concerning the student journalists’ requests, the school district said it had identified nearly 27,000 responsive items. Student journalists received only a fraction of those this week.
Under KORA, non-exempt records are, by definition, public. The district’s proposed protective order acknowledges this, stating it “will be strictly construed in favor of public disclosure” and that “information or documents that are available to the public may not be designated as Confidential Information.” Yet the district has done exactly that.
In their April 14 motion, plaintiffs’ attorneys referred to this latest development as, “precisely the kind of extrajudicial restriction this litigation was brought to challenge.” The dispute over public records sits at the center of plaintiffs’ August 1 federal civil rights lawsuit against the district over its use of AI monitoring software.
No protective order is in effect, and no court has restricted the student journalist’s right to publish records under KORA. Plaintiffs argue that the district cannot create confidentiality obligations by stamping public records “CONFIDENTIAL” or proposing a protective order that the court has not signed. Because The Budget and Free Press requested the records for reporting on matters of public concern, plaintiffs say the district’s confidentiality labels raise serious First Amendment concerns.
The confidentiality issue is one piece of a larger confrontation now heading toward a hearing on April 23 before Judge Vratil, who will determine whether the district acted in good faith and whether civil contempt is warranted.
