Federal investigators on Wednesday sought help finding anyone who has been asked or required to provide money or anything else of value in order to obtain a job in a northeastern Pennsylvania public school.

The FBI made the request in what it said is a criminal investigation into the hiring of teachers and other school employees.

''We have heard allegations that it is a practice that may be going on in multiple areas, so we want to make sure that anybody who thinks that they have information that's related to this, that they should feel free to provide it to us,'' said FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver, a Philadelphia-based special agent.

The news release was issued one day after Wilkes-Barre Area School District Superintendent Jeffrey Namey testified before a federal grand jury in Scranton and a week after federal agents obtained records from the district and the Wilkes-Barre Area Career and Technical Center.

Here's hoping. This story disgusted me, and that's tough, considering I'm a jaded SOB.

A state senator on Monday advocated that juveniles be required to have a lawyer in court in the aftermath of hundreds of youth convictions being thrown out because of judicial corruption in northeastern Pennsylvania.

The proposal is one of several planned by Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Luzerne, to shore up the rights of juveniles and redress the wrongs suffered by the victims of two judges who pleaded guilty to taking millions of dollars in kickbacks from youth detention centers.

''These kids certainly did not get the kind of treatment I would want for my child, as well as everybody else's child,'' Baker said.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said yesterday that it would give a judge the discretion to overturn the cases of as many as 1,200 juveniles sentenced by a Luzerne County judge who admitted taking payments from detention centers to which he sentenced some of them.

Calling the unanimous order a first step toward restoring public confidence in the justice system, the court said it applies to first-time offenders convicted of minor crimes who appeared without counsel before Luzerne County Juvenile Court Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. between 2003 and 2008.

"Today's order is not intended to be a quick fix," Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille said in a statement. "It's going to take some time, but the Supreme Court is committed to righting whatever wrong was perpetrated on Luzerne's juveniles and their families."

In a report to the court filed March 13, Berks County Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim said his investigation uncovered "routine deprivation of children's constitutional rights to appear before an impartial tribunal and have an opportunity to be heard."