A Rhode Island mom is sharing the outrageous $117K a local school is charging her in order to view the curriculum of a teacher who called Charlie Kirk “garbage” after his assassination. Nicole Solas sent two Access to Public Access Act requests to Barrington Public Schools on September 16 and September 18, 2025, requesting copies of all school email correspondence and curriculum materials from social studies teacher Benjamin Fillo from September 1, 2024 which contained the word “Trump.” She also requested all such documentation from January 1, 2016. Fillo had been placed on administrative leave by the district after he released several TikTok rants soon after Kirk was assassinated, calling him “a piece of garbage” and accusing him of racism. In one video, he announced, “Charlie Kirk is not in Heaven right now.”

Solas received back a letter claiming that the school uncovered 789 emails that from September 2024 containing the word “Trump” and that it would take 25.3 labor hours to go through the emails and redact necessary information. Including the amount of hours it would take to go through the curriculum, it would take a total of 7,735.5 hours of labor and cost $117,130.50.That was only for electronic copies. If Solas wanted hard copies, it would cost an additional $6,692.55. From January 1, 2016 to September 1, 2024, the letter stated there were 1,438 emails containing the word “Trump.”

Speaking to The Federalist, Solas said she requested the information to find out if Fillo’s teaching materials included an “indoctrination, politically biased lessons, or any leftist ideological teaching.” This is not the first time Solas has experienced pushback from Rhode Island public schools. Four years ago the National Education Association Rhode Island (NEARI) sued her for sending public records requests regarding political indoctrination. She currently lives in a different district than Barrington Public Schools and her children attend a private school. “This estimate that we received is exorbitant, completely unreasonable, just to get the curriculum materials. And the Goldwater Institute and my attorney, James McGlone, have sent a letter to the school district demanding that they lower the fee. Quite frankly, it should be zero because these are curriculum materials that the taxpayer has already paid for,” Solas told Fox News Digital. Robert Mitchell, interim superintendent of Barrington Public Schools, justified the price tag. “Under APRA, districts are required to estimate the staff time needed to locate, review, and redact records that may include personnel or individually identifiable information. The estimated cost of approximately $116,000 reflects thousands of hours of staff work calculated at just $15 per hour. This figure reflects the extraordinary breadth of the request,” he said. Solas is hopeful that a lawsuit will obtain the requested materials. “I just don’t see how this can stand if we file a lawsuit on it,” she said. “So, I hope the school district makes the right decision and releases the materials for free.”