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These daily emails are archived and searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
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Register for PA Schools Work Delaware County Work Group
Conference
Saturday, February 2, 2019 8:45 am – 12:00 pm at DCIU
Join the DCIU and the PA Schools Work
coalition to work together to advocate for PA public schools, their students
and the communities they serve.
At the event, you will:
Hear stories about how funding
affects students and educators across Delaware County
Learn how to speak with your
local legislators to advocate for the needs of our students
Connect on social media and
grow your network to influence stakeholders in your community
Blogger comment: all sitting members of the state’s Charter Appeals Board were appointed by Governor Corbett and all of their terms have expired.
Charter Appeal Board Members (from PDE’s Website)
Pedro A. Rivera, Secretary of Education, and Chair, State Charter Appeal Board, as of January 21, 2015.
Name Appointed Expires
Higher Education Member - Vacant
Cook, Julie A., A certified teacher in a public school* 10/14/2014 6/14/2018
Miller, Scott E., Business Member* 4/7/2014 6/14/2015
Munger, Lee Ann, Parent of a school-aged child* 6/20/2011 6/14/2017
Peri, Jonathan E., State Board of Education Member* 6/3/2014 6/14/2017
Yanyanin, Mitchell J., School Board Member* 6/20/2011 6/14/2015
Alaina C. Koltash, Counsel
* Appointed by Governor Corbett
https://www.education.pa.gov/K-12/Charter%20Schools/Pages/CAB-Members.aspx
“There was a time when Pennsylvania was picking up 51% of the cost of educating its children. Now the state shifts the cost to local school districts, and only pays for only 37% of educational costs—that is lower than all but three other states.”
In his second term, Gov. Wolf has a chance to make Pa.'s public schools even stronger | Opinion
Penn Live Guest Editorial By Paul Healey January 17, 2019
The first day of school always stirs a sense of excitement and anticipation: we all kick off the new term with straight A’s, perfect attendance, and on that very first day, everyone is a friend. The first day is a moment of optimism, and it often defines the tone of the coming school year. As Gov, Tom Wolf begins his second term leading Pennsylvania, a similar sense of optimism is alive in the Capitol on this first day. Wolf is kicking off his final, four-year term fresh from a resounding affirmation that voters overwhelmingly support his agenda, and no legislative lines in the sand have yet to be drawn. A clarion call for bold investment in Pennsylvania’s public schools, coupled with the question of how to best direct that investment, was the centerpiece of the 2018 election. The voters chose Wolf, who ran on his record of investing in education and restoring past cuts. His commitment was clear during last fall’s campaign: “My administration is laser-focused on improving education at all levels and investing in our schools and our children is my top priority."
https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2019/01/in-his-second-term-gov-wolf-has-a-chance-to-make-pas-public-schools-even-stronger-opinion.html
“In
order to claim tax exemption, a property owner must:
·
Advance a charitable purpose;
·
Donate or render gratuitously a
substantial portion of its services;
·
Benefit a substantial and indefinite
class of persons who are legitimate subjects of charity;
·
Relieve the government of some of its
burdens, and;
·
Operate entirely free from profit
motive.”
Salisbury schools
asking LVHN to pay its fair share in property taxes
School district challenging tax-exempt status
WFMZ By: Edward Sieger
Posted: Jan 16, 2019 04:38 PM EST Updated: Jan 16, 2019 05:07 PM EST
ALLENTOWN, Pa. - The Salisbury Township School District takes no issue
with the aggressive expansion Lehigh Valley Health Network has undergone in
recent years, according to school district attorney Aaron Freiwald. But
district officials do take issue with what it sees as the network’s continued
departure from its charitable mission that relieves the healthcare network
from the responsibility of property taxes. The Salisbury Township School
District has challenged a decision by the Lehigh County Board of Assessment
Appeals to exempt Lehigh Valley Hospital from property taxes. The district is
challenging in county court whether Lehigh Valley Health Network satisfies the
criteria to be deemed a purely public charity. “A tax-exempt entity must meet
all five criteria,” Freiwald said. “We argue Lehigh Valley Health Network
doesn’t meet even one
Upper Moreland School District challenging cancer center’s tax-exempt status
Intelligencer By Jenny Wagner Posted Jan 17, 2019 at 6:54 PM
Abington-Jefferson Health could be required to pay nearly $500,000 a year in property taxes on its new Asplundh Cancer Pavilion. Abington-Jefferson Health could be required to pay nearly $500,000 a year in property taxes on its new Asplundh Cancer Pavilion if the Upper Moreland School District is successful in challenging its tax-exempt status. The district in November appealed the decision by the Montgomery County Board of Assessment Appeals to grant the center tax-exempt status beginning in January. It opened in July. According to documents filed in Montgomery County Court, the district is arguing that the center does not meet the state’s constitutional requirements for a “purely public charity,” including a five-part test established by a 1985 Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision for tax-exempt status. Nonprofit hospitals are not automatically exempt, the district’s attorneys, Philadelphia-based Freiwald Law and Bethlehem-based Cohen, Feeley, Altemose & Rambo, explained. The firms also are involved in two other similar cases in the state, including one filed by the Stroudsburg School District challenging the tax-exempt status of St. Luke University Health Network’s Monroe Campus. The firms will only be compensated if the challenges are successful. “These are three of the mega health systems in Pennsylvania and none of them are operating or acting like charities, they’re acting like businesses, and we say we think that’s fantastic, but you need to pay your fair share of taxes,” attorney Aaron Freiwald said.
https://www.theintell.com/news/20190117/upper-moreland-school-district-challenging-cancer-centers-tax-exempt-status
Safe2Say: State AG's office must communicate more effectively about school threat reporting program [editorial]
Lancaster Online by THE LNP EDITORIAL BOARD January 17, 2019
THE ISSUE: Local school officials told LNP’s Alex Geli that the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General’s communications about Safe2Say Something — a new school threat reporting system — were “insufficient.” The system, which went live Monday, allows educators, students, parents and community members to submit anonymous tips about potential threats. Safe2Say includes an app available on Apple and Android devices, a website (safe2sayPA.org) and a 24-hour hotline (1-844-SAF2SAY, or 1-844-723-2729). Tips are to be reviewed by the state attorney general’s office and forwarded to schools and, if necessary, local police to help prevent school violence. All public and private schools in the commonwealth must participate in the system.
In our experience, Penn Manor School District Superintendent Mike Leichliter is a level-headed guy who’s not prone to gratuitous criticism. If he says the implementation of Safe2Say “has not been clear and seamless,” we’re inclined to believe him. Leichliter told Geli he attended a regional training session in December with hundreds of other educators at the Lancaster County Convention Center in downtown Lancaster. It was Leichliter’s impression that the training team was overwhelmed by the number of attendees; the session began late; and the Safe2Say app and website weren’t ready, so a demo site was used. Not ideal. Leichliter said those who attended the training session were left wondering what procedures they were supposed to follow, how they should train students and faculty, and how they should promote the program. Other Lancaster County school officials expressed concern with what they saw as a lack of direction from the state attorney general’s office.
https://lancasteronline.com/opinion/editorials/state-ag-s-office-must-communicate-more-effectively-about-school/article_d24341ac-19ed-11e9-8e19-9786ef3bfa56.html
Pennsylvania Provides First-Ever Dedicated Computer Science Funding to 765 Schools
Governor Wolf’s Website January 17, 2019
Harrisburg, PA – Building on his commitment to prepare students to use computers and technology in their careers, Governor Tom Wolf today announced $8.7 million in targeted grants to expand computer science classes and teacher training at 765 schools across the commonwealth. The targeted grants represent the next phase of the governor’s new and innovative PAsmart initiative, which will provide $20 million to bring high-quality computer science and STEM education in elementary, middle, and high schools, and professional development for teachers. With this commitment, Pennsylvania now ranks second in the country for investments in K-12 STEM and computer science. “Over the next decade, seven in ten new jobs in Pennsylvania will require workers to use computers and new technologies in a constantly changing economy,” said Governor Wolf. “With these grants more students will get the skills they need for emerging high-demand jobs. “Through these investments, we are building a well-trained workforce that will meet the needs of employers, strengthen the middle class, and grow the economy for everyone.”
https://www.governor.pa.gov/pennsylvania-provides-first-ever-dedicated-computer-science-funding-765-schools/
Rep. Tom Marino from Pa.'s 12th congressional
district to resign
AP by MARC LEVY and MARK SCOLFORO, Updated: January
17, 2019- 1:05 PMHARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A five-term Republican congressman who co-chaired Donald Trump's successful presidential campaign in Pennsylvania is resigning. Tom Marino said in a statement Thursday that his last day will be Jan. 23 and that he's taking a job in the private sector. The 66-year-old Marino is a former county and federal prosecutor who co-chaired Donald Trump's successful presidential campaign in Pennsylvania. He easily won re-election in November to his heavily Republican district in northern Pennsylvania. Trump nominated Marino in 2017 to become the nation's drug czar, but Marino withdrew his name after reports he played a key role in weakening federal power to stop companies from distributing opioids. Marino's survived multiple bouts of kidney cancer. Gov. Tom Wolf must schedule a special election to fill the remainder of Marino’s term.
Top Pennsylvania
House of Representatives staffer dies at 55
By Charles
Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com Updated 5:39 AM; Posted Jan
17, 9:07 PM
Karen Coates, a top legislative attorney for state House Republicans
throughout their current eight-year run in the majority, died Thursday at
Hershey Medical Center after a brief illness. She was 55. Coates, the former
wife of late Dauphin County Judge Bernie Coates, was part of a group of women
over the last generation who broke significant glass ceilings at the state
Capitol not as elected officials, but as top staffers who play key roles in
building bills and the relationships to get them passed. Few climbed as far up
that ladder as she. As the first female chief of staff / chief counsel to the
House Speaker, she was proud of her barrier-breaking, acknowledging in a 2016
interview with The PLS Reporter that, “from a personal perspective, that’s a
huge accomplishment for me.”
“Fingles
voted no at the previous meeting but said she changed course after re-examining
all the issues and hearing from stakeholders. She blamed a lack of adequate
state funding for the district’s financial state that has it fighting large
budget deficits the last several years largely because of state-mandated
expenses such as pensions, special education costs and charter school tuition.”
Bensalem school board
rejects fact finder’s report for second time
Intelligencer
By Chris English Posted
Jan 16, 2019 at 9:58 PM Updated
Jan 16, 2019 at 9:58 PM
Bensalem School District teachers and other professionals in their union
will continue working under the terms of a contract that expired June 30, 2017.
A fact finder’s report that would have essentially become a new contract for
Bensalem School District teachers and other professionals in their union was
rejected by the school board for a second time Wednesday night. With the
board’s second rejection of the report during a special meeting at Bensalem
High School, the two sides now head back to the bargaining table with the hope
that the report can at least provide a rough framework for a new deal. The 444
members of the Bensalem Township Education Association will continue working
under the terms of a six-year contract that expired June 30, 2017. Board
President Kim Rivera and members Pamela Strange, Marc Cohen, Kathleen Lesnevec,
Heather Nicholas, Vanessa Woods and Stephanie Ferrandez voted no on the fact
finder’s report while Rachel Fingles and Anand Patel voted yes. Ferrandez said
she was torn and voted no because she believes board members and their
representatives are willing go back to the bargaining table and negotiate for
as long as it takes to reach agreement on a new contract.
“I think collectively we might not be that far apart,” she said. “I
personally think we’re close. After our first no vote (at meeting 10 days ago),
I asked for feedback and the majority felt we should go back to the table and
try to at least get some changes.”
After hearing
complaints, Philly school board approves contract for early literacy coaching
Several speakers also urge board to put a
stop to approving charters
The notebook Dale Mezzacappa January 17 — 11:08 pm,
2019
Despite objections from several speakers at Thursday’s meeting, the Board
of Education approved a $17 million contract with the Children’s Literacy
Initiative and two other organizations for teacher coaching in the early grades
to help students learn to read. Lisa Haver of the Alliance for Philadelphia
Public Schools (APPS) said that some teachers have told her that “while CLI
used to be a good program, it is not any longer.” Haver and other speakers,
most from APPS, said that coaching provided in some classrooms by CLI, which
has worked with Philadelphia and other districts for three decades, no longer
provides high-quality help in all classrooms because some coaches are
inexperienced and its “one size fits all” model is not appropriate for
everyone. But the board voted without dissent to proceed with the contract, in
which CLI will work with two other organizations, American Reading Company and
Scholastic, on a model and approach that member Christopher McGinley said he
believed was “sound.”
Question raised by
escalating school safety concerns: Should voting booths be expelled?
Michelle
Merlin and Jacqueline
Palochko Contact
Reporters Of The Morning Call January 17, 2019
For years, students and voters crossed paths in Kutztown High School on
Election Day. Barriers went up to keep the public in the lobby and away from
classrooms, but parents still complained about strangers in the school. “It was
very difficult to keep that area secured as kids were walking through,”
Superintendent George Fiore said. The district determined taking students out
of the picture by making Election Day a school in-service day would create
child care headaches for many working parents, Fiore said. Also, he said,
teachers liked using the day as a civics lesson. Instead, the district and Berks
County elections officials agreed to move the polling place into a nearby field
house starting last November. Voters still have parking space, and the building
is handicapped accessible.
L.A. teacher strike may be cutting edge of a
revolution against what’s rotten in America | Will Bunch
Philly.com by Commentary Will Bunch Updated: January
17, 2019 - 1:05 PMJoseph Zeccola, a part-time playwright and full-time educator whose passion in the classroom earned him Los Angeles County Teacher of the Year honors just last year, said he heard something recently from an out-of-state union activist that really stuck with him, that “the thing about teachers that makes us different is that we’re always adjusting to the status quo.” Zeccola said he’s seen his fellow teachers — even himself — calmly accept that status quo over the last decade as tighter and tighter budgets started strangling classroom education in America’s second-largest city, even as the rest of L.A.'s vibrant economy was booming. That meant passive acceptance of skyrocketing class sizes that often jammed more than 40 kids into a room, or forcing schools to make painful spending decisions whether to make nurses, librarians, or mental health aides only part-time — or to ditch those vital services completely. At the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies where Zeccola now teaches English and drama after working for years in economically distressed South Central L.A., the school found the cash to pay a librarian two days a week — two days more than many other nearby public schools. “As an English teacher, there’s nothing more important for success in life than literacy,” he told me by phone Wednesday night, adding: “They also cut out the custodians. At my old school in South Central you could have eaten off the floors — now they mop it twice a month.”
New York Times By Jennifer Medina January
17, 2019
LOS ANGELES — Maria Lopez had to rush off for her job at a nearby
laundromat. Carmen Vasquez did not want her son to ruin his perfect attendance
and needed to get to the home across town where she cleans a couple of times a
week. Aurelia Aguilar needed to get to the restaurant where she cooks and
serves. Their children were a few of the hundreds who poured into Virgil Middle
School on Thursday morning, the fourth day of a massive
teachers’ strike in the nation’s second-largest school district. Their
families could not pay for child care and were too worried to leave students at
home alone. Just a few miles away, in a well-off Silver Lake elementary school,
there were fewer than a dozen students in attendance; most parents could afford
to keep their children out of school. “What choice do I have, this is the best
place for her to be,” Ms. Aguilar said. “I hope, I pray, the teachers get what
they want and come back soon.” After more than a year of protracted
negotiations, the district’s 30,000 public schoolteachers walked out demanding
higher pay, smaller class sizes and more support staff for students. But the
union is also using the strike as a way to draw attention to what it sees as
the growing problem of charter schools, saying that they siphon off students
and money from traditional public schools.
Open Board Positions
for 2019 PA Principals Association Election
Thursday,
January 10, 2019 9:05 AM
Margaret S.
(Peg) Foster, principal, academic affairs, in the Crestwood School District, has
been appointed by President Michael Allison to serve as the chairperson of
the 2019 PA Principals Association Nominations Committee to
oversee the 2019 election. Her committee consists of the following
members: Curtis Dimmick, principal in the Northampton Area School District;
Jacqueline Clark-Havrilla, principal in the Spring-Ford School District; and
Joseph Hanni, vice principal in the Scranton School District. If you are interested in running for one of
the open board positions (shown below) in the 2019 election,
please contact Stephanie Kinner at kinner@paprincipals.org or (717)
732-4999 for an application. Applications must be received in
the state office by Friday, February 22, 2019.
Join A Movement that Supports our Schools & Communities
PA Schools Work website
Our students are in classrooms that are underfunded and overcrowded. Teachers are paying out of pocket and picking up the slack. And public education is suffering. Each child in Pennsylvania has a right to an excellent public education. Every child, regardless of zip code, deserves access to a full curriculum, art and music classes, technical opportunities and a safe, clean, stable environment. All children must be provided a level chance to succeed. PA Schools Work is fighting for equitable, adequate funding necessary to support educational excellence. Investing in public education excellence is the path to thriving communities, a stable economy and successful students.
http://paschoolswork.org/
NSBA 2019 Advocacy Institute January 27-29 Washington Hilton, Washington D.C.
Register now
The upcoming midterm elections will usher in the 116th Congress at a critical time in public education. Join us at the 2019 NSBA Advocacy Institute for insight into what the new Congress will mean for your school district. And, of course, learn about techniques and tools to sharpen your advocacy skills, and prepare for effective meetings with your representatives. Save the date to join school board members from across the country on Capitol Hill to influence the new legislative agenda and shape the decisions made inside the Beltway that directly impact our students. For more information contact federaladvocacy@nsba.org.
PSBA Board Presidents’ Panel
Nine locations around the state running Jan 29, 30 and 31st.
Share your leadership experience and learn from others in your area at this event designed for board presidents, superintendents and board members with interest in pursuing leadership roles. Workshop real solutions to the specific challenges you face with a PSBA-moderated panel of school leaders. Discussion will address the most pressing challenges facing PA public schools.
https://www.psba.org/2018/11/board-presidents-panel-2/
Annual PenSPRA Symposium set for March 28-29, 2019
Pennsylvania School Public Relations Association Website
Once again, PenSPRA will hold its annual symposium with nationally-recognized speakers on hot topics for school communicators. The symposium, held at the Conference Center at Shippensburg University, promises to provide time for collegial sharing and networking opportunities. Mark you calendars now!
We hope you can join us. Plans are underway, so check back for more information.
http://www.penspra.org/
2019 NSBA Annual Conference Philadelphia March 30 - April 1, 2019
Pennsylvania Convention Center 1101 Arch Street Philadelphia, PA 19107
Registration Questions or Assistance: 1-800-950-6722
The NSBA Annual Conference & Exposition is the one national event that brings together education leaders at a time when domestic policies and global trends are combining to shape the future of the students. Join us in Philadelphia for a robust offering of over 250 educational programs, including three inspirational general sessions that will give you new ideas and tools to help drive your district forward.
https://www.nsba.org/conference
Save the date: PSBA Advocacy Day at the Capitol in Harrisburg has been scheduled for Monday April 29, 2019
Save the Date: PARSS Annual Conference May 1-3, 2019
Wyndham Garden Hotel, Mountainview Country Club
Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools
https://www.parss.org/Annual_Conference
Any comments contained herein are my comments, alone, and
do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any other person or organization
that I may be affiliated with.
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