Following months of the Mystic Valley Regional Charter School claiming an exemption to the state’s Public Records Law and ignoring requests, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell filed an enforcement action against the school to make them turn over the withheld documents Monday.
Mystic Valley received at least 10 public records requests between January 2022 and November 2022, a release from the AG’s office states, each time declining the requests.
The Supervisor of Records then ordered the school to comply with the requests several times, the release states, which it again ignored.
The Massachusetts Public Records Law allows anyone to request records from public entities, within set parameters. The release notes this is “essential to promoting transparency and public confidence in government, particularly with respect to matters involving public entities and
public agents.”
Like other Massachusetts charter schools, Mystic Valley is a public school financed through local, state and federal funds, and its board members are “public agents,” the AG complaint filed Monday states.
“(A)s public schools, the public records laws do apply to us,” a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association confirmed.
The requests were filed by the Malden News Network, Commonwealth Transparency and Mayoral candidate Lissette Alvarado, the complaint outlines. The requested information included lease records, Board members’ conflict of interest disclosures, attorney records, confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements, financial records and more.
In response to each request, the school claimed “as a Commonwealth Charter School, it does not fall under the category of entities handling public documents” and is exempt from the law, the complaint says.
The public records law allows the AG to “take whatever measures the attorney general considers necessary to ensure compliance.”
The lawsuit is requesting a declaratory judgment from the Suffolk County Superior Court. If the court rules in favor of the Commonwealth, the school would be required to turn over the records and may pay “just and proper” relief to the state.