State files court action to take over Harrisburg schools

• 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.

 Vicki Vellios Briner / PennLive

Harrisburg School District Board directors Joseph Brown and Judd Pittman during a special meeting to vote on hiring in-house solicitor James Ellison, Monday, April 22, 2019.

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

There’s history here

Vicki Vellios Briner / PennLive

Harrisburg School District Board directors Joseph Brown and Judd Pittman during a special meeting to vote on hiring in-house solicitor James Ellison, Monday, April 22, 2019.

• The state Department of Education filed a court action yesterday to take over the beleaguered Harrisburg School District, a move criticized by some — including the PSBA — in light of major pending changes to the school board due to the recent election. Already, a proceeding is scheduled for Friday, notes the Pennsylvania Capital-Star’s Elizabeth Hardison (who formerly covered the city and its schools for The Burg). PennLive has also been following this story closely; Christine Vendel has their latest here.

• This would be the second takeover of Harrisburg schools. The first time around, the state didn’t take control directly. Instead, the state’s hyper-specific Education Empowerment Act put Mayor Stephen Reed in charge of appointing a control board to run things. This related timeline from PennLive’s archives runs through 2008 — just before the start of the city government’s financial problems that would lead to a takeover of City Hall (which I covered in its final year).

• Until now, full-blown state takeovers of public school systems in Pa. have been limited to Chester-Upland and Philadelphia. York City School District successfully fought a 2014-15 takeover attempt that would’ve also forced charterization of the entire district (I covered that story, too).

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Jenny Kane / The Associated Press

An apartment for sale in Jersey City.

• The state’s giving $3.4 million to preserve affordable housing in 10 suburban and rural areas throughout Pa., Ryan Briggs reports for WHYY.

• A new report suggests access to broadband in rural Pa. is even worse than known previously. WPSU’s Min Xian has the full story, including the FCC’s objections to the findings.

• Pennsylvania law allows children to wait to start school until they are 8 years old, longer than almost any other state. Gov. Tom Wolf has been saying he wants Pa.’s compulsory education age changed to 6 years old. The state House Education Committee is meeting on the topic today. Keystone Crossroads’ Avi Wolfman-Arent will monitor the discussion for anything newsworthy.