Jerome's Public Records Problem: Constructive Denials
The Public's Rights Denied (part one of a two part article)
The Jerome School District says it has 60,000 pages of de-duplicated emails generated between August 10 and August 30, all related to actions and decisions made during the bus crisis. Yet the district claims every page contains information already public, and that releasing these records would provide no benefit or new insight to the community.
Think about that: 4,000 de-duplicated pages of email per day, tied directly to the bus crisis—yet we are told there is nothing new to see.
Constructive Denial
By Jeff A. Pierson
When an Idaho agency attaches prohibitive fees to a records request, it creates a constructive denial. Idaho’s Public Records Act is meant to guarantee access, not place it behind a paywall. Quoting a $40,000 estimate (for my orginal request) and $14,000 estimate (for my amended request) is not a good-faith calculation of cost, it has the effect of shielding decision-makers from scrutiny. The effect is identical to saying “no.” This practice turns the public’s right to know into a privilege for the few who can afford it, and it undermines both the letter and the spirit of the law.
On September 10, 2025, while seeking more information about the Jerome Bus Crisis, the Jerome School District denied my request for a fee waiver. The denial relied on boilerplate language that does not withstand legal or ethical scrutiny. Idaho’s Public Records Act is clear: disclosure is the rule, secrecy is the exception. The district’s response cannot be squared with that principle.
The refusal to grant a waiver is more than a paperwork dispute. It is a moral and ethical failure of leadership. The law requires transparency because accountability is the foundation of trust. When leaders refuse to waive fees in matters that so clearly concern the public interest, they send the message that institutional comfort outweighs the community’s right to know.
The records at issue involve decisions that put children at risk. Families were told buses were delayed for “repairs and safety,” only to learn later that the real causes were poor planning, voluntary policy changes, and untested systems. To place those records behind a $40,000 barrier is appears to be a choice to protect decision-makers instead of the public.
Ethically, this is a breach of candor. Officials owe their community plain answers, not obstacles. By insisting on payments most citizens cannot afford, the district turns transparency into a privilege for the wealthy or the well-connected. Morally, it is worse: parents entrusted their children to the district, and those children were stranded, misrouted, and left unaccounted for. Telling parents they must pay for access to the truth values reputation above safety.
A waiver here is not charity. It is the minimum obligation of leadership in a crisis. Refusing it corrodes trust and betrays the duty of care every public institution owes to the people it serves.
It seems to me, the denial raises the question of whether it was a neutral application of law or a defensive maneuver.. By attaching a prohibitive price tag and rejecting a waiver, the district avoided releasing records that could expose embarrassing details of decision-making during the transportation collapse. In practice, such denials risk functioning to protect institutional reputation and leadership rather than to uphold transparency. The irony is unmistakable: by refusing to release the records, the district fuels speculation about its motives. The very documents that could answer questions and quiet doubt are the ones being withheld behind a $40,000 barrier.
Read Part 2: Waiver Denial & Idaho Code
Related: Jerome is a hot mess!
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are my own as a citizen and writer. Where I speculate about why the district acted as it did, those points should be read as opinion, not as established fact. My aim is to raise questions of transparency and accountability that the public deserves to consider.