As we wrote last week, the school districts of Attleboro, Brockton, Leicester, Middleborough, and Quincy, all found the highest levels of lead in their school buildings. Today, we’ll be taking a closer look at all of them.

Statewide testing conducted last year shows that hundreds of public schools across Massachusetts, reported high levels of lead in their drinking water, putting thousands of students at risk for long-term health effects. However, despite the danger, these tests remain optional under current law.

Records requests can take anywhere between a few days to sometimes even years. But how much does the level of the agency impact how long you’ll have to wait? Eesha Pendharkar sifted through the last four years of our request data to find out.

MuckRock’s Eesha Pendharkar sifted through the last four years of our request data to create a series of visualizations of of what transparency looks like across the country.

FOIA is a great way to keep the powerful is check, whether they be federal agencies, their employees, or tech giants. This week, stories from the Daily Californian, RealLivePolitics, and Columbia Journalism Review about revealing attempts by the government and two leading tech companies to withhold information from the public.