York County lawmakers from both sides of the aisle met with Governor Tom Wolf this week to discuss the York City School District’s battle against going fully charter. A judge recently allowed the district to appeal a state takeover, and now it has people wondering what happens next.
Democratic Representative Kevin Schreiber tells FOX43 that Governor Wolf says the way things are within the York City School District right now is unacceptable. Wolf says money alone won’t fix it, but he doesn’t think a court battle will either.
Ever since York County Judge Stephen Linebaugh granted the school district an appeal in the case for receivership people have wondered where the legal battle will go when Tom Wolf takes office. During the Corbett administration the state petitioned and was granted the power for the district to be put into receivership. Receiver, David Meckley was making a move towards turning all the public schools into charter schools, but then Judge Linebaugh granted an appeal and now a different governor is in charge.
Governor Wolf has said he opposes a charter school takeover of York City schools. If he takes that action, our FOX43 legal analyst, Steven Breit, says in this case both the state and school district could file a petition to have the receivership rescinded. But after a meeting with lawmakers, they say the governor is not making any immediate changes.
“This is certainly untested. This is not terrain that Pennsylvania school districts or the Department of Education have been in before,” said Rep. Kevin Schreiber.
Rep. Schreiber has met with Wolf about this issue multiple times. He says the governor is still learning all the legalities. Regardless of the difference in political views, members of both parties agree on one thing..
“We need to put our political differences aside and to work very hard to do what’s right by the children and the schools,” said Rep. Mike Regan.
Republican Mike Regan said the governor didn’t talk about a specific plan to improve schools. But, it’s something that hits home for him.
“He spoke very anecdotally and warmly about his time going to York High, and that his father went there and his grandfather went there. Public school education as you can tell meant a lot to him,” said Regan.
Lawmakers say during the meeting they discussed some different solutions to improve the district, like adding resources and programs but nothing concrete was decided.
