Category: Government Actions

Judge Rules Provision of PA Ed. Law is Unconstitutional (January 26, 2024)

A ruling by a federal judge avers that a PA law’s confidentiality provision that makes it a misdemeanor to disclose the existence of a state complaint or any information about it unless and until discipline is imposed is an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment. The ruling is a result of the plaintiff, a school board member who is also the parent of disabled children, seeking to publicize a misconduct allegation against the school psychologist who has worked with his sons. The parent also criticized the PA Department of Education’s (PDE) dismissal of his case.

The Educator Discipline Act is a state law that controls how PDE addresses misconduct complaints against school staff.

PDE has yet to decide whether it will appeal the ruling.

For more details on the case, visit 10 Philadelphia by clicking here.

PA Navigate Unveiled: A New Online Tool To Better Connect Pennsylvanians With Food, Housing, Childcare And More (January 23, 2024)

On January 23, 2024, PA Department of Human Services (DHS) Secretary Dr. Val Arkoosh, findhelp Founder & CEO Erine Gray, and Community Action Partnership (CAP) Lancaster CEO Vanessa Philbert announced the launch of PA Navigate, an online tool that connects Pennsylvanians with community-based organizations, county and state agencies, and healthcare providers, for referrals to community resources that help them meet their most basic needs like food, shelter, transportation, and more. PA Navigate also allows individuals to refer themselves for services and facilitates greater connection and communication between healthcare providers and organizations that serve shared populations.

PA Navigate’s primary goal is to boost communication between health care and social services to improve follow-through on referrals, as well as to act as a support finder for citizens. 

A person’s overall health and wellness are influenced by far more than just their physical health. Socioeconomic, environmental, and behavioral factors shape our present and long-term health outcomes. The National Academy of Medicine estimates that social determinants of health like income, access to essential resources, education and employment, social supports, and physical environment contribute up to 90 percent of health outcomes. Despite this, health care providers and social service and community-based organizations that can help people experiencing barriers to essential needs and economic stability are not always closely linked.

PA Navigate bridges these systems through a shared platform where health care providers and social services organizations can track client referrals and better understand and assist with a client’s individual needs, helping them access services and supports. The system will also allow health care and service providers to assess an individual’s needs during a physician’s office or emergency department visit, when receiving case management services, or seeking assistance from a community-based organization, among others.

“CAP is thrilled to host the Department of Human Services and Secretary Arkoosh for the launch of PA Navigate, a platform we are looking forward to engaging with in order to positively impact individual and community outcomes around social determinants of health,” said CAP Lancaster CEO Vanessa Philbert. “We believe this platform has the opportunity to bring increased resourcing to individuals living with low incomes here in Lancaster, and we congratulate Pennsylvania for its leadership in this space.” 

The tool also will gather data that can help the Commonwealth and its partners better understand health and social services needs of Pennsylvanians and identify service gaps or opportunities for better support across the state. By looking at critical social determinants of health, including employment, child care, transportation, food security, access to health care, and housing stability, Commonwealth agencies and partners at the county and local level can help Pennsylvanians achieve better long-term health outcomes. 

PA Navigate is a collaborative effort among health information organizations (HIOs) and brings together multiple state agencies, counties, local non-profits and community organizations, health care entities, and social services providers. HIOs participating in the project include ClinicalConnect Health Information Exchange, Central PA Connect Health Information Exchange, HealthShare Exchange, and the Keystone Health Information Exchange. In September 2023, findhelp was chosen as the PA Navigate platform.  

For more information and to find resources in your community, visit pa-navigate.org.

Final Title IX Regulations to be Further Delayed (January 22, 2024)

It appears that the March deadline for the much-anticipated U.S Department of Education (USDE) final Title IX regulations banning sex-based discrimination – including sexual assault – in federally funded K-12 schools, will come and go without approval.

The USDE had set a March deadline for the regulations, but hasn’t yet cleared a key procedural hurdle, potentially pushing their release back by months.

According to K-12 Dive, the USDE has yet to transmit the revised regulations to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for evaluation. This required step in the process could take up to 120 days for review. That means that May is possibly the earliest for the regulations to be released.

Source: K-12 Dive.

Act 56 Changes Instructional Time Requirements for Public School Entities (January 21, 2024)

On December 14, 2023, Governor Shapiro signed into law HB 1507 amending the School Code to allow public school entities to adopt a school term consisting of either (a)180 days or (b) 900 hours at the elementary level or 990 hours at the secondary level. Now Act 56 of 2023, the bill reads as follows:

“Public School Code of 1949 is amended by adding a section to read:
Section 130. Minimum Number of Days or Hours.–(a) Notwithstanding section 520.1 or 1501 or other provision of law to the contrary, beginning in the 2023-2024 school year and continuing each school year thereafter, a school entity shall provide within the school year:
(1) a minimum of one hundred eighty (180) days of instruction; or
(2) nine hundred (900) hours of instruction at the elementary level or nine hundred ninety (990) hours
of instruction at the secondary level.
(b) Nothing in this section shall be construed to supersede or preempt a provision of a collective bargaining agreement entered into between a school employer and an exclusive representative of the employees under the act of July 23, 1970 (P.L.563, No.195), known as the “Public Employe Relations Act,” prior to the effective date of this section.
(c) As used in this section, the term “school entity” shall mean a school district, intermediate unit or area career and technical school. “

Upon passage, Act 56 took effect immediately.

The change in law now allows public school entities to adopt a school term consisting of either (a)180 days or (b) 900 hours at the elementary level or 990 hours at the secondary level.  Prior to the change, the PA School Code required that public school entity school terms satisfy both the day and hour minimums, unless the school entity was granted approval by the PA Secretary of Education that allowed for a term to be based on one or the other. Thus, school entities may now increase or decrease the number of days in a school year by creating schedules that meet the hours requirement only.

US DOJ Releases Report on its Critical Incident Review of the Response to the Mass Shooting at Robb Elementary School

On January 18, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the release of a report on its critical incident review of the law enforcement response to the tragic school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced the review shortly after the tragedy on May 24, 2022, in which 19 children and two teachers died. The report provides a thorough description of the critical incident review that has taken place over the past 20 months.

“The law enforcement response at Robb Elementary on May 24th, 2022 — and the response by officials in the hours and days after — was a failure. As a consequence of failed leadership, training, and policies, 33 students and three of their teachers — many of whom had been shot — were trapped in a room with an active shooter for over an hour as law enforcement officials remained outside. We hope to honor the victims and survivors by working together to try to prevent anything like this from happening again, here or anywhere.”

The report examines the multiple failures in the response to the tragedy, including the breakdowns in leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy, and training that contributed to those failures. It describes the responding officers’ most significant failure as not treating the incident throughout as an active shooter situation and using the available and sufficient resources and equipment to push forward immediately and continuously to eliminate the threat. Although several of the first officers on the scene initially acted consistent with generally accepted practices to try to engage the subject, once they retreated after being met with gunfire, the law enforcement responders began treating the incident as a barricaded subject scenario rather than as an active shooter situation. In all, there was a 77-minute gap between when officers first arrived on the scene and when they finally confronted and killed the subject.

To view the DOJ press release, click here.