Good morning and welcome to Broad + Liberty's Weekly Reads.

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1. Why do school districts spend so much money fighting Right to Know requests?

By Beth Ann Rosica
 

In Pennsylvania, we are fortunate to have a robust RTK law and a process to appeal through the Office of Open Records (OOR) when we believe the agency did not fulfill the request adequately. Under the law, all agency records are presumed to be public and the burden is on the agency to prove the records are exempt from disclosure. This is significant because it means school districts have the burden to show why requested records are exempt from the law as opposed to parents having the burden to demonstrate why they are entitled to the records.

The RTK law was enacted to “empower citizens by affording them access to information concerning the activities of their government…[and to] prohibit secrets, scrutinize actions of public officials, and make officials accountable for their actions.” 

But despite the law, many Pennsylvania public schools abuse their authority and hide information that should be disclosed to parents and citizens who seek it. Many districts use taxpayer dollars to fight parents, making the process as expensive and time-consuming as possible, so that many parents simply give up. 

Why It Matters. The RTK law was designed to give citizens and parents the right to access public information, yet many school districts with their seemingly unlimited resources fight parents on very basic requests. The districts hope that parents will not spend their own money to hire an attorney to fight on their behalf. The average parent does not have the time, energy or resources to engage in a protracted legal battle with a school district.

And yet, school districts regularly complain about lack of funding for education initiatives. If they eliminated legal reviews on RTK requests, districts could have significant amounts of money every year that could be used to hire more teachers or reading specialists.

What are the districts hiding and why are they spending so much money to keep it that way?

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2. Pennsylvania’s Dem. senators united in silence about Shapiro administration’s missing emails

By Todd Shepherd
 

Pennsylvania’s Democratic senators are united in their silence when it comes to new revelations that Governor Josh Shapiro’s office deleted emails for a young deputy in his administration who quit after claiming she was subjected to weeks worth of sexual harassment by one of the governor’s top aides.

The claims from the young woman were significant enough that the governor’s office spent $295,000 In taxpayer dollars to settle the matter out of court months later, and the accused, Mike Vereb, eventually resigned his post as director of legislative affairs, one of the best cabinet-level jobs in the commonwealth. Vereb is a Republican who has known Shapiro at least since the two were representatives from Montgomery County in the General Assembly from roughly 2008 to 2011. Vereb later went on to serve Shapiro in his time as attorney general.

Broad + Liberty sent a request for comment on the missing emails to twenty of the 21 Democratic senators earlier this week. None responded.

Why It Matters. Broad + Liberty reported last week that the Shapiro administration admitted it “no longer possessed” any emails for the deputy when this outlet requested them through a Right to Know Law request in March 2024 — about six months after the scandal first broke into public view.

An analysis of state retention records suggests many, if not most of the deputy’s emails should have been preserved for three years at a minimum, eight years in other circumstances.

If the administration had launched an investigation as it appeared to claim in those documents, it would most likely have required the preservation of records for the accuser and the accused to be preserved as part of the fact finding.

Quotable. “The idea that there are zero emails on the server for an employee is preposterous. Even after someone’s account is removed, there are still records of emails that were sent and received in other inboxes,” State Rep. Abby Major said. 

“Also, why would they delete her account and any record of her employment while in the middle of a legal case with her? It suggests to me that they were potentially interested in hiding some evidence or proof of the sexual harassment that could have been found in her email.”

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3. Lightning Round

• From the Editors: The one way New Jersey is five times better than Pa. on transparency

• Upper Darby’s income tax is headed back to court

• Former Delco correctional officer wins $200K judgement against county

• Ben Mannes: Judge cites Krasner for misconduct

• Michael Straw: Anti-obesity medications help “Make America Healthy Again” and save Americans billions

• Kyle Sammin: Trump blames Canada

• Guy Ciarrocchi: The lesson from Covid — the “experts” hate our First Amendment

• Michael Thomas Leibrandt: Packers want to ban the Brotherly Shove — they should just learn to stop it.

• Thom Nickels: Student journalism in the 1970s at The New Price Review

• Beth Ann Rosica: The Right to Know process empowers everyday citizens to expose government waste

4. Podcast

5. What we're reading

Attorney General Dave Sunday has a radical idea: he wants to just do the job the people of Pennsylvania have elected him to do. No grandstanding, no politically motivated lawsuits, no legislating through the courts, and no running for a new office as soon as he’s won the last one (unlike some other former state AGs we could name). He lays it all out in a surprisingly fair-minded interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer. It’s a refreshing change from the usual run of politicians who always have their eyes on the next TV spot and the next office.