May 1, 2009
On November 13, 2008, RTEC argued before a Panel of Judges of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania that the Secretary's decision denying our petition was unfair and unjust because it simply gave no reasoning or explanation to back up his words.
After hearing the appeal the state court remanded it back to the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas and Judge Waite decided to award us a hearing enabling us to present additional information supporting the transfer.
This hearing was held on March 23rd in Doylestown to a packed Courtroom where at least 10 residents of Riegelsville testified supporting the transfer.
A legal brief and "fact findings" were filed on April 10th and sent to Harrisburg on April 17th. These can be read on this website found under facts and figures.
The appeals court has directed Sec. Zahorchak to re-decide based on all evidence given, and this time substantiate his decision.
There is no timeline set for Sec. Zahorchak to make a decision.
What can you do ?
As you may have been reading in the recent news, Easton is in a financial crisis, threatening teacher layoff, course cuts, etc. Please continue to write to Sec. Zahorchak (see below for address) about your educational concerns for our children and the disconnect with our community. Although it is tempting to talk about taxes, please do NOT...this is not going to help us at this time.
Secretary of Education
Gerald L. Zahorchak, D.Ed.
333 Market Street Harrisburg, PA 17126-0333
(717) 787-5820
March, 2008
The Riegelsville Tax & Education Coalition filed an appeal this week (March 2008) regarding PDE's decision to reject our transfer to the Palisades School district. Though our initial victory in the county Court of Common Pleas was stopped by the PDE, we are now headed to the state's Commonwealth Court to overturn the decision.
We are doing so based on four facts. First that the one sentence decision states that the petition lacked "educational merit" is a term that has no true legal definition and is therefore open to legal interpretation. In truth it is a vague tool that has allowed the PDE to be arbitrary in their reviews to avoid having to deal with problems such as ours. Secondly that our case is very sound across the board as was proven by the Court of Common Pleas judge in his immediate recognition of it's merits last April. The basics of what was presented at the hearing and what was sent to the PDE as part of their analysis last summer is available on this site as attachments. You can see that not only is the argument strong in a sense of community, history, geography, and economics, but first and foremost as far as academics. Thirdly we are appealing because the PDE gave no supporting evidence for the statement about lacking educational merit - we were not given any evidence of what their standards or their analysis bears. And lastly because of the fact that the one successful case in the states history which involved the transfer of a boro and three rural townships in East Brady, PA is an exact replica of ours. As a matter of fact our case is simpler and technically more feasible across the board. In essence the PDE already set the precedent for us and has ignored it for whatever reasons (politics and money - sound familiar).
We feel that a panel of judges of the Commonwealth Court will see deeper into the issue and do one of two things. Either abandon the PDE findings and remand it back to them based on precedence or new standards, or abandon the legal statute that dictates the process of transfer and send it to the legislators to rewrite the process into new law.
