PA Open Records Challenge: Less Than a Challenge

In my Journalism for Print Media class, taught by Michele McCoy-Papakie, we were confronted with a challenge on a topic that I have never considered before: open records. I had never known about the law that makes certain records, like a superintendant's contract or a settlement agreeement between your municipality and another person, public information that is able to be requested and obtained by anyone who wants to know.
The first part of the challenge was for us to find Pennsylvania's ranking in the Better Government Association's 2002 survey of state open records laws. Pennsylvania ranks as number 47, and the state got an 'F' as a grade. The states that ranked below Pennsylvania were Alaska, Montana, South Dakota (47) and Alabama (50).
The second part of the challenge was to review www.passopenrecords.org, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association's blog on open reocrds issues, to check if the legislators in my municipality have signed on in support of improving Pennsylvania's open records law. I could not tell from the website if Senator Dominic Pileggi and Representative Bryan Lentz were for or against improving this law, so I contacted both of them in order to find out. To my surprise, both responded to my e-mails within one day and wrote that they supported the bill. In fact, Dominic Pileggie was the prime sponsor of the bill.
The last part of the challenge was to make an open records request. I chose to request the contract of my superintendant of my school district back home in Wallingford, Pa. I sent the request out on Monday, March 31 and expected to receive my request by mid-April. I got an e-mail after a few days saying that my request had been received. I found the requested documents in my mailbox on April 18, just in time to review the assignment and gather all of my e-mails and documents together to turn in.
The PA Open Records Challenge was less than a challenge because all of the documents and information I requested came back to me smoothly and in a timely fashion, and I didn't even have to pay for copies!