MIDLAND, Mich. — A Midland woman who sued Midland Public Schools over fees charged for access to school board agenda packets has won her case after a nearly two-year legal battle.
Renita Bonadies said her push for greater transparency began after she started attending Midland Public Schools Board of Education meetings in 2021. What started with questions about district policies eventually led her to file Freedom of Information Act requests seeking documents provided to school board members.
Bonadies said she became concerned after seeing what she described as a lack of public discussion about information presented to board members.
“The thing that was most apparent was that it just looks like a bunch of rubber stamping,” Bonadies said. “They would come to the board and they would go, ‘Here’s our recommendation, vote on it.’”
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Bonadies said she learned that detailed information supporting board decisions was contained in agenda packets distributed to board members but was not readily available to the public.
She began requesting those packets through Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act and posting them online so others could review them.
But obtaining the records came with a price.
Bonadies said the district initially charged her about $25 per meeting for the packets. Over several years, she said she paid nearly $750 in fees.
She argued the documents were already being prepared for board members and should be available to the public without additional charges.
“They were preparing them for the school board,” Bonadies said. “And we were just saying we’d like a copy too.”
The dispute eventually escalated after Bonadies attempted to appeal the fees. She said she initially believed district policy allowed her to appeal to the school board president but was later informed she would instead have to challenge the district through a civil lawsuit.
“So you took them to court,” Bondy asked during the interview.
Bonadies did.
She said the case continued for nearly two years and went to a one-day trial in May. According to Bonadies, the judge ruled that the district should not have charged her for the agenda packets and ordered the district to refund the fees involved in the lawsuit.
Bonadies said that refund amounts to $57.34, considerably less than what she had paid for records over previous years.
“The previous almost $700, that I don’t get back,” she said.
The ruling carried a more significant financial consequence for the district, according to Bonadies: The district was ordered to pay her legal fees.
Bonadies said the fight was never primarily about recovering $57.
“For $57, why would I file a lawsuit?” she said. “I’m not making anything off of it. But it was more the principle of what they were doing to us.”
The dispute also coincided with a change in how Midland Public Schools handles the records.
Bonadies said the school board voted in October 2025 to make agenda packets available free on its website, though the district said the decision was unrelated to the pending litigation.
Bonadies said she and others compared Midland’s practices with roughly 20 other school districts and found about half either posted their agenda packets online or provided them free upon request.
For Bonadies, the case raises a broader question about how difficult it should be for residents to obtain information from the government agencies they fund.
“If you have nothing to hide, why not make it public?” she said.
She said people should not be discouraged from asking questions or seeking public records simply because challenging a government agency can be difficult or expensive.
“I believe [the goal] is to get us to quit showing up, to quit asking questions,” Bonadies said.
She said she and her husband are retired and do not have children or grandchildren attending the district, which she believes gives them greater freedom to challenge officials without worrying about potential consequences.
Bonadies said she has spoken with parents, business owners and school employees who would like to raise concerns but fear repercussions.
She hopes the court decision encourages more residents to participate in local government and demand access to public information.
“I think this does set a precedent to say this isn’t a slam dunk for the school district,” Bonadies said, “that they’re going to be able to do this to the public and get away with it.”
Her message to other residents is simple: Keep asking questions.
“I am hoping it does encourage more to speak up and show up,” she said.