It’s probably just a coincidence but,
you do have to wonder if Lower Merion School District’s decision to settle a more than six-years-old lawsuit filed by Arthur Wolk might have had something to do with a hearing that Common Pleas Court Judge Richard Haaz had scheduled for August 3, 2022.
Had the district and Wolk not settled the lawsuit that Wolk originally filed on February 1, 2016, then lawyers for LMSD would have had to come to Judge Haaz’s courtroom on August 3 and “shown cause why Lower Merion School District should not be held in contempt of the decision and order of Judge Smyth, dated August 29, 2016.”
The district’s lawyers would have also had to argue against Wolk’s motion that would have prohibited LMSD from funding administrators’ pensions and paying counsel fees.
In other words, as of May 9, the district’s administrative staff, the school board and their lawyers had a little more skin in the game.
2,079 days went by from the time Judge Smyth issued his injunction until Judge Haaz scheduled the hearing for the contempt motion.
35 days elapsed from the time Judge Haaz scheduled the hearing for the contempt motion until Lower Merion School Board approved the settlement.
An Enemy of Public Education No More?
Lower Merion School District needed at least five votes from school board members (the board has nine members) in order to gain approval for the Wolk Lawsuit settlement.
At one time, that seemed like a tall order for a board that claimed five members who had been elected almost entirely on the basis of promising never to allow the district’s lawyers to even have a conversation with Wolk (who was considered by many to be an “Enemy of Public Education,” much less agreeing to a settlement with him).
