From Left Field

PITTSBURGH - A suburban Pittsburgh school district is reviewing whether it should continue paying for the children of Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) to attend a cyber school even though the senator and his family live in Virginia.

Penn Hills has spent $100,000 educating Santorum's children at an Internet-based school since 2001-02, said Erin Vecchio, a school board member who requested the review. She is also head of the local Democratic committee.

"I'm concerned, because [he is] taking away from my kid. That $100,000... could be going to my kids, a computer or something," said Vecchio, who has three children enrolled in Penn Hills schools. "I'm sick of this man saying that he lives in Penn Hills when he doesn't."

Santorum's spokeswoman, Christine Shott, said she did not know whether the senator and his wife, who have six children, had ever stayed in the two-bedroom house they own in Penn Hills.

The Santorums bought the house for $87,800 in 1997, and it was assessed for $106,000 last year, records show.

The couple's home in Leesburg, Va., was assessed at $757,000 this year, tax records show.

Under Pennsylvania's 2002 cyber-school law, the district in which a student lives must pay the cost of tuition for students enrolled in cyber charter schools. Virginia has no such provision.

Vecchio asked the school superintendent to conduct a formal review at a board meeting this week.

"As we would do in any case, for any citizen, if there is a question of residency, the staff is looking into it," Penn Hills School Superintendent Patricia Gennari told the Associated Press.

Shott said the senator, now in his second term, was a resident of Penn Hills and paid taxes on the property. She said she did not know and could not comment on whether the family ever stayed at the home or rented it out.

Shott said Santorum was not available yesterday to comment.

It is not unusual for U.S. senators to have homes in or near Washington. But, at age 46, Santorum is not your typical senator. He is the fifth-youngest member in a chamber where the average age is 64 and most of his colleagues do not have to worry about where to send their children to school.

As part of his duties as a senator and head of the Republican Conference, Santorum travels often; his children often accompany him, something made possible by their taking classes through the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, Shott said. She added that Santorum had visited each of Pennsylvania's 67 counties every year since he went to the Senate in 1994.

The Penn Hills Progress, a weekly newspaper, first reported last month that the district was paying for the Santorum children to take classes through the cyber school.