A Jefferson Circuit Court judge says Jefferson County Public Schools must hand over text messages sent between top district officials on the disastrous first day of the 2023-2024 school year.
LPM News asked for the records under Kentucky’s Open Records Act in effort to reveal how administrators reacted, in real time, to one of the most consequential days in recent district history.
JCPS officials communicated primarily through text messages, but the district repeatedly refused to provide the correspondence. The reason: Officials used personal cell phones — not district phones — and JCPS attorneys argued this made the texts exempt from public disclosure.
After months of trying to pry loose the records with no success, LPM filed a lawsuit against JCPS in Jefferson Circuit Court in March 2024 with the express goal of providing the public a glimpse into how top public school officials responded to the crisis.
This week, Judge Melissa Logan Bellows said the texts are public because they’re about public business. She said district officials should redact any exempted information from the messages, such as personal home addresses or student information.
“Ultimately, JCPS is required to provide these records because the cellphones are being used to conduct JCPS business,” Bellows wrote in a July 23 order for summary judgement in the case.
A JCPS spokesperson said the district is reviewing the decision and expects to appeal.
When LPM filed the lawsuit, the news organization’s attorney, Mike Abate, said the public has a right to know what JCPS “was doing in the middle of the transportation meltdown when families and kids were left stranded and high and dry.”
Kentucky’s Open Records Act requires government agencies to provide access to an array of records — from police reports, contracts, emails and more. The law is a key tool journalists and the public, in general, can use to keep tabs on local and state governments.
This was not the first time LPM went to court in the fight for public records.
In January 2024, LPM filed a lawsuit against Louisville Metro Government over access to video records related to a deadly shooting near Churchill Downs. A judge dismissed the case after Louisville Metro Police Department promised to stop issuing blanket responses to requests for video records.
This is also not the first time JCPS has faced accusations of improperly impeding public access.
In 2015, then-Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway ruled the district broke state open records laws by redacting too much information from a personnel investigation. Earlier this year, the Courier Journal filed a lawsuit against JCPS alleging the district broke state laws by selecting a superintendent in a closed meeting.
And just this month, LPM asked the district for records that would show the costs of a billboard thanking former superintendent Marty Pollio. In response, district officials said they had none.
But they did. A district spokesperson didn’t provide them. LPM obtained them through another open records request.
