St. Louis, MO - More than seven months into discovery, Kirkwood School District is demonstrating a very familiar disregard for its obligations to produce records, according to a motion filed today by parents who are suing the District for repeated violations of Missouri’s Sunshine Law.  

The parents’ lawsuit alleges 10 separate instances in a single year of Kirkwood School District knowingly and purposefully violating the Sunshine Law to avoid turning over public records that would reveal violations of law and policy. Given that track record, the parents are not surprised that they are now forced to ask the Court for a second time in seven months to force Kirkwood to comply with the discovery rules.

This time, the parents’ motion attaches two examples of evidence that Defendants have been obliged to turn over for 7+ months, yet never produced until Plaintiffs specifically requested them. According to the Plaintiff parents, Kirkwood’s failure to “find” these two pieces of evidence, along with its failure to produce nearly any other non-e-mail evidence, demonstrates convincingly that Kirkwood and its lawyers have not even searched for relevant items in huge categories of records, like text messages, handwritten notes, editable Google Docs, classroom records, and privately retained records. Now, having requested such a search several times with no response, Plaintiffs have no choice but to ask the Court to intervene.

“Unfortunately, this is a pattern of obstruction and disrespect for the law that Kirkwood parents have come to expect from their 'leaders,'” said Mary Catherine Martin, attorney for the parents and Senior Counsel at Thomas More Society. “After 7 months, the District continues to drag its feet, deny, and delay, forcing us to involve the Court again, and endlessly wasting public resources. The most efficient way to run a public school system happens to be the legal way: tell parents the truth the first time they ask.”

“KSD’s failure to follow laws and policies and their refusal to productively communicate with parents was so apparent for years that we had to resort to a lawsuit, and now here we are. Their disregard for legal requirements is shameful and extremely concerning as a parent and resident of Kirkwood,” said Courtney Rawlins, Kirkwood parents and lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.  

The motion asks the court to order the District to conduct a full, documented search of all responsive records, not just cherry-picked staff emails, and to provide proof of compliance within 30 days.  

Martin added: “The Supreme Court recently confirmed in Mahmoud v. Taylor the fundamental principle that parents, not public schools, have the right to guide their children’s upbringing. The dark age of public schools treating parents as enemies and getting away with it is hopefully coming to a close.”  

Read the second motion to compel here.