MONROE, Utah (KUTV) — The Sevier County School District has refused to provide parents with a video showing the use of a “perseverance day” in gym class as punishment for a broken sign in the locker room.

District officials allowed the parents of a sixth-grade girl to watch surveillance video of a series of physical activities the entire grade was forced to participate in.

After two years, a public records request and a court order to release the video, the district has still refused.

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“We would like to see full transparency to parents and students about any findings by the district regarding persistence days being used as a means of punishment over the past several years,” said Jared Kummer, who sat next to his wife Shana in August 2023.

Kummers attended a State Records Committee hearing after filing a public records request with the Sevier County School District for surveillance video of a physical education class.

They have seen the video once and said it shows training being used as punishment. They noted what they saw in the video and heard from their daughter who attended the class on November 21, 2022.

“In this exercise, they had to do sets of push-ups from 20, sprint across the gym, 19, sprint across the gym, 18 . . .” said Shana Kummer, who also mentioned that they went down to zero and backed up to 20 push-ups during the series. “A total of 405 push-ups and 34 gym-length wind sprints in a 30-minute period.”

The August 2023 SRC hearing was in response to the school district’s refusal for the Kummers to receive a copy of the video they had seen once before.

“It’s a small community, it’s an identified class, blurred faces on students is not going to stop people from identifying them,” said Patrick Tanner, an attorney representing the Sevier School District. “FERPA rules, not GRAMA. The District has fully and even more than fully complied with what FERPA requires.”

Tanner declined an interview with 2News after the SRC hearing. The district maintains the belief that the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act is a reason the video should not be released.

“We are ordering that the record be released with edits,” a member of the State Records Committee said after reviewing the video in closed session.

The Kummers were awarded the video under GRAMA – but the district sued the Kummers, who now continue to fight for the video in court.

“Why are they doing this to us? Our child got hurt and then we have lawsuits against us to take us to court. I’m disappointed in our state,” said Jared Kummer. “I hope in the future we have clear legislation that if you punish an 11-year-old with 400 push-ups and three dozen wind sprints, there must be accountability for that. They hurt my daughter. She couldn’t go to school the next day. And then we had Thanksgiving break and it rolled into, again, it would have been several days.”

School district officials also claimed they don’t have the technology to edit out other students in the surveillance video. Similar responses from various agencies throughout the state in response to other submitted records requests have been known.

“We just want parents to know what’s happened to their kids, and we want kids to know that what was done to them was wrong, that their rights were violated,” said Jared Kummer. “We will not tolerate what was done to these children. And we saw that video, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

In response to a request for comment from 2News, Sevier School District Superintendent Cade Douglas wrote:

“The focus of the current litigation is not related to days of persistence. The focus is whether a video, as a federally protected educational record, can be released under Utah’s open records statute. The district allowed the parents to view the video, but because it shows an entire class of students, the district has an obligation under the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act to protect these students’ records.”

The next hearing for Kummers v. Sevier School District is slated for January 2025.

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