photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

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

A federal judge ruled in a Gaggle surveillance case filed by students that the Lawrence school district violated the Kansas Open Records Act by failing to respond to student requests, and now, the district must comply.

On Oct. 30, 2025, students filed Kansas Open Records Act requests with the district seeking records related to its switch from Gaggle to ManagedMethods. The district, while initially acknowledging the requests, has not produced any records or provided the detailed information KORA requires.

In January, two of the students involved in the lawsuit filed a motion for a partial injunction a court ruling that decides some, but not all, of the issues or claims in a case – for the alleged KORA violations. The plaintiffs asked the court to declare that the district violated KORA and to order them to comply.

Federal Court Judge Kathryn Vratil ruled in favor of the plaintiff’s KORA claims on Wednesday, saying the district violated state law by failing to properly respond to the records requests within the required timeframe. Vratil ruled that the school district must issue a response to the KORA requests no later than 5 p.m. on Monday.

But the ruling does not mean the district needs to respond to all of the requests by Monday. The response must: describe the searches conducted, when records would be produced and justifying any withheld materials under Kansas law.

In addition, a court hearing has been scheduled for April 23 to determine whether the defendants acted in good faith regarding attorney costs and fees. The judge now has to decide if the school district handled the records requests properly — or if their conduct warrants requiring them to pay the plaintiffs’ attorney fees.

The KORA requests students submitted last October covered contracts and costs, procurement materials, communications about the selection and implementation of ManagedMethods, and records related to Gaggle’s phase-out and data handling.

The school district has said those requests could involve about 10,000 documents and cost almost $13,000 to process and cover attorney review. As a result, the plaintiffs proposed narrowing the requests.

Vratil made other rulings on Wednesday too. She narrowed the case by addressing which plaintiffs still have a standing to seek relief. Claims for injunctive and declaratory relief brought by students who had already graduated were dismissed, because those students are no longer subject to the district’s policies and therefore cannot show an ongoing or future harm.

Vratil removed individual defendants from the lawsuit, including Quentin Rials, principal at LHS, and Greg Farley, assistant principal at LHS. The court also dismissed the claims against the school board itself.

Additionally, the court found remedies sought for Rials allegedly instructing LHS’ student newspaper The Budget and its student reporters to not cover the lawsuit were no longer relevant. In response to the claims, Rials submitted a declaration that said, “The student journalists at Lawrence High School are not restricted in any manner from reporting on topics of interest.”

As the Journal-World reported, nine current and former Lawrence and Free State High School students filed a lawsuit in August 2025, alleging 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 are the school district.

While the district has stopped using Gaggle, the district entered into another contract with a different student monitoring software, ManagedMethods. The transition to ManagedMethods was not voted on by board members, as the Journal-World reported.

The district argues that it has continued using a similar software in order to be in compliance with legislation such as the Children’s Internet Protection Act to ensure student safety.