A Tale of Two Field Trips

The other day, The Sentinel published an article that many parents in the Cumberland Valley School District rightly celebrated: Cumberland Valley to reinstate elementary field trips thanks to grant money.

Last fall, under pressure to cut costs, the school district had cancelled field trips for elementary students, much to the distress of parents. Then State Sen. Greg Rothman came to the rescue.

Somehow he got the Department of Community and Economic Development (huh?) to come up with “approximately” $135,000 to restore some field trips. Critically, the money will cover all of the 4^th grade trips to the state Capitol next year. No doubt there will be real educational value to these field trips. But the children also will be props in photo ops for Sen. Rothman’s newsletters — scroll down in this one from last May — just in time for his re-election campaign.

The Rest of the Story

What the Sentinel didn’t report is that Cumberland Valley students and parents never should have faced this problem in the first place.

That’s because state law, for which Rothman is responsible, is forcing Cumberland Valley to pay some $5 million – 37 times the “restored” amount – to cyber charter schools that grossly over-spend, tragically under-achieve and are virtually unaccountable to taxpayers. Without that outrageous mandate, Cumberland Valley can afford field trips and a lot more that can improve its students’ education. Or maybe even hold the line on property taxes.

Affording field trips, like $40,500 for a baseball game, is no problem for CCA.

Compare the hat-in-hand situation of Cumberland Valley with Commonwealth Charter Academy (CCA). Recently I received documents under a right-to-know request – the only way CCA gives up information – about one of their field trips.

In July 2022, CCA paid the Harrisburg Senators minor league baseball team $39,000 for a picnic for 1,300 people. CCA paid another $1,500 for parking.

One thousand three hundred people. More than one-third of the average attendance at a Senators game that year.

This *highly educational* event included an all-you-can-eat-and-drink menu of the usual *nutritious* baseball food plus an “open bar (8% service fee added).” No doubt everyone learned a lot that day.

Who feasted at the expense of children in other schools and taxpayers worried about paying for their own food and meds?

We don’t know. Almost certainly CCA students and their families. Maybe CCA employees and their families. Maybe families CCA was trying to recruit to enroll their children at CCA. We don’t know, and we can’t find out.

What we do know is that CCA – an online, cyber school – wastes a fortune on frivolity, advertising, lobbying, entertainment, travel, transportation, and much else – all at the expense of children in other schools that perform much better academically than CCA.

Sen. Rothman: White Knight or Wastrel?

As a state lawmaker, it is entirely within Rothman’s ability – and duty – to support all community public schools as the Constitution requires. It also is within his ability to stop the waste, fraud and abuse of CCA and other cyber charter schools.

Both need to happen now. Contact Sen. Rothman at grothman@pasen.gov and insist that he act to safeguard children and taxpayers. Forward this post or write a message of your own.

But say something, and say it loud. The monied interests that support CCA make it very hard for Rothman and other lawmakers to hear our voices.