photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

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

In a lawsuit filed over the school district’s use of the monitoring software Gaggle, students are seeking a court ruling for the district to respond to open-records requests about the new ManagedMethods software.

The plaintiffs alleged that the Lawrence school district failed to timely and lawfully respond to Kansas Open Records Act requests from The Budget, Lawrence High School’s student newspaper, and Free Press, Free State High School’s newsmagazine. These requests were regarding ManagedMethods, the software the district transitioned to without a vote by board members or mentioning the switch in court documents filed at the end of October 2025, and the transition to it.

The original lawsuit over monitoring software was filed by nine current and former Lawrence and Free State High School students in August 2025, and it alleges that the school district had been violating their First and Fourth Amendment rights by using Gaggle to conduct illegal searches of the digital files the student journalists produced on school devices. The defendants in the case include the school district, the school board, Quentin Rials, principal at LHS, and Greg Farley, assistant principal at LHS.

The students submitted their records requests on Oct. 30, 2025. The next day, the district acknowledged that their attorneys were reviewing the requests. A filing by the plaintiffs said the defendants did not identify who would search for records, describe what searches would be conducted, provide any records, give an estimated production date, cite any legal exemptions, or supply a cost estimate. The plaintiffs did not receive a response, and even weeks later, the district still had not produced records or provided the detailed information KORA requires.

The district has said the plaintiffs’ KORA claims were improper because they requested records related to this case while a court order temporarily paused discovery, the pretrial process where parties exchange information and evidence to prepare their case, as the Journal-World reported. The pause was to remain in effect until the court ruled on defendants’ motion to partially dismiss because there is no longer a contract with Gaggle, and in regards to ManagedMethods, the software is in place to be in compliance with legislation such as the Children’s Internet Protection Act and ensures student safety.

However, in January, two students filed a motion for a partial judgement – 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.

The district responded to the motion last week, and said they did not respond because of the court order that temporarily paused discovery. The defendants said in the filing that they had already filed a motion to dismiss based in part on qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is meant to protect government officials from the burdens of discovery until immunity issues are resolved. After that, the judge postponed scheduling and discovery until the district judge ruled on the motion. The filing said the plaintiffs sent their KORA requests during this time.

The defendants argue that courts in Kansas have repeatedly said parties cannot use KORA to get case-related documents while discovery is stayed. They say the plaintiffs were trying to get around the discovery pause by using open-records requests instead of formal discovery.

Even if the court decides that a technical discovery stay was not yet officially in place when the requests were sent, the defendants argue that their response was still reasonable.

Regardless, district officials responded to the KORA requests on Jan. 30, and said an initial review of the requests had been completed.

In regards to the first request from the students – providing a contract with ManagedMethods, the district said no documents exist. However, the district supplied documents relevant to another request for all invoices, purchase orders, payment records and other related documents for ManagedMethods. Those documents were not included in the court filings.

As for the plaintiff’s remaining requests, the school district estimates the requests could involve about 10,000 documents and cost almost $13,000 to process and cover attorney review. The plaintiffs have proposed narrowing the requests, and discussions are ongoing. For that reason, the defendants say it is too early for the court to order compliance.