The Budget Resolution is a very long detailed document that nobody wants to read because it is so long. However, there are significant details disclosed in that motion. It is possible that the revenue neutral millage figure might be contained therein. File a RTK request for the Budget Resolution passed by the board if you dare. on Lebo math at its finestWhy not do a tutorial on how to file a Right To Know? I never took the time to file a RTK on the budget, so I will try to go through the steps here.
Looking at the School District website, notice how the 2013-14 Budget is not posted as of June 5, 2013. To file a RTK with the School District, click on School Board on the left sidebar of the School District website. Then click on Right To Know located in the task bar. http://www.mtlsd.org/district/righttoknow.asp Click on Public Records Request Form. Request forms are also available here and on my website http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Right_to_Know.html
Send the completed form to:
Jeanine Szalinski
Mt. Lebanon School District
7 Horsman Drive
Pittsburgh PA 15228
412.344.2077
Fax 412.344.2047
I email my requests to Mrs. Szalinski at jszalinski@mtlsd.net. Here is a sample request that I made when Chip Dalesandro came to my door to say that the YSA had paid all Joint Maintenance Agreement fees in full.
The process is the same for the Municipality. Their form is listed here and on my website. I email my RTK requests to our manager, Steve Feller at sfeller@mtlebanon.org.
I always request the medium and format to be email and PDF. I avoid printing costs this way. Occasionally, both local governments have charged me for printing fees for large files. It can get pricey at 25 cents per page.
Boy, was that a boring tutorial. I think I will stick to sewing blogs for inspiration. I hope I took some of the mysticism out of the Right To Know process. Don't be intimidated to file a RTK. It is our right to know!
Update 3:11 PM For all the Remely fans out there, this is what Dan Remely has to say about Right To Knows. Note: The School District made a pdf of this orginal article, New Right to Know law costly, Mt. Lebanon schools say
At this week's meeting, school board member Daniel Remely suggested the district make the names of the requestors and the costs of performing the requests available for public review.
That is when I decided to start lebocitizens.com. I vowed to put all the RTK requests that the District denied online. As soon as I made that clear in Citizens Comments, his threat, I mean suggestion, went away.
Update 4:58 PM Why go after Dan Remely, when I can also show what Mary Birks, Timmy, Tom Peterson, and Josephine Posti have to say about Right To Know requests? And yes, Mary Birks did say Mrs. Lewinsky.
From: David Huston
To: jschnee@state.pa.us
CC: schoolboardemaillist@mtlsd.net; tpeterson@tuckerlaw.com; tsteinhauer@mtlsd.net
Subject: Docket AP 2010-0761
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:29:13 +0000
Mr. Schnee,
Please acknowledge receipt of this e-mail message.
I am aMt. Lebanon
no formal law training. TheMt. Lebanon School District
referred to as the District, is using all legal resources at its
disposal to keep me from inspecting public documents.
On 11-AUG-2010, I requested an e-mail pdf scan of a blank form document.
On 18-AUG-2010, I was informed by means of a scanned pdf document,
my request was granted, yet I was not provided the open record I requested.
On 19-AUG-2010 at 8:05AM EDT, I appeared at the Open Records office to
personally inspect the Open Records. The staff did not show up for work on
time and the same documents the Open Records officer informed me the day
before were available, were not available for me to inspect when I paid
the District a personal visit.
A resident need not to notify an agency in advance of public inspection during
normal business hours the day after being notified the Open Records
are available for inspection. This fact should be intuitively obvious
to the casual observer, but the District solicitor failed to recognize it.
On 34-AUG-2010, I e-mailed the solicitor advance notice that I would be
attending the Open Meeting, see attached notice.pdf document.
On 25-AUG-2010 during an open meeting, I asked the District if I could
inspect the Open Records made available for me on 18-AUG-2010.
The solicitor told me they were not available. Please note Open Meetings are
held one floor above the District offices and the documents could have
been given to me after the meeting if the District were not vigorously
protecting its position of prohibiting access to Open Records.
In an e-mail dated 26-AUG-2010, Mr. Peterson wrote I demanded, "again
without prior notice" to review the records.
If you review the meeting recording I sent last week, you will find
I asked politely without demanding.
Also, I did indeed provide one day prior advance notice of my attendance at
the 25-AUG-2010 Open Meeting, and I included Mr. Peterson as a recipient of my notice.
The District has not mailed me any documents pertaining to this request,
even though I wrote my address on the RTK form 11-AUG-2010 and publicly
stated my street address on 25-AUG-2010.
The District has not provided me the documents I requested in electronic
format even after I appealed to the Office of Open Records and asked
for the documents in a public forum.
The District's own policy KDB, attached, states the "public records of the
District shall be made available for inspection and copying in
accordance with applicable Federal and State law and the procedures
set forth herein."
The District contends my appeal is frivolous resulting in unneccessary expense.
The fact is, if the district complied with my request initially,
I would not have appealed and there would be no unneccessary expense.
I have also attached five (5) audio clips from Open Meetings, with
links to the entire meetings, the transcribed text and comment below:
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/6/21_School_Board_Business_Meeting.html
2010-06-21A:
Director Mary Birks:
Individuals who request reams of information, and yet, don't even take the time to come in and view those things, umm, which takes a lot of time from Mrs. Lewinsky uh a lot of time from some of our other folks. Takes them away from
their jobs here in the district, so they are helping kids to get an education rather
than copy paper that might not ever be looked at.
Comment:
The District is concerned about residents who do not inspect records after requesting them, yet denies access of records to residents who do indeed appear to inspect them. Director Birks contends non-certified office staff are educating children.
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/6/21_School_Board_Business_Meeting.html
2010-06-21B:
Director Dan Remely:
But I do have an objection to frivolous requests, to request to copy hundreds and
hundreds of pages and not have the courtesy or the respect to pick them up or to pay for them. That's part of the law. I have no concern about anything that that is out there in public, it's there everyday, it's on TV every week. I have a major concern for people who think it's just fun to run the costs up for the school district.
In my opinion, if we are going to post the right to know requests, especially now
that we have the, uh, we've already spent the money to put in the technical side
to keep our costs down. I would like to see the actual cost, legal, copying and
otherwise of each request, posted with that request, and uh, and then, I'd also
like to be noted that if things are copied on their behalf,
were they picked up or not?
Comment:
Director Remely contends resident requests for Open Records are frivolous and wishes to publicly intimidate residents from making Open Records requests.
He noted the District should inform the public whether or not a resident picks
up requested open records, but does not care if hired staff perform their
work function providing open records to residents who have previously requested them.
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/7/12_School_Board_Discussion_Meeting%2C_Part_1.html
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/7/12_School_Board_Discussion_Meeting%2C_Part_2.html
2010-07-12A:
Superintendent Steinhauer:
Things that we have implemented, prior to making all the copies without the parties picking them up, is, informing them of the cost, and asking them of their intent, of whether to pick those up, so we are trying to be a little bit more careful about making copies prior to people coming in to pick
them up but we'd certainly whatever the board is decision and what they'd like to
post uh you know we'd like to comply with well if you feel like you've eliminated that issue Superintendent Steinhauer: well you never know
Director Josephine Posti: yeah
Superintendent Steinhauer: sometimes people say yes they will come get it, and then they ultimately don't come and get, we've made the copies and they ultimately don't come and get them.
Director Mary Birks:
Ok, well there there's the other, the other situation where the information is
gathered and the individual is going to come in and go over them, and then doesn't.
And it's the time that Mrs. Szalinski spends gathering the information and I think
that's what Mrs. Posti is saying you know, if we are going to put this kind of money, it's taxpayer money, that we are spending on these requests. And if we, if we're doing that, we need to make sure that people know if they're just doing it to make people busy, or if they're actually doing something to find out information that's helpful.
Director Dan Remely:
Umm, I had suggested last week that we put the price on, and so forth; and I'm still firmly behind that, and in fact, if if uh we can advise one of the cost of copies, I would request the check up front, before we make the first copy.
I am not in a position to spend taxpayer's dollars on somebody's frivolous request.
If they want ten thousand pages copied, you pay for ten thousand pages.
If you don't pick them up, I don't care.
Director Josephine Posti:
Can we do that, though, under the way the law reads?
Solicitor Tom Peterson:
One hundre, hundred dollars.
Director Josephine Posti:
We can ask for pre-payment?
Solicitor Tom Peterson:
If it's a hundred dollars or more, you can ask for pre-payment.
Director Josephine Posti:
Ok, ok.
Director Dan Remely:
Umm, and I also think that we ought to, after posting the right to knows, which
are fine, you know everybody's allowed to do that, umm, the cost of it, and in some cases or all cases, an ongoing cost. So if someone's got a right to know bi-weekly, and every other week it's another thousand dollars, start adding it up.
Let the public know what they're requesting. It may be legitimate, that's fine;
but let 'em know what they're requesting, and let them know what the total costs are over the year. Um, it's just, uh, some of the requests we get are absurd, and
expensive for us to comply with, and then ignored, and I think that's just obnoxious to, to have to go through that. It's terrible, so, and a huge waste of money.
Comment:
This discussion underscores the fact that the District is not concerned about
the right of residents to request and receive Open Records.
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/7/12_School_Board_Discussion_Meeting%2C_Part_1.html
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/7/12_School_Board_Discussion_Meeting%2C_Part_2.html
2010-07-12B:
Superintendent Steinhauer:
Sometimes we get requests to uh, scan documents and then e-mail them to people, umm, and under the statute, umm, they are able to get information that way.
But then, there that is a cost of umm the administrative assistant or anybody else who is involved in gathering those documents. Remember that the right to know does not require us to develop documents, it just requires us to provide the information that is currently on a document, or uh, something that we have already have made that
doesn't require us to make those documents make a spreadsheet or anything like that.
We can provide the information from where somebody else can make that spreadsheet.
Comment:
Dr. Steinhauer stated the District provides residents Open Records in scanned pdf format via e-mail. He also said the District does not perform additional manual data entry tasks to satisfy a request.
My request was for electronic scanned documents and would have required the same, or even less work than paper documents.
As a course of business, the District routinely scans paper documents
and e-mails the pdf facsimile of same. In fact, this very action was performed
when Ms. Szalinski replied to inform me the Open Records I requested would be available. This same scanning activity would have satisfied my original request if the District performed the scan of the Open Records I requested.
The District chose to create an undue hardship on me by delaying and denying
Open Records that the same agency admitted I am entitled to have.
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/7/12_School_Board_Discussion_Meeting%2C_Part_1.html
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/7/12_School_Board_Discussion_Meeting%2C_Part_2.html
2010-07-12C:
Superintendent Steinhauer:
Anybody requesting this a right to know, well, they really don't even need to do that, because we pretty much post every document that we own and have on our website.
Comment:
The District is wasting my time because the Open Records I requested should be on the website.
CC: schoolboardemaillist@mtlsd.net; tpeterson@tuckerlaw.com; tsteinhauer@mtlsd.net
Subject: Docket AP 2010-0761
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:29:13 +0000
Mr. Schnee,
Please acknowledge receipt of this e-mail message.
I am a
no formal law training. The
referred to as the District, is using all legal resources at its
disposal to keep me from inspecting public documents.
On 11-AUG-2010, I requested an e-mail pdf scan of a blank form document.
On 18-AUG-2010, I was informed by means of a scanned pdf document,
my request was granted, yet I was not provided the open record I requested.
On 19-AUG-2010 at 8:05AM EDT, I appeared at the Open Records office to
personally inspect the Open Records. The staff did not show up for work on
time and the same documents the Open Records officer informed me the day
before were available, were not available for me to inspect when I paid
the District a personal visit.
A resident need not to notify an agency in advance of public inspection during
normal business hours the day after being notified the Open Records
are available for inspection. This fact should be intuitively obvious
to the casual observer, but the District solicitor failed to recognize it.
On 34-AUG-2010, I e-mailed the solicitor advance notice that I would be
attending the Open Meeting, see attached notice.pdf document.
On 25-AUG-2010 during an open meeting, I asked the District if I could
inspect the Open Records made available for me on 18-AUG-2010.
The solicitor told me they were not available. Please note Open Meetings are
held one floor above the District offices and the documents could have
been given to me after the meeting if the District were not vigorously
protecting its position of prohibiting access to Open Records.
In an e-mail dated 26-AUG-2010, Mr. Peterson wrote I demanded, "again
without prior notice" to review the records.
If you review the meeting recording I sent last week, you will find
I asked politely without demanding.
Also, I did indeed provide one day prior advance notice of my attendance at
the 25-AUG-2010 Open Meeting, and I included Mr. Peterson as a recipient of my notice.
The District has not mailed me any documents pertaining to this request,
even though I wrote my address on the RTK form 11-AUG-2010 and publicly
stated my street address on 25-AUG-2010.
The District has not provided me the documents I requested in electronic
format even after I appealed to the Office of Open Records and asked
for the documents in a public forum.
The District's own policy KDB, attached, states the "public records of the
District shall be made available for inspection and copying in
accordance with applicable Federal and State law and the procedures
set forth herein."
The District contends my appeal is frivolous resulting in unneccessary expense.
The fact is, if the district complied with my request initially,
I would not have appealed and there would be no unneccessary expense.
I have also attached five (5) audio clips from Open Meetings, with
links to the entire meetings, the transcribed text and comment below:
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/6/21_School_Board_Business_Meeting.html
2010-06-21A:
Director Mary Birks:
Individuals who request reams of information, and yet, don't even take the time to come in and view those things, umm, which takes a lot of time from Mrs. Lewinsky uh a lot of time from some of our other folks. Takes them away from
their jobs here in the district, so they are helping kids to get an education rather
than copy paper that might not ever be looked at.
Comment:
The District is concerned about residents who do not inspect records after requesting them, yet denies access of records to residents who do indeed appear to inspect them. Director Birks contends non-certified office staff are educating children.
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/6/21_School_Board_Business_Meeting.html
2010-06-21B:
Director Dan Remely:
But I do have an objection to frivolous requests, to request to copy hundreds and
hundreds of pages and not have the courtesy or the respect to pick them up or to pay for them. That's part of the law. I have no concern about anything that that is out there in public, it's there everyday, it's on TV every week. I have a major concern for people who think it's just fun to run the costs up for the school district.
In my opinion, if we are going to post the right to know requests, especially now
that we have the, uh, we've already spent the money to put in the technical side
to keep our costs down. I would like to see the actual cost, legal, copying and
otherwise of each request, posted with that request, and uh, and then, I'd also
like to be noted that if things are copied on their behalf,
were they picked up or not?
Comment:
Director Remely contends resident requests for Open Records are frivolous and wishes to publicly intimidate residents from making Open Records requests.
He noted the District should inform the public whether or not a resident picks
up requested open records, but does not care if hired staff perform their
work function providing open records to residents who have previously requested them.
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/7/12_School_Board_Discussion_Meeting%2C_Part_1.html
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/7/12_School_Board_Discussion_Meeting%2C_Part_2.html
2010-07-12A:
Superintendent Steinhauer:
Things that we have implemented, prior to making all the copies without the parties picking them up, is, informing them of the cost, and asking them of their intent, of whether to pick those up, so we are trying to be a little bit more careful about making copies prior to people coming in to pick
them up but we'd certainly whatever the board is decision and what they'd like to
post uh you know we'd like to comply with well if you feel like you've eliminated that issue Superintendent Steinhauer: well you never know
Director Josephine Posti: yeah
Superintendent Steinhauer: sometimes people say yes they will come get it, and then they ultimately don't come and get, we've made the copies and they ultimately don't come and get them.
Director Mary Birks:
Ok, well there there's the other, the other situation where the information is
gathered and the individual is going to come in and go over them, and then doesn't.
And it's the time that Mrs. Szalinski spends gathering the information and I think
that's what Mrs. Posti is saying you know, if we are going to put this kind of money, it's taxpayer money, that we are spending on these requests. And if we, if we're doing that, we need to make sure that people know if they're just doing it to make people busy, or if they're actually doing something to find out information that's helpful.
Director Dan Remely:
Umm, I had suggested last week that we put the price on, and so forth; and I'm still firmly behind that, and in fact, if if uh we can advise one of the cost of copies, I would request the check up front, before we make the first copy.
I am not in a position to spend taxpayer's dollars on somebody's frivolous request.
If they want ten thousand pages copied, you pay for ten thousand pages.
If you don't pick them up, I don't care.
Director Josephine Posti:
Can we do that, though, under the way the law reads?
Solicitor Tom Peterson:
One hundre, hundred dollars.
Director Josephine Posti:
We can ask for pre-payment?
Solicitor Tom Peterson:
If it's a hundred dollars or more, you can ask for pre-payment.
Director Josephine Posti:
Ok, ok.
Director Dan Remely:
Umm, and I also think that we ought to, after posting the right to knows, which
are fine, you know everybody's allowed to do that, umm, the cost of it, and in some cases or all cases, an ongoing cost. So if someone's got a right to know bi-weekly, and every other week it's another thousand dollars, start adding it up.
Let the public know what they're requesting. It may be legitimate, that's fine;
but let 'em know what they're requesting, and let them know what the total costs are over the year. Um, it's just, uh, some of the requests we get are absurd, and
expensive for us to comply with, and then ignored, and I think that's just obnoxious to, to have to go through that. It's terrible, so, and a huge waste of money.
Comment:
This discussion underscores the fact that the District is not concerned about
the right of residents to request and receive Open Records.
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/7/12_School_Board_Discussion_Meeting%2C_Part_1.html
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/7/12_School_Board_Discussion_Meeting%2C_Part_2.html
2010-07-12B:
Superintendent Steinhauer:
Sometimes we get requests to uh, scan documents and then e-mail them to people, umm, and under the statute, umm, they are able to get information that way.
But then, there that is a cost of umm the administrative assistant or anybody else who is involved in gathering those documents. Remember that the right to know does not require us to develop documents, it just requires us to provide the information that is currently on a document, or uh, something that we have already have made that
doesn't require us to make those documents make a spreadsheet or anything like that.
We can provide the information from where somebody else can make that spreadsheet.
Comment:
Dr. Steinhauer stated the District provides residents Open Records in scanned pdf format via e-mail. He also said the District does not perform additional manual data entry tasks to satisfy a request.
My request was for electronic scanned documents and would have required the same, or even less work than paper documents.
As a course of business, the District routinely scans paper documents
and e-mails the pdf facsimile of same. In fact, this very action was performed
when Ms. Szalinski replied to inform me the Open Records I requested would be available. This same scanning activity would have satisfied my original request if the District performed the scan of the Open Records I requested.
The District chose to create an undue hardship on me by delaying and denying
Open Records that the same agency admitted I am entitled to have.
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/7/12_School_Board_Discussion_Meeting%2C_Part_1.html
http://www.lebocitizens.com/Lebo_Citizens/Podcast/Entries/2010/7/12_School_Board_Discussion_Meeting%2C_Part_2.html
2010-07-12C:
Superintendent Steinhauer:
Anybody requesting this a right to know, well, they really don't even need to do that, because we pretty much post every document that we own and have on our website.
Comment:
The District is wasting my time because the Open Records I requested should be on the website.
13 comments:
What public record lists all individuals whose domicile is on school-district owned property?
According to the news article, Dan Remely wants the names of the requestors of RTK information and the cost of the RTK response to be made public.
Hey, MLRC can't you find us a candidate worth voting on the school board?
You have to wonder why and who released the names of the requestors to the newspaper? It looks like some requests from former board members hit a nerve!
Sounds eerily similar to the IRS scandal conceding their investigation of conservative teaparty groups.
"Give us the names, we want the names made public!"
"There's nothing there, so we want to call out people that are digging."
The board was embarrassed by some of those RTK's, and Dan was trying to intimidate residents who filed. That is called abuse of power.
Interesting that the District provides the school board with full full detail;s about each and every RTK as they arrive and are processed, while the Municipality does not advise the Commission unless a Commissioner becomes aware of a particular RTK from a constituent or a blog posting and asks the Manager for details.
Steve Feller responds to most RTK's almost immediately with the information requested and sometimes provides requested information without the necessity of filing a formal RTK. A refreshing and appreciated world of difference !
Dan Remely speaking specifically to RTK requests (for records that should be made available by our transparent board anyway):
"I have a major concern for people who think it's just fun to run the costs up for the school district."
Too bad he doesn't have the same concern for people who think it's fun to run up construction costs.
I just had a co-worker inform me their family (husband, wife, kids) are leaving Lebo and moving to an adjacent community. Why? Two reasons--the tax situation and the environment within the walls of the high school. And the couple make a pretty decent living. What wonderful leadership our school board has demonstrated over the last four years. Just stellar. Good thing the MLRC has taken a tough stand on getting principled conservative candidates to run for office. Surely wouldn't want any tax-and-spend egoists deciding unilaterally what to do with our tax dollars.
Had E. Nuff,
Your co-worker isn't alone. Exit strategy is the next course for this place for our family and others too.
Five of my old and good friends are moving out of Lebo because of the taxes becoming no longer bearable.
Bringing it back to the tax question...
Give some thought to that mentality of getting out of Dodge. Why?
The Birks/Remely/Board for that matter all agree that practically all residents can afford the increase in taxes. Whether its $50 a month or $18 a month. The Board figures its residents will just come up with the money. They can reduce spending elsewhere or their wages keep up with the tax increases (even though this is provably untrue).
Regardless. That is the mindset of the Board and administration.
The problem that they don't see is there are other communities competing to take our residents away. They know our tax structure is too high. They know our high school project was crazy. And they are all too happy to take our residents who are able to move out of town. They will take the increase in income tax from these high earners and they will use it more wisely than our government.
One could write a book on this process but I don't have the time. Plus, the people who NEED to read a book like that won't get the premise. Increased taxes result in LESS of whatever is being taxed. Increase property tax? Lower (relative) home prices. Increase income tax? High earners will leave thereby reducing income. Punitive tax on goods? Fewer goods will get produced.
Think about it? Remember when all future planning was predicated on the "sin" taxes? People stopped sinning and all those budgets based on continuous consumption of said goods got blown out of the water.
Tell me a time when taxes increased and things got better.
How sad. But guess what? There will be a sucker who will buy it, paying more for it than its worth (hopefully) and the District will collect more in taxes. They just love to hear that people are moving out. Tell your friends to look in USC. There is more affordable housing there. I have been looking on the Howard Hanna website.
Elaine
I know 6 families that are moving to LEBO because of the quality of the education. People come and go, not a new story.
Do they want second rate educations 10:13?
People can post here all day and say they know families moving out because of taxes and people moving in because of the schools. I will be magnanimous and accept them at their word. None of this matters nor solves the basic issue with education in Mt. Lebanon or, indeed, across Pennsylvania.
The argument is often made, on this Blog and other Blogs in the community, that "people know Mt. Lebanon is expensive" but that they move here and accept the cost because of "the quality of the education in the public schools."
I find it rather ironic and elitist that people commend the fact that one must be well-off in order to move into Mt. Lebanon in order to access a PUBLIC school education! This is what one might expect of those availing themselves of a pricy private school. And while the "local control" argument is often adduced as to why Mt. Lebanon wishes to keep the current system intact, let me remind everyone that it is the Pennsylvania Department of Education that sets the rules of the game across the Commonwealth.
Mission Statement:
The mission of the department is to academically prepare children and adults to succeed as productive citizens. The department seeks to ensure that the technical support, resources and opportunities are in place for all students, whether children or adults, to receive a high quality education.
Should not the single mother who lives in Duquesne and wants her kid to have a good education - and there are such people - be afforded that right? Do we tell her that her only option is to make more money so that she can afford to move to Mt. Lebanon?
The entire District concept is an education dinosaur that will eventually die. The right of choice has been largely acknowledged in Europe, and in many states here in the USA the right of families to choose the most appropriate schools for their kids is being recognized. Our next-door state of Delaware recently enacted a law "creating a uniform application system for school choice, which allows students to attend schools other than the ones they would attend under regular attendance policies." (Reference: The school choice process in Delaware is about to become a little easier.)
In order to move Pennsylvania into the 21st Century two things will have to change: 1)the elimination of the "District" model of balkanized schools, and 2)the elimination of the "property tax" as a funding vehicle.
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