Plainly: For six months, Van Alstyne ISD published confidential information in its public school-board agendas. Repeatedly, the district posted a report naming the people who filed open-records requests with it — and in at least one of those reports it published an email address that Texas law specifically makes confidential. LION found the problem, verified it against the district’s own records, and is pressing the district to correct it.
The Texas Public Information Act lets any person ask a government body for its records. After the issue surfaced in a local community discussion, LION pulled Van Alstyne ISD’s own posted board agendas to test whether it was true. It was. Beginning in December 2025, the district’s agendas carried a recurring attachment titled “Public Information Requests” listing each requester’s full name next to the verbatim text of the request. The six reports LION reviewed are posted here with third-party personal information removed: December 2025 · February 2026 · March 2026 · April 2026 · May 2026 · June 2026.
LION knows this firsthand. LION files open-records requests with Van Alstyne ISD, and the district’s May 2026 report reproduced a LION request and published the email address LION had given for the sole purpose of communicating about it. In the copies posted above, that address is redacted — because it is exactly the kind of information the district should never have published.
Texas Government Code Section 552.137 makes an email address that a member of the public provides to communicate with a governmental body confidential and “not subject to disclosure.” The district did not even need the Attorney General’s permission to withhold it: in Open Records Decision No. 684, the Attorney General already determined that governmental bodies may withhold these addresses on their own, without first asking for a decision. Van Alstyne ISD published it anyway. Based on the district’s own records, LION believes Van Alstyne ISD violated Section 552.137 of the Public Information Act.
This was not a one-time slip. The “Public Information Requests” report is a built, recurring feature of the district’s agenda packet, repeated across six months. A governmental body is responsible for knowing the open-records law it operates under, and the confidentiality of these email addresses has been settled since 2009. The district either knew the information was confidential or should have known.
The same reports raise a second concern. A LION request submitted on April 23, 2026, was listed by the district as completed by its staff — even though the district never responded to it. LION did not pursue that request at the time.
Publishing a requester’s name is not, by itself, against the law, and LION does not claim it is. But routinely publishing the names of residents who ask their government for records — and publishing contact information the law protects — erodes public trust and can discourage people from exercising a right the law guarantees to everyone.
LION takes this seriously, both as a possible violation of state law and as an erosion of public trust and accountability. LION is engaged with Van Alstyne ISD to get it corrected: to stop the practice, to remove the confidential information already posted, and to notify the people affected. LION looks to the district to do the right thing. If the district stalls, refuses, or continues the practice, LION is prepared to use every remedy available under Texas law to compel a correction.
Questions or concerns about this matter can be directed to info@lionwatchtx.org. To report an error or correction, contact corrections@lionwatchtx.org.
