On June 17, 2026, S&S Consolidated Independent School District (S&S CISD) Superintendent Jeff Russell responded to LION’s public-records request SSCISD-PIA-001, and on June 18 LION replied pressing for the records the district has not produced in the form the request asked for.

The Texas Public Information Act (Texas Government Code Chapter 552) requires a governmental body to release its existing public records. LION’s June 1 request sought the district’s library catalog — every title, author, and copy count at each campus — and any approved 2025–26 reading lists.

For the catalog, the district pointed LION to its public Follett Destiny portal and wrote that a governmental body “is not required to create a brand-new document or format if the information is already publicly and readily available in an alternate format online,” citing Texas Government Code §552.228, and offered instead a PDF “which is 1,000+ pages for each campus.” In its June 18 reply, LION asks for the format the request specified — the native Excel or CSV export the Destiny system already generates — noting that §552.228 requires an existing electronic record to be produced in the requested medium. The district’s own board-adopted policy EFB(LOCAL) states that “[o]nline catalogs shall be publicly available” and that maintenance “shall also include scheduled inventories of the collection.”

For the reading lists, the district produced campus “class set” title lists but stated it “does not have any district-wide or campus-specific approved reading lists, supplemental materials lists, or English/Language Arts curriculum book lists used by teachers for the 2025–26 school year,” while noting that campus principals “may have a more comprehensive list.” LION’s reply cites the district’s own EFA(LOCAL) policy — which places “the ultimate authority for determining and approving the curriculum and instructional program of the District” with the Board and presupposes “District-adopted materials” — and the annual certification of instructional materials required by Texas Education Code §31.1011, and asks the district to confirm in writing that it searched every campus, principal, and its curriculum office before concluding no such records exist.

Sources: Superintendent Jeff Russell’s June 17, 2026 response and the campus class-set lists the district produced; LION’s June 18, 2026 reply; S&S CISD board-adopted policies EFB(LOCAL) and EFA(LOCAL). All filed under request SSCISD-PIA-001.

Errors or corrections: corrections@lionwatchtx.org