{"id":29768,"date":"2025-11-07T14:58:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T19:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=29768"},"modified":"2025-11-07T14:58:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T19:58:20","slug":"a-rhode-island-mom-asked-to-see-the-curriculum-of-a-teacher-who-called-charlie-kirk-garbage-the-school-charged-her-117k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/11\/a-rhode-island-mom-asked-to-see-the-curriculum-of-a-teacher-who-called-charlie-kirk-garbage-the-school-charged-her-117k","title":{"rendered":"A Rhode Island Mom Asked to See the Curriculum of a Teacher Who Called Charlie Kirk &#8216;garbage.&#8217; The School Charged Her $117K"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_29771\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-29771\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/11\/Kirk-Teacher_credit-Left-Gage-Skidmore-Flickr-Right-X.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-29771\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/11\/Kirk-Teacher_credit-Left-Gage-Skidmore-Flickr-Right-X.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-29771\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Gage Skidmore \/ Flickr | Right: X<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>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 \u201cgarbage\u201d 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 \u201cTrump.\u201d 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 \u201ca piece of garbage\u201d and accusing him of racism. In one video, he announced, \u201cCharlie Kirk is not in Heaven right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Solas received back <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goldwaterinstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cost-Estimate-09.24.25-3.pdf\">a letter<\/a> claiming that the school uncovered 789 emails that from September 2024 containing the word \u201cTrump\u201d 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 \u201cTrump.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/11\/06\/school-demands-mom-pay-117k-to-see-curriculum\/\"><em>The Federalist<\/em><\/a>, Solas said she requested the information to find out if Fillo\u2019s teaching materials included an \u201cindoctrination, politically biased lessons, or any leftist ideological teaching.\u201d 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. \u201cThis 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,\u201d Solas told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/school-district-demands-117k-from-mom-seeking-teachers-emails-after-charlie-kirk-assassination-comments\"><em>Fox News Digital<\/em><\/a>. Robert Mitchell, interim superintendent of Barrington Public Schools, justified the price tag. \u201cUnder 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,\u201d he said. Solas is hopeful that a lawsuit will obtain the requested materials. \u201cI just don&#8217;t see how this can stand if we file a lawsuit on it,&#8221; she said. \u201cSo, I hope the school district makes the right decision and releases the materials for free.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 \u201cgarbage\u201d 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&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":29771,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Rhode Island Mom Asked to See the Curriculum of a Teacher Who Called Charlie Kirk &#039;garbage.&#039; The School Charged Her $117K<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rhode Island mom Nicole Solas says a school demanded $117K to view a teacher\u2019s Trump-related curriculum after his anti-Charlie Kirk rant.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/11\/a-rhode-island-mom-asked-to-see-the-curriculum-of-a-teacher-who-called-charlie-kirk-garbage-the-school-charged-her-117k\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Rhode Island Mom Asked to See the Curriculum of a Teacher Who Called Charlie Kirk &#039;garbage.&#039; The School Charged Her $117K\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rhode Island mom Nicole Solas says a school demanded $117K to view a teacher\u2019s Trump-related curriculum after his anti-Charlie Kirk rant.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/11\/a-rhode-island-mom-asked-to-see-the-curriculum-of-a-teacher-who-called-charlie-kirk-garbage-the-school-charged-her-117k\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-11-07T19:58:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/11\/Kirk-Teacher_credit-Left-Gage-Skidmore-Flickr-Right-X.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Rhode Island Mom Asked to See the Curriculum of a Teacher Who Called Charlie Kirk 'garbage.' 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The School Charged Her $117K","og_description":"Rhode Island mom Nicole Solas says a school demanded $117K to view a teacher\u2019s Trump-related curriculum after his anti-Charlie Kirk rant.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/11\/a-rhode-island-mom-asked-to-see-the-curriculum-of-a-teacher-who-called-charlie-kirk-garbage-the-school-charged-her-117k","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2025-11-07T19:58:20+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/11\/Kirk-Teacher_credit-Left-Gage-Skidmore-Flickr-Right-X.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/11\/a-rhode-island-mom-asked-to-see-the-curriculum-of-a-teacher-who-called-charlie-kirk-garbage-the-school-charged-her-117k","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/11\/a-rhode-island-mom-asked-to-see-the-curriculum-of-a-teacher-who-called-charlie-kirk-garbage-the-school-charged-her-117k","name":"A Rhode Island Mom Asked to See the Curriculum of a Teacher Who Called Charlie Kirk 'garbage.' 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