Houston ISD stonewalls video release, citing technical limitations

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- When a storm hit Houston in 2024 and devastated several communities, 13 Investigates learned a Houston Independent School District bus was caught in the middle of it on the Hardy Toll Road.

We know some school buses are equipped with cameras, so 13 Investigates' Mycah Hatfield requested the video under the Texas Public Information Act.

The Act allows any member of the public, including journalists, to request records from taxpayer-funded government entities. The records can include anything from emails and text messages to video or reports. By law, government agencies are required to respond within 10 business days.

"The responsibility is they should either provide the information or if they believe one of the exceptions apply, they're supposed to then notify the attorney general for the State of Texas within 10 days on why what exception they believe applies," Ryan Marquez, a clinical associate professor and director of the Civil Justice Clinic at the University of Houston, said. "There are some exceptions that are very cut and dry and about what should be and should not be released, but there's some that are a little bit more nuanced, and that's why the attorney general has to give an opinion on some things."

HISD, like it does with many of ABC13's requests, asked the attorney general's office if it can withhold the video because there was sensitive information in it, possibly a license number.

HISD, which is the largest school district in Texas with a $2.1 billion budget, also argued they didn't have the ability to remove or redact it from the video, despite putting out a highly produced news broadcast on its YouTube page that requires editing.

The AG's office sent HISD a letter last year allowing them to withhold the video simply because they said they could not edit it.

"You claim the submitted video recordings must be withheld from the requestor in their entireties pursuant to section 522.130 of the Government Code because you lack the technological capability to redact the motor vehicle record information from the recordings. Thus, we agree you must withhold the video recordings in their entirety," an attorney with the AG's office told HISD.

13 Investigates asked HISD about this request and other requests where information was not provided.

An HISD spokesperson, who works for a public affairs firm, told Eyewitness News in a statement, "HISD promptly responds to over 1,000 public information requests submitted by the media and everyday citizens each school year. The District provides public records if they are available. There are instances when people do not properly request or request records that do not exist."

Oftentimes, ABC13 asks for records that HISD says it does not have or does not understand.

For example, when we asked how many weapons HISD's new weapon detection system had found at Lamar High School. This is a system the district touted to keep students safe.

HISD's attorney responded that they have "no responsive information."

In another request, ABC13 asked how many principals and assistant principals have been investigated, terminated, reassigned, and resigned from HISD over the last two school years.

HISD's attorney asked to define what "investigated, terminated, reassigned, and resigned" meant, even though those are terms the district has used to parents and media in statements.

We also wanted to know how much HISD is paying the members of the communications department, which is the team that communicates with the media and the public, so that's what we asked for.

HISD's attorney asked us what we mean by "the district communications department."

A quick internet search for the words "HISD communications" shows the communications department homepage, with a list of the employees and their titles.

Similarly, when we ask HISD questions, we've started getting responses from an outside public affairs team that is based in Los Angeles, rather than the district's own, full-time communications team that is on the HISD payroll.

We wanted to know how much they're paying this public relations firm, so we filed a request mentioning the firm by name and asked for all of their invoices. HISD said they didn't have any information.

We asked HISD about specific requests where information was not released, including the video, the district said it didn't have the ability to edit, they told us, "In these cases, requesters are either asked to clarify their requests or informed that no records are responsive to their request. HISD has not received any properly filed public information requests from ABC13 that have gone unfilled."

That statement came from a member of the outside public affairs team HISD works with - the one whose invoices we asked for but were told the district doesn't have any.

Marquez said the Texas Public Information Act is ultimately there to hold the government accountable and should be "liberally construed," meaning information is considered public unless it falls under certain exceptions.

"We need that type of transparency because we're the ones who vote for people in, and when you're spending money, you need to make sure you have proper oversight of that money and it's being spent in the way it's supposed to," he said. "If everything was conducted normally, then there's really not a problem sharing the public information."

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