GOODRICH, Mich. – Sherry Smith just wanted to know what school administrators were saying about her son, so she asked.

And they asked her for $77,718 to give the answer.

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Smith’s attorney, Phillip Ellison, has now filed a lawsuit against the Goodrich Area Schools district, claiming administrators did not fulfill the request in a timely fashion when she sought “any emails with her son’s initials or full name ‘but not limited to emails between Goodrich Area Schools employees, Genesee Intermediate School District employees, Michigan Department of Education employees, etc.,'” Mlive reports.

Michigan law allows a governmental agency, such as a public school, 10 “business” days to respond to an Open Records request.

According to Ellison, the school district was counting only days school was in session as “business” days.

“I have never seen a case or anyone make the argument that ‘we’re not open so the day doesn’t count,'” Ellison says. “The Legislature doesn’t count the days you’re not open.”

After the lawsuit was filed, the school district began producing some of the emails, but not all of them, “citing some exemptions including personal privacy and medical records.”

“Because the person that is making the request is the legal guardian of the student, what records are they redacting or withholding based on the nature of the party that made the request?” the attorney wonders.

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Ellison wants the school district to pay all of the fees and attorney costs associated with the case.

“Personally, I think they violated the original FOIA Act with the $77,000 request,” according to the lawyer. “I think that was done intentionally to block the production of the records.”

Smith originally filed the request June.

“They know full well we won’t pay that. What are we supposed to do?” Smith said at the time. “Remortgage our house? In essence, they are denying our request to give me information about our child.

“I decided to request their inner office emails among staff related to my son for the past year,” the mother said.

The school district claimed it would need to “contract an employee” to conduct the search.

The official estimate for the numbers of hours required to fulfill the request? A mere 4,687.5!

Assuming an employee is working 8 hours a day, that equates to over 585 days of searching–or 2.2 work years (based on a typical 260-day work year).