Expanding school safety, community support

• Emily Previti/PA Post
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  Emily is a reporter for WITF who’s been covering voting and elections since July 2019 as part of her former role with statehouse accountability news organization PA Post. She was the senior reporter for statewide public media collaboration Keystone Crossroads. Previously, she covered city hall for PennLive/The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.), was a watchdog and city hall reporter at The Press of Atlantic City and reported for the Northwest Herald. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
  
  See other articles by Emily Previti for WITF.

 Ed Mahon / PA Post

Bob Smith stands in the backyard of his home in Schuylkill County on March 11, 2019. He asked PA Post whether something can be done about Pennsylvania's property taxes.

From The Context, PA Post’s weekday email newsletter:

Education update

Ed Mahon / PA Post

Bob Smith stands in the backyard of his home in Schuylkill County. Smith says he pays about $4,000 a year in property taxes.

• Bob Smith’s annual tax bill on his $170,000 home in Schuylkill County is about $4,000 — the majority of which goes to local public schools. Smith, 66, reached out to us with a question: Why does the practice of using property taxes to fund education persist, given the myriad complaints and problems with it? PA Post’s Ed Mahon found there are five main reasons. Read about them in this post.

• Pennsylvania school districts can get up to $25,000 per year to spend on school safety, and that was the focus of a symposium last weekend in Western Pa. Jen Kinney has this story for Keystone Crossroadsout of the summit.

• Lebanon school officials are going to start keeping two buildings open for extended hours to provide supplemental instruction and address student needs beyond academics. They say they’re modeling their “community schools” program after others elsewhere in Pa., including Allentown, Erie and Lancaster. Lebanon Daily News has the full story.

Best of the rest

Marc Levy / AP Photo

Corrections officers arrive for a shift at the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.

• Tobacco’s banned from Pa. prisons, starting July 1. E-cigarettes will be OK in certain spots, though, and inmates will have access to nicotine patches, according to this Associated Press report.

• Former East Pittsburgh police officer Michael Rosfeld goes to trial today for homicide in the shooting death of 17-year-old Antwon Rose last summer. WESA’s been following the story and has collected coverage here. Reporter An-Li Herring will be covering court proceedings.

• There’s a bill pending in the state Legislature that would turn vacant buildings into addiction treatment centers. Transforming Health’s Brett Sholtis will be covering lawmakers’ discussion about the proposal this morning.