Warwick School District board members recently discussed the legal costs the incurred due to RTK requests following a public comment made by a parent made at a prior meeting. The board asked for Nate Wertsch, Warwick chief financial officer, to provide specifics and although he indicated, “we can’t provide detailed information”, he did go on to state that they could “some sort of summary.” Also according to this article in the Lancaster Patriot an email was sent by Justin Kratzer(Warwick Parents for Change Facebook group admin), that highlighted repeated discrepancies between statements made by the district and information obtained via RTK requests.
Some of those discrepancies included supposed social media threats that did not occur, false information about the source of the book “Gender Queer”, covid vaccine coercion efforts, and even procedural inconsistencies. In Kratzer’s email he went on to ask whether the trust issues stem from the inconsistencies and the unwillingness of the board to ask the questions that parents or citizens do. Ultimately it appears that lack of transparency is having a real fiscal impact on school districts such as Warwick.