State agrees to settle tuition spat over Santorum's children

HARRISBURG - The state Department of Education has agreed to pay $55,000 to settle a dispute with a school district stemming from a complaint over the tuition cost for the children of U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum to attend a cyber charter school.

Under a tentative settlement, the state will pay $55,000 to the Penn Hills School District, department spokesman Brian McDonald said. The board of the suburban Pittsburgh school district must still approve the settlement, board attorney Falco Muscante said.

McDonald denied that the money was a reimbursement to the school district, characterizing it instead as an acknowledgment that the department gave conflicting rules about when a district can challenge the state's decision to withhold tuition costs.

Originally, the district had sought about $73,000 that it said the state wrongly withheld over four school years, from 2001-02 to 2004-05, Muscante said.

The Penn Hills school board maintained that since Santorum lived primarily in Leesburg, Va., the Pennsylvania district should not have to pay for an out-of-state resident's children to go to a cyber charter school.

The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School enrolled five of the six children of Santorum, R-Pa.

Pennsylvania law requires school districts to pay for students who live in the district and enroll in cyberschools. Districts must pay the equivalent of 80 percent of their per-pupil costs toward cyberschool students' tuition.

Robert Traynham, a spokesman for Santorum, said he was unaware of the tentative settlement, but said the dispute was between the state, the charter school and the school district.

"Mr. and Mrs. Santorum are not a party to this," he said.