This story was created by Spotlight PA State University Regional Office, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to investigative and public service journalism in Pennsylvania. Sign up for Talk of the Town, our north central Pennsylvania newsletter. Spotlightpa.org/newsletters/talkofthetown.
STATE UNIVERSITY — In preparation for Sunshine Week, an annual event that highlights the importance of transparency in government, Spotlight PA hosted a discussion on openness and accountability in public education.
A virtual panel on March 14 detailed how to move forward with open meetings and records laws, join local education conversations, and track the court-ordered review of Pennsylvania's education funding .
Here are five important things to know from the discussion. The full discussion can be viewed online.
School officials may not know the law
While some educational leaders may intentionally violate open meeting and records laws, others may simply not know what is required of them. Panelists emphasized the importance of learning the nuances of state law to better understand whether your school district or local university has an issue.
Ashli Giles Perkins, a staff attorney at the Education Law Center, said school boards need to take formal actions such as writing policies, making recommendations and voting on proposals in public. He said the public should be able to comment on these moves before the board votes.
Similarly, under Pennsylvania's Right to Know Law, government agency records, such as records from school districts, are presumed to be public. Giles Perkins said any resident can file a public records request.
However, the law exempts certain educational records from release, such as academic transcripts, personnel records, and documents that could pose a security risk if released.
Transparency rules vary by school in Pennsylvania
Private schools in Pennsylvania are not required to follow the same public records guidelines as public schools, but public schools also have different standards.
Pennsylvania's four state-affiliated universities (Lincoln University, Penn State University, Temple University, and University of Pittsburgh) are legally required to follow the state's open meetings law. However, due to their unique status as “state-related institutions,'' they are largely exempt from the Open Records Act.
Susan Spikka, executive director of Pennsylvania Education Voters, said charter schools and cyber charter schools must comply with right-to-know requirements, but the situation can be complicated. For example, education management organizations often operate charters and are required to disclose only records related to the school, rather than details of their entire operation.
Promoting transparency means participating
Ashley Stalnecker, LNP Education Reporter | LancasterOnline asks your local school board to understand what's going on, what records to request, and to determine whether state law may be violated. He said it was important to attend the meetings.
“There's no Sunshine Act police to find out these things are happening,” Stalnecker said. “If you're at a meeting like this and you witness something like that, stand up and say, 'I think this violates the Sunshine Act.'
Pennsylvania agencies found to have knowingly violated open meetings laws can be fined between $100 and $1,000 for a first offense, and the party filing the lawsuit can be forced to pay legal costs.
Giles Perkins acknowledged that alleging violations of the Sunshine Act can feel scary, especially since school boards should know the law given their position. But sometimes it takes saying something to flag a real problem, she said.
“The next thing you know, there's a Facebook thread about it and it's on the news and it's become such a big thing. And it starts with one person standing up,” Giles Perkins said. .
Customize your recording request using clues
WESA education reporter Gillian Forstadt requested information after hearing school officials discussing how school buildings were underutilized at a meeting.
Using the resulting data, she explores how enrollment trends are impacting local schools and what's next as local leaders consider consolidation. I was able to create a graph to show what could happen.
“That's the kind of data that is available to people,” Forstadt said. “And that's data that you don't typically get from school boards, that applies to individual students. These policies are made on a very large scale, but only when we have that data. , you can actually see how those decisions are impacting the students in each classroom.”
Points to note about new funding models
In February 2023, a Commonwealth Court judge ruled that Pennsylvania's public school funding system was unconstitutional and that students were “deprived of equal protection of the laws.” The Education Law Center helped file the lawsuit on behalf of a group of plaintiffs, including the Lancaster School District. The ruling kickstarts an ongoing review of how schools are funded.
Starnecker said if school districts could get more funding, whether the increased support would improve student achievement and whether schools would be able to help traditionally underserved students. He said he would monitor whether new support initiatives could be created or better support could be provided.
Spikka also emphasized tracking where the additional funds are being spent and encouraged the public to monitor whether the funds are being used for things like staff salary increases.
Two reporters on the panel, Mr. Forstadt and Mr. Starnecker, said that because tax revenue plays an important role in financing local education systems, new funding models could be used to increase property taxes and miscellaneous tax rates. He said he was interested in seeing what kind of impact it would have.
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