On Saturday, May 23, the Union County Board of Education held its rescheduled monthly meeting in Suches, where members discussed open records requests, raising out-of-county tuition and other business before the Woody Gap Graduation Ceremony.
While not an agenda item, the most heavily discussed topic was the volume of open records requests that the Central Office was handling, with several board members expressing concern that the frequency of requests by a small number of individuals had become burdensome on staff time and resources.
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The topic came up during the board’s approval of the March 2026 financial report, when Board Member Jason McCarter raised the issue for discussion, calling certain instances of open records requests, or ORRs, legal but “antagonizing.”
“If possible, we need to start advertising the members of this community that are hitting us with multiple ORRs,” he continued. “Yeah, we get compensated for it, but it’s lost time for key personnel (that we can’t get compensation for).
“We should start advertising these folks so the good people of Union County know how much lost time is spent on these things.”
Board Member Janna Akins said the steady stream of requests from certain individuals had gone beyond regular requests.
“There is a fine line,” Akins said. “Citizens have that right (to file requests), but what we’re talking about is something totally different and at a whole new level than your ordinary citizen requesting information.”
Union County Schools Chief Compliance Officer David Murphy was asked how many ORRs are typically filed by the “top requesters.” Murphy said that the Central Office has received as many as four in one day from a single frequent requester.
Superintendent Dr. John Hill added, “We only have a couple of employees who can fill these requests, and they could be doing something productive that benefits our students. So, my biggest gripe is we’re missing out on chances to help kids because of it.”
The discussion eventually concluded without any formal action before board members moved on to other business, including out-of-county tuition rates for the upcoming school year.
The new tuition rate for out-of-county students will increase to $1,750 per semester during the 2026-27 school year, a $250 increase from 2025-26, following unanimous approval from the board.
Union County currently enrolls 95 students from outside the district, with 56 paying tuition while the remaining 35 are children of school employees and legally exempt from the fee.
Murphy added that the average student costs the system about $4,000 per year, but officials did not want to sharply increase the rate for families who have attended Union County Schools for years and may be close to graduation.
Hill also noted that parents can still apply for hardship considerations because of financial or other circumstances, particularly for families who work in Union but live outside the district, where work schedules can make transporting students to and from multiple school systems difficult.
Also in the meeting, the board honored outgoing Woody Gap School Principal Wendy Reynolds for her 35 years in education. Reynolds has spent the last five years with Union County Schools following three decades in another district.
In other business, the board unanimously approved an overnight field trip for the UCHS wrestling team, along with several memorandums of understanding and contract approvals, principals’ quarterly reports, the March 2026 financial report, and more.
Additionally, the board approved a resolution for the development of a new five-year facilities plan and discussed planned additions to the parking lot at Union County Middle School, along with potential future upgrades and expansions at UCMS.
