WB Area grad testifies at school fair funding trial

Jan. 25—Meyers High School 2019 graduate Paul Michael Horvath offered a different perspective Monday in the 2-month old "School fair funding" trial being held in Harrisburg: A studen'ts view. And it was pretty grim.

"I remember coming home from school and not feeling really great about where you are going to school," he told the Commonwealth Court presided by Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer. "The facade outside chipping away, the ceiling inside chipping away."

He described desks that didn't fit students or were broken, textbooks missing pages, and dealing with cockroaches in lavatories, locker rooms and gyms. Most water fountains didn't work, meaning "As a young kid in high school you need to make sure you have at least two bucks for water or Gatorade to quench thirst after gym."

Horvath is the son of Tracey Hughes, a longtime activist in the Wilkes-Barre Area School District who joined the lawsuit as an individual petitioner. The suit, known briefly as William Penn School District et al. v. Pennsylvania Department of Education et al. was filed jointly by six school districts (including Wilkes-Barre Area) two statewide advocacy organizations and several families. It claims the state is failing to meet a Constitutional mandate to provide a "thorough and efficient" education for all students.

Horvath was in eighth grade at Meyers when the suit was first filed in 2014. After numerous challenges and changes, it cleared all hurdles and got on the docket this fall, with opening arguments given Nov. 12 last year and the first witnesses testifying Nov. 15. Court was closed Nov. 22-26 for Thanksgiving and Dec. 22-26 for Christmas, but generally the trial has run five days a week and is expected to conclude sometime next month.

Until Monday, the list of witnesses was a litany of district officials and education experts. Horvath gave a student's eye view of what those who brought the suit contend is a dramatically inconsistent and inadequate state funding system that leaves many poorer districts unable to provide everything students need to succeed.

The Meyers building, since closed with the construction of a new high school in Plains Township that consolidated grades 9 through 12 in the district's three high schools this year — had arguably become the poster school for outdated facilities. The front entrances were protected from potential falling facade pieces by boxy wooden constructs, the STEM (Science, Technology Engineering and Math) academy had set up in some spare basement space, and a tunnel-like driveway to the adjoining stadium had gone unused due to fear of concrete falling from above.

The venerable school still boasted a lot of elegance, with lots of marble, heavy wooden doors and stained glass — including in the auditorium ceiling. But district officials insisted it would cost more to repair than to build new.

Horvath testified to the problems, including a lack of air conditioning in summer and a cantankerous heating system that could push the temperature inside well into the 80s, making it hard to concentrate on studies. "It was a distraction," he said. "It was more of a survival mode, just to go through your day. Trying to learn something is hard if you're not in a comfortable environment."

Horvath also offered an accounting of a year he spent in Utica College, New York, as proof he felt unprepared for higher education, but that testimony came under dispute, with attorneys for the defense arguing it was "beyond the scope of discovery" and that they had not been given adequate time to prepare for such testimony. The judge deferred a ruling on the objection, saying she would review details of the matter, allowing testimony but promising to strike it from the record if she upheld the objection.

Horvath talked of not being familiar enough with computers when he entered college intending to become a special education teacher. While Meyers had computers, they were shared among students so there wasn't one always available — a problem that has been fixed with the new high school providing a laptop for each student.

He also cited his inexperience with doing research in libraries because the district had eliminated librarians and pared down the number of books available at Meyers. And he said he felt unprepared when asked to do a 25-page paper because the longest he had done in high school was "three pages, double spaced."

And he said chemistry lab classes in college were much different than high school because the equipment at Meyers was so old it couldn't be used. "In high school we never did experiments with Bunsen burners because we were not able to turn them on or control them."

He ultimately left Utica after the first year because he felt he couldn't handle it and moved back home, enrolling in King's College but again feeling unable to deal with the technology issues when required to do remote classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Defense attorneys countered with transcripts form Meyers and emails between Hughes and teachers that suggested Horvath was not applying himself, was missing many classes, often looked at his phone rather than paying attention in class and missed deadlines for turning in assignments. He said he missed classes because he was a prominent football player who often got pulled out of class in his senior year for visits with college coaches, interviews with people making a documentary about the school after the School Board voted to close it and visits with his guidance counselor.

Horvath's testimony completed before the court broke for lunch. The schedule calls for testimony from one more local witness this week: Wilkes-Barre Area Superintendent Brian Costello.

Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish