EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — The Texas Attorney General’s Office sent a letter to the Canutillo Independent School District’s communications director on Friday, demanding that the district comply with state freedom of information laws after the district failed to comply with public records requests, as well as requests from the attorney general’s own investigators, according to the letter.
“Due to the district’s pattern of non-response, our office has determined that the district has not complied with the requirements of the law with respect to the requests at issue,” the document states.
In a letter dated Aug. 16, Open Records Division Director Tamara Smith informed Canutillo Independent School District Communications Director Gustavo Reveles that she had received four complaints about the district not responding to open records requests.
“The Attorney General’s Office has received complaints from multiple requestors alleging that the Canutillo Independent School District (the “District”) has not adequately responded to various requests for information under the Public Information Act, Chapter 552 of the Government Code (the “Act”),” Smith wrote.
The letter lists four case numbers for complaints, including the one filed by ABC-7.
The complaint was filed with the Texas Attorney General’s Office more than a year ago after the district’s request for video of a security incident that appeared to have taken place at Canutillo High School on April 5, 2023, was ignored. The incident was determined to be a high school prank in which a student used a water gun in the school’s gymnasium. According to school officials, the incident occurred on March 28, 2023, just one day after the school shooting in Nashville that left six people dead. The incident triggered the security response.
Some students who witnessed the incident told ABC-7 they felt scared at the time. The school district said the prank violated the school’s code of conduct.
Government watchdog Max Grossman also filed a separate complaint, requesting a statement of Canutillo Independent School District employee salaries and projected expenditures related to the district’s then-proposed April 2024 $387 million bond.
Grossman told ABC-7 he filed the complaint because the records were last turned over on May 10, 2024, well past the deadline set by Texas law.
On Friday, he shared with reporters the same letter ABC-7 received from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office.
In it, Public Records Division Director Tamara Smith told Reveles that her office has “sent letters to the school district via mail and email to notify the district of the complaints and to request their assistance in resolving these issues.”
Smith also wrote to Reveles that his office had contacted the district by phone but had not received a response from the district “as of the date of this letter” that it would comply with the request in question.
Under Texas’ public information law, government agencies have 10 days to release information, but public information is supposed to be made public promptly. If a government agency believes the information is not legally public, it can seek an opinion from the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
ABC-7 reached out to the school district on Friday and received the following written statement: “The district will work with the Attorney General’s Office to respond appropriately to these matters. The district continues to maintain that it responded appropriately to media requests and that records requests filed after the incident went unresponsive based on an open investigation at the time. The Canutillo Independent School District prides itself on being open and available to the media. We continue our efforts to work with journalists and assist them in doing their work fairly and accurately.”
Reveles told ABC-7 in 2023 that the investigation was closed and that video of the prank in the school gym existed and that he had viewed it.
Smith gave Reveles 60 days to take an “approved public records training course” and asked him to send a certificate to her office upon completion.
Smith said in the letter that if the district does not comply, he will consider other options, including a court filing to compel the district to turn over the records.
