School district working to settle public records lawsuit

The Grand Coulee Dam School District will offer $16,000 to a man who filed a lawsuit against them regarding a public records request, and who has reportedly made around a million dollars over the years with similar lawsuits against small school districts, towns, hospital districts and other such agencies.

The GCDSD board of directors on Monday approved offering the settlement to Eric Hood, who filed suit in February of 2022 saying that the school district had not provided all documents related to a public records request he had made in February of 2021.

Hood has collected about $820,000 in similar lawsuits brought against school districts, small towns, and others over about a 10-year span, according to a 2020 article in The Leader in Port Townsend, Washington.

“We need to approve it,” Superintendent Paul Turner told the school board. “There’s not much more I can say. One of the things I will say is, once it is all said and done, we’ve talked before about going to [the Washington State School Directors Association] and really working on this; I think we need to.”

Board Director Rich Black agreed.

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