Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

School boards play a pivotal role in shaping the education that public school students receive. Among their many responsibilities, they set budgets, adopt curriculum, and approve school policies. They are also subject to the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law.  
 

The Pennsylvania School Board Association (PSBA) is a private, nonprofit membership association that aims to serve Pennsylvania’s elected school board directors. A school director will become a member through their district’s membership when they are elected or appointed to their board. However, the Association is not subject to the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law. 
 

The PSBA website lists its goals and mission, which includes things like exchanging information, handling school board problems, and rendering assistance and advice to school boards and members of school boards. These responsibilities go hand in hand with the responsibilities of the school board and the school entity itself. They are all reasons why the association should be subject to the Right-to-Know law just as much as the board itself.  
 

Additionally, in 1939, the former Commonwealth Department of Justice released the Digest Letters of Advice (School Employes Retirement System – Case of Preston 0. Van Ness) which determined that the Association is qualified to be a member of PSERS. The advice concluded that just as school board members fulfill their public duties on behalf of public schools by attending a convention of the School Directors Association, with reimbursement from taxpayer funds, that the employees of that Association, who give all their time to matters connected with public schools and are paid with taxpayer funds, are likewise engaged in activities on behalf of public schools, and are therefore qualified to be members of PSERS. PSERS has relied on that 1939 advice to include PSBA employees in its system. 
 

Further, just last month, the State Supreme Court ruled that the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) is a public entity and subject to the Right to Know Law. The opinion says the PIAA takes tax dollars and money from various public schools and therefore the General Assembly’s classification of PIAA as a state-affiliated entity for the purpose of qualifying under the Right to Know Law is valid and “furthers a legitimate state interest of transparency in PIAA’s use of public funds in a matter which dramatically impacts students’ lives.” This is another example of an association, taking taxpayer dollars and now falling under the purview of the Right to Know Law.  
 

The information the association possesses and shares with school boards helps to frame curriculums, budgets, and policies and should be transparently available to the public. They deserve to know where and how their tax dollars are spent.  
 

Please join me in co-sponsoring this important piece of legislation.