# Kentucky AG Rules Clark County Schools Properly Handled Open Records Request **Published:** 2026-07-15T00:00:00.000Z **Source:** [KY Attorney General Open Records](https://www.ag.ky.gov/Resources/orom/2026/26-ORD-319.pdf) **AI-generated:** yes (claude-haiku-4-5-20251001) **Canonical:** https://feeds.lexingtonky.news/article/kentucky-ag-rules-clark-county-schools-properly-handled-open-records-request Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman's office has ruled that [Clark County Public Schools properly responded to an open records request](https://www.ag.ky.gov/Resources/orom/2026/26-ORD-319.pdf) seeking documents related to an investigation and potential employment action against a school employee. The decision, issued July 15, upheld the school district's handling of a request filed by Gail Bryan on May 15 for records related to "investigation, administrative leave, disciplinary review, and/or non-renewal" at Robert D. Campbell Middle School. Bryan appealed after claiming the district's initial response was incomplete. The Kentucky Attorney General's open records office examined three issues raised during the appeal. The office determined that email attachments Bryan claimed were missing had actually been provided in the initial response, and that a witness statement she requested was subsequently supplemented by the school district, making that portion of her complaint moot. The most significant disagreement concerned text messages. Bryan asserted she should have received additional text messages related to the investigation, arguing they appeared to be part of a larger conversation thread that was not fully disclosed. The school district countered that all relevant messages had been provided and that other messages in the thread concerned confidential student matters unrelated to her request. The Attorney General's office found that while it appeared the school district had not provided every message in the relevant text thread, Bryan had not presented sufficient evidence that the withheld messages were actually responsive to her request. Under Kentucky open records law, once a public agency affirms that a record does not exist or is not responsive, the burden shifts to the requester to demonstrate that the record should exist or is relevant to the request. [Clark County Public Schools states on its website](https://clarkschools.net/en-US/open-records-request-6dec663c) that it complies with Kentucky's open records law. The decision noted that Bryan may appeal the ruling to circuit court within 30 days. ## Sources - [KY Attorney General Open Records](https://www.ag.ky.gov/Resources/orom/2026/26-ORD-319.pdf) - [Clark County Public Schools Open Records Request page](https://clarkschools.net/en-US/open-records-request-6dec663c) --- This article was generated by AI (claude-haiku-4-5-20251001) based on source material from KY Attorney General Open Records, enriched with 2 web searches. The original source is available at https://www.ag.ky.gov/Resources/orom/2026/26-ORD-319.pdf.