photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

The Lawrence school district offices building, located at 110 McDonald Dr., is pictured in May 2025.

Current and former students allege in a lawsuit over the AI monitoring software Gaggle that the Lawrence school district is continuing unconstitutional digital surveillance under a new vendor and has violated the Kansas Open Records Act.

While the district has ceased its use of Gaggle this school year, it is now using a different student monitoring software, ManagedMethods, and its use was not voted on by board members or mentioned in court documents filed by the district at the end of October, as the Journal-World reported.

In an amended complaint filed to the U.S. District Court of Kansas by the plaintiffs on Monday, it said the school district did not disclose the switch and is “thereby continuing the challenged practices under a different name without transparent Board action.”

“In July 2025 alone, the Board approved multiple technology renewals and subscriptions by motion and vote. No agenda from July 2025 to present publicly presented any ManagedMethods procurement or configuration item, and no minutes reflect a Board vote authorizing a vendor substitution for AI-student monitoring surveillance,” the amended complaint said.

The students argue that since the program also operates on student accounts and content using AI with student communication and files before any human review, their claims are still relevant and not resolved.

“The District’s vendor substitution to ManagedMethods does not alter these constitutional defects where the core practice — suspicionless scanning, flagging, and seizure of student speech and effects — continues,” the amended complaint said.

Editors from The Budget, Lawrence High School’s student newspaper, and Free Press, Free State High School’s newsmagazine, each filed five Kansas Open Records Act requests with district staff. The plaintiffs are alleging the district failed to timely and lawfully respond to these requests regarding ManagedMethods and the vendor transition.

The students requested documents that may have the following information from Jan. 1, 2024 to the present:

• A fully executed contract(s) between the Lawrence school district and ManagedMethods, including all statements of work, business-associate/data processing agreements, order forms, renewals, amendments, change orders, and more.

• All invoices, purchase orders, payment records, contract-value summaries for ManagedMethods as well as any cost comparison, savings analysis or budget memorandum discussing ManagedMethods relative to Gaggle or other vendors. This also includes any underlying assumptions and data supporting any cost savings figure.

Superintendent Jeanice Swift previously told the Journal-World that as part of the continuing effort to evaluate and streamline contracts with vendors and identify cost savings, the district implemented ManagedMethods, and the change resulted in a cost savings of approximately $38,700 annually.

• All communications including but not limited to emails, letters, text messages and messages in collaboration platforms between district staff and ManagedMethods with attachments. In addition, internal communications among district staff discussing the selection, implementation, scope, configuration, efficacy, or public messaging regarding ManagedMethods, including drafts of statements or FAQs.

• All documents and materials related to a procurement or vendor selection process along with bidder communications, public announcements, vendor proposals, pricing, security questionnaires, evaluation materials, recommendation reports, conflict-of-interest disclosures, award notices, and any related protest filings or resolutions.

• Notices of non-renewal or termination with Gaggle, which includes off-boarding checklists, attestations of deleted data or return from Gaggle and correspondence regarding the disposition of student/staff data during the transition period to ManagedMethods.

Jake Potter, executive director of communications, confirmed receipt of the students’ open records requests, but the plaintiffs said no additional communication occurred and their inquiries were left unanswered.

“Despite senior officials being copied and the existence of readily identifiable responsive records, including the District’s October 2025 check register presented at the October 27, 2025 Board meeting reflecting a payment to ‘MANAGED METHODS INC,’ Defendants did not produce records responsive to Plaintiffs’ requests,” the amended complaint said.

The lawsuit was filed by nine current and former Lawrence and Free State High School students in August, and it alleges that the Lawrence school district has been violating their First and Fourth Amendment rights by conducting illegal searches of the digital files the student journalists produce. The defendants in the case include the school district, the school board, Greg Farley, assistant principal at LHS, and now, in the amended complaint, Quentin Rials, principal at LHS.

At the start of the school year, Rials allegedly instructed journalism advisor Abbi Epperson-Ladd that neither The Budget nor its student reporters were allowed to cover the lawsuit. Rials later submitted a declaration that said, “The student journalists at Lawrence High School are not restricted in any manner from reporting on topics of interest.”

On Tuesday, Judge Kathryn H. Vratil ruled that the defendants’ earlier motion to partially dismiss the complaint, as the Journal-World reported, was no longer relevant because the plaintiffs had filed a new amended civil rights complaint on Monday.

The court has granted the defendants in the case an extension of time in order to respond to the plaintiff’s amended complaint on Thursday. Now, the defendants have until Dec. 19 to respond to the new complaint.

Parent requesting their student to be “opted out” of Gaggle

There were also emails submitted as evidence from a parent to district staff with concerns regarding Gaggle. One email was sent to Amy McAnarney, principal of Free State High School, in early August 2024 saying, “I would like to opt my child out of gaggle.”

” … I strongly disapprove of AI spyware monitoring, and would like to opt out of participation in this project,” the parent wrote.

McAnarney responded that she does not have the power to opt the student out of the software since Gaggle monitors district owned/issued devices, and she said the parent would have to contact the district to make the request.

Larry Englebrick, deputy superintendent of the Lawrence school district, responded to the request and said “the District is statutorily required under both state and federal law to monitor students’ District-issued devices to ensure they are not used to access or produce harmful content.”

Englebrick said the district needed to be in compliance with the Children’s Internet Protection Act, where districts must prevent students from using district-owned technology to access obscene and harmful content and must enforce those restrictions any time minors use their devices. The Kansas Internet Protection Act imposes a similar responsibility, he said.

“Therefore, because Gaggle is the monitoring program selected by the district to fulfill its federal and state requirements, the District may not allow your student to “opt out” of using Gaggle on district issued devices,” Englebrick wrote in the email.

Kelly Jones, who was school board president at the time, also responded in an email on Aug. 20, 2024, to the parent that “There is currently not a process for parents and caregivers to opt their children out of district communication devices, which utilize the safety/surveillance software, Gaggle,” she wrote.