BCSD Denial Letter to Hatcher
Dated 2025-03-14 · Author Sherry H. Culves, Partner, Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP (on behalf of Bibb County School District) · Addressed to Kerry Hatcher · Responding to Kerry Hatcher’s Open Records Request filed 2025-03-11 for records relating to the July 18, 2024 Student JH settlement View the PDF →
Legal shorthand used here: BCSD = Bibb County School District. ORR = Open Records Request. ORA = Georgia Open Records Act. FERPA = Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. IDEA = Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. PII = personally identifiable information. O.C.G.A. = Official Code of Georgia Annotated. C.F.R. = Code of Federal Regulations. § = “section”.
What is this document?
This is the formal denial letter BCSD issued — through its outside counsel Sherry H. Culves at Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP — in response to Kerry Hatcher’s March 11, 2025 Open Records Request seeking records relating to the July 18, 2024 Student JH settlement.
The denial letter was issued to Kerry Hatcher, a Bibb County parent whose own parallel ORRs ran alongside Macon Melody reporter Laura Corley’s journalism-track requests during early 2025. Hatcher is the author of this site; the candidate-status disclosure in the site footer notes his 2026 Board of Education candidacy. That disclosure is not repeated in this document summary; the factual substance of BCSD’s denial letter — which is what this page is about — does not depend on it.
This denial letter predates the Melody v. BCSD complaint by roughly five months. Three features of the letter are central to the pre-litigation record.
At a glance
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Dated | March 14, 2025 |
| Author | Sherry H. Culves (Partner, Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP) |
| Recipient | Kerry Hatcher |
| Responds to | ORR filed March 11, 2025 (four-item scope — see the ORR) |
| Statutory exemptions cited | O.C.G.A. § 50-18-72(a)(1); § 50-18-72(a)(37); 20 U.S.C. § 1232g (FERPA); 34 C.F.R. § 99.3 and Part 99 |
| Significance | Deploys BCSD’s 34 C.F.R. § 99.3 “reasonable belief”/requester-knowledge FERPA theory in writing; admits YouTube is the only recording of the 7/18/24 meeting; states BCSD’s position that O.C.G.A. § 50-14-3(b)(1) “must yield to federal law” |
Deep dive — what the letter says and why it matters
1. The § 99.3 “requester-knowledge” theory, in writing
The letter’s most-consequential passage:
“The District takes the position that the settlement agreement about which you seek information is a protected education record and is, therefore, exempt from production under even the Georgia Open Records Act. … The District has a reasonable basis to believe that you know the identity of the student involved in this settlement agreement … your status as an Alexander II Magnet School parent, indicates that you know the identity of this student and/or their family.”
This is the written template for the FERPA theory BCSD is expected to press at the April 29, 2026 hearing in Melody v. BCSD. The argument structure — that a record which would not identify a specific student to a generic requester does identify the student to a requester whom the school district “reasonably believes” knows the student’s identity, triggering the “reasonable belief” prong of the PII definition at 34 C.F.R. § 99.3 — is precisely what the plaintiff’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment attacks.
BCSD’s reliance on the requester’s specific identity, parent status, and advocacy-site posts as evidence of identifying knowledge is what makes this denial letter legally distinct from a generic FERPA refusal. It is a record of BCSD’s actual § 99.3 argument — not a speculative reconstruction by opposing counsel.
2. BCSD’s factual admission about the July 18, 2024 recording
In responding to the ORR’s second item (a request for the electronic recording of the meeting’s JH agenda portion), the letter states:
“There is no other video recording of the 7/18/24 Board of Education meeting; the recording publicly available on YouTube is the only available recording.”
The publicly posted YouTube recording cuts off before the JH vote. This admission — that no other recording exists — is factually significant for any Open Meetings Act analysis of the July 18, 2024 meeting under O.C.G.A. § 50-14-3(b)(1), which requires that any vote in executive session to settle litigation be ratified in a subsequent open meeting “where the parties and principal settlement terms are disclosed before the vote.”
3. BCSD’s position on the Open Meetings Act
The letter also states BCSD’s legal position on the Open Meetings Act’s settlement-disclosure requirement:
“The District’s position is that this state statute, too, is in conflict with FERPA’s privacy protections and must yield to federal law.”
This sentence is a formal statement — on BCSD letterhead, through Parker Poe — that the district reads FERPA as preempting O.C.G.A. § 50-14-3(b)(1)’s settlement-disclosure requirement. Whether FERPA preempts state open-records or open-meetings law on this question is contested; the point here is not to evaluate the argument but to document that BCSD has taken it in writing.
4. Statutory exemptions cited
The letter cites the following exemptions, in this order:
- O.C.G.A. § 50-18-72(a)(1) — the Open Records Act’s federal-confidentiality carve-out
- O.C.G.A. § 50-18-72(a)(37) — the ORA’s FERPA carve-out
- 20 U.S.C. § 1232g — FERPA itself
- 34 C.F.R. § 99.3 — FERPA regulation defining “personally identifiable information” (including the “reasonable belief that the requester knows the identity” prong on which BCSD relies)
- 34 C.F.R. Part 99 — FERPA regulations generally
The same exemption basket — augmented with additional ORA provisions — appears on the Parker Poe cost-estimate responses to Hatcher’s three collateral ORRs and to the Alex II teachers’ February 28, 2025 ORR. See the Parker Poe ORR Cost Schedule for the full template exemption basket.
5. “Coordinated ORR effort”
The letter references what BCSD characterizes as a “coordinated” records-request effort. What that characterization refers to factually is three independent requester categories — journalist (Corley), civic-parent (Hatcher), and internal-staff (two Alex II teachers) — filing ORRs inside the same fourteen-day window in late February and early March 2025. Each category received a template refusal from Parker Poe using the same signer (Culves) and the same exemption basket. The Background page walks through the three-track window in detail.
Why this matters
For purposes of the pending Melody v. BCSD litigation, this denial letter establishes three things as a matter of evidence rather than inference:
- BCSD’s § 99.3 theory is a live, written argument, not a hypothetical weakness. Plaintiff’s counsel can preview the argument structure verbatim when briefing the April 29 hearing.
- BCSD has formally admitted the absence of any 7/18/24 board-meeting recording beyond the truncated YouTube file. This admission forecloses any later contention that the Open Meetings Act’s settlement-disclosure requirement was met by some other extant public record.
- BCSD has taken a written position that FERPA preempts O.C.G.A. § 50-14-3(b)(1). The position is on the record and not contingent on the pleadings in this case.
Read the original
Part of the Pre-Litigation Record · Civil Action No. 2025-CV-083495 · Bibb County Superior Court