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Keystone
State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup for Dec. 3, 2020
Pa. has spent a
decade ignoring skyrocketing special ed. costs
as Special Education Expenditures Grew by $2 Billion Over a Decade
A Decade of
Shortchanging Children with Disabilities
Education
Law Center Report December 2020
For the past decade, expenditures for
educating students with disabilities in Pennsylvania have been climbing
steadily, mirroring a national trend. For example, school districts across the
state boosted their expenditures for special education by $254 million in
2018-19, according to recently released state data on district spending. That
was a 5% increase over the prior year. In 2018-19, the most recent year for
which we have comprehensive data, those rising costs were almost entirely borne
by local school districts. The state chipped in just a $15 million increase
toward the $254 million cost. Local districts were thereby forced, on average,
to come up with 92 cents for every dollar in new special education expenses, a
challenging task for the hundreds of school systems that are already struggling
financially. Thus, for yet another year, Pennsylvania retreated from its
responsibility to educate students with disabilities — despite the fact that
the state remains legally responsible under the federal Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act for ensuring that students with disabilities receive
a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment.
The Education Law Center and the statewide PA Schools Work campaign have called
out this disturbing pattern of unfairness in reports issued in 2018 and 2019.
We now can see clearly that this is a steadily worsening, decade-long trend of
state neglect of these critical needs.
https://www.elc-pa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Dec_Special_Ed_Report_PASWEDU_Law_Center.pdf
Ten year changes in
special education expenditures and revenues for all 500 Pennsylvania districts
are provided in the following linked spreadsheet:
New report: Pa. has
spent a decade ignoring skyrocketing special ed. costs | Thursday Morning
Coffee
PA Capital
Star By John
L. Micek December 3, 2020
Good
Thursday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
Even as many Pennsylvania school districts struggled to tame rising pension
costs and deal with stagnant tax revenues, the state also saddled them with
shouldering the rising cost of educating students living with disabilities —
without giving them the financial assistance to handle it, a
new report concludes. The
state’s 501 school districts boosted their special education spending by $2
billion between 2009 to 2019, but state aid during that same period grew by
just $110 million, the report by the Education Law Center and PA
Schools Work, concludes, citing the most recent state data. According to the report, out of new dollars
spent on special education over the last decade, school districts have provided
92 cents of that total, the analysis found. Pennsylvania has been a
bottom-dweller nationally for what a low share of overall public education
spending the state provides – just 38 percent,” Education Law Center
Executive Director Deborah Gordon Klehr said in a statement. “For
special education, the portion covered by the state is now only 22 percent,
down from 32 percent a decade ago. When the state abdicates responsibility like
this, students are harmed, especially in our lowest-wealth school districts
that have the greatest difficulty generating more revenue to meet student
needs.”
School districts,
like Philly, shouldn’t have to rely on handouts to make sure kids are safe
PA Capital
Star Opinion By Mark Duffy and David Lapp Capital-Star
Op-Ed Contributor December 3, 2020
Mark Duffy
is a Senior Research Associate, and David Lapp is the Director of Policy
Research, at Research for Action, a Philadelphia-based education research
organization.
The
University of Pennsylvania announced
recently that it will contribute $100 million
over the next 10 years to the School District of Philadelphia, the largest
private contribution in the district’s history. This is good news, because
Philadelphia students are often deprived of even basic educational necessities.
But these resources will not be used to improve academic programming. They will
not be used to hire additional teachers or shrink class sizes. They won’t
provide extracurricular offerings or technology. The resources won’t even
ensure schools have guidance counselors, librarians, or music and arts
education—basic resources that many Philadelphia schools consider luxuries. Instead,
the funding is earmarked for the most basic need of all: safe school
facilities. Students should not have to depend on charitable handouts just to
learn in a safe building. And while every dollar counts, these funds will be
insufficient to achieve even this most basic promise. Estimates have put the
cost of bringing Philadelphia school buildings up to code at around $4.5
billion. Yes, with a “B.” And this isn’t just a
Philadelphia problem. A 2014 school facilities study of roughly 1,194 of the
3,100 public school buildings in the Commonwealth found that 66 percent of them
were constructed before 1970, making it likely that they contain asbestos.
Schools with
coronavirus cases could be forced to close on short notice under new Pa. rules
Inquirer by Maddie Hanna, Posted: December 2, 2020- 6:27 PM
As he
explained why the Wissahickon School District — which is reopening for
in-person instruction Monday — might have to close its buildings again amid the
pandemic, Superintendent James Crisfield started by defining a word. Attestation,
his PowerPoint slide read — a declaration that something is the case. “I wasn’t
even sure it was a real word,” Crisfield said, as he began his presentation to
community members. But it has real implications for the Montgomery County
district, and others across Pennsylvania. Under new rules, public schools have
to revert to virtual instruction once they record certain numbers of
coronavirus cases. With the virus surging, Pennsylvania officials last week
told preK-12 schools they could still teach students in person, but only if
they pledged — by submitting an “attestation form” — to follow face-covering
mandates and protocols for when COVID cases are identified in a school
building. Private schools were not required to submit the form. For Crisfield’s
district, the first part was straightforward, since masks were already required
in schools. But the second was new — laying out specific numbers of cases that
trigger closure of a school building, based on enrollment and levels of
community transmission of the virus.
Back On The No-Longer-Trailing Pandemic Education Edge:
Digging A Ditch
Curmuducation
Blog by Peter Greene Wednesday, December 2, 2020
I've been
offering updates from my own small town/rural corner of the universe for just
one more data point about how various school districts are dealing with
pandemic education. We don't all need to write about New York City schools. My
region had a decent shot. In a county of 50,000 people, we had a total of 70
cases at the beginning of September. All schools opened for face-to-face
instruction, with various precautions and protocols in place. Things have gone
south pretty rapidly. We just passed 1,000 cases. School districts had
moved from face to face to hybrid elementary and distance high school. That
lasted a few weeks, but there have been repeated multiple out breaks in
schools. One district is still toggling between hybrid and distance--basically
every time there's a confirmed case in the school, they go back to distance for
a couple of weeks. Everyone else was in distance mode. Last night several local
boards (there are four districts in the county) met to decide what to do with
the rest of December. The discussions were spirited but nuanced. Because we are
so rural, there are some major issues with getting a wifi signal to some folks;
there are a few hot spots set up, but (and this seems to escape some folks) a
hot spot is basically a relay station, and you can't relay a signal you can't
get. So folks who want to use the hot spots have to drive to them. Not everyone
has vehicle access, and winter's moving in.
https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2020/12/back-on-no-longer-trailing-pandemic.html
CDC Shortens COVID-19
Quarantine Periods. Here's What That Means for Schools
Education
Week By Evie
Blad on December 2, 2020 2:36 PM
Shorter
COVID-19 quarantine periods, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
now recommends, could ease some of the burdens that have made in-person
learning difficult for schools, but challenges remain. The new recommendations,
announced Wednesday, would allow for close contacts of people diagnosed with
the virus to resume normal activity after 10 days if they don't show symptoms,
or as little as seven days if they test negative. The ideal quarantine period
is still 14 days, but federal health officials hope that offering shorter
options will encourage more people to cooperate by reducing the burden of being
away from work and school for extended periods, they told reporters on a
conference call. But whether or not to adopt the new recommendations is still a
decision for local health authorities, CDC officials said, and potentially
exposed people should still continue to monitor themselves for symptoms for the
full 14-day period, even after they return to daily activities. The new
recommendations come as case rates and hospitalizations reach new records
around the country. Some schools have been forced to return to remote learning
because they couldn't locate
enough substitutes to cover teacher quarantines.
‘Mistakes were made’
at maskless election hearing held by COVID-positive lawmaker, Pa. Senate leader
says
by
Angela Couloumbis of Spotlight PA, Posted: December 2, 2020- 6:27 PM
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom
powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The
Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters.
HARRISBURG —
The top Republican in the Pennsylvania Senate acknowledged Wednesday “mistakes
were made” and necessary coronavirus safety precautions were ignored during a
controversial public hearing in Gettysburg last week on unsubstantiated claims
of election fraud. Breaking his caucus’
silence on the matter, interim
Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R., Centre) said organizers of the
hearing before an all-GOP policy committee allowed large crowds to attend, and
did not adhere to social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines. The lack of
protocol became all the more concerning after Corman learned that the GOP
senator who organized the meeting, Doug Mastriano of Franklin County, tested
positive for COVID-19 later that day, during a trip to the White House to meet
with President Donald Trump. “Clearly, mistakes were made,” said Corman, adding
that his office is reviewing how the hearing was organized and executed. “And
that is life — we all make mistakes and it’s now our job to review it.” Mastriano,
one of the legislature’s most conservative members, did not respond to a
request for comment Wednesday.
As GOP state senators
held public event, White House warned of COVID-19 ‘red zone’
The White
House Coronavirus Task Force put Pennsylvania in the second-highest category of
exploding case growth Nov. 22.
WITF by Brett
Sholtis/Transforming Health UPDATED: DECEMBER 2, 2020 | 7:29 PM
(Harrisburg)
— Three days before several GOP state senators held a gathering in a hotel
conference room packed full of people, the White House Coronavirus Task Force
warned Pennsylvania leaders that it hit another alarming milestone in COVID-19
spread—a warning accompanied with urgent recommendations: “Ensure masks at all
times in public, increase physical distancing through significant reduction in
capacity in public and private indoor spaces, and ensure every American
understands the clear risks of ANY family or friend interactions outside of
their immediate household indoors without masks.” It added: “Recent
restrictions are warranted and commendable.” Test positivity rate is a key
marker of how a state is handling the virus. By Nov. 22, the commonwealth reached
a rate of 10.1%, according to the task force report, which the state Department
of Health made
public on its website. The increasing rate
moved the state into the “red zone,” a category that signals uncontrolled
spread of the virus.
99% of Pennsylvania
school districts submit forms agreeing to follow updated coronavirus guidance
or go virtual
Delco Times By
David Mekeel dmekeel@readingeagle.com @dmekeel on Twitter December 3, 2020
With the
COVID-19 pandemic continuing to rage across Pennsylvania, pushing recent daily
case counts to record highs, the state Department of Education has asked school
districts to promise in writing that they're following the latest health and
safety guidance. As part of new mitigation efforts announced last week,
districts in counties deemed to have a substantial risk of community spread of
COVID-19 for two consecutive weeks — as of Monday that was 63 of the state's 67
counties — were required to sign attestation forms to continue in-person
instruction. The forms had to be submitted to the department by 5 p.m. Monday. The form requires districts to confirm two
things to remain open for in-person classes: that officials have read the
governor's updated mask mandate and that they have read and agree to follow
recommendations on what to do if a COVID-19 case occurs inside a school. Districts
could also choose to simply indicate that they were planning not to hold
in-person classes. Any district that did not submit a form is required to use
only remote learning. Such districts must file a new form if they decide to
hold any in-person classes. Acting Secretary of Education Noe Ortega said the
attestation forms were a way to reassure the public that their local schools
are taking the steps necessary to protect students and staff.
“Superintendent Dave Campbell criticized
the legislature and cyber and charter schools for not following the same
standards that school districts follow. If districts have too much in their
fund balance, they cannot raise taxes, but cyber/charter schools can raise
tuition, he said. For example, he said, PA Cyber had a 17-18 final expenditure
of $144,082,865.37 and a fund balance of $90,738,078 equaling 62.98 percent of
their total expenditures. Commonwealth Charter Academy had a 17-18 final
expenditure of $142,030,085 and a fund balance of $11,795,163 equaling 8.3
percent of their total expenditures after reporting in June 2018 advertising
expense of $7,930,988. Districts like Line Mountain are cutting programs and
teachers due to the expenses from paying cyber/charter schools. It could reach
$1 million by the end of the year, he said.”
Line Mountain School
Board discusses 2021-2022 budget
Daily Item By
Justin Strawser jstrawser@dailyitem.com December 3, 2020
MANDATA —
Members of the Line Mountain School Board adopted a resolution Wednesday to not
raise taxes above the index recommended by the state, which will allow them
more time to put together a 2021-2022 budget. At Wednesday night’s meeting via
Zoom, business manager Kaitlin Rosselli explained that the Act 1 index is 4.2
percent, which means the district can only raise property taxes by 3.35 mills
for the 2021-22 budget. The adopted resolution doesn’t mean the district will
raise taxes, just that they won’t raise taxes above the index. "Line
Mountain is fiscally conservative," said Rosselli. "I'm confident we
wouldn't have to raise it more than that anyhow."The district's millage
rate is 79.81 mills. Raising taxes to the maximum level would bring taxes to
83.16 mills. One mill is worth approximately $76,500 an additional 3.35 mills
would bring in an additional $256,275 in revenue, Rosselli said. Signing the resolution
means the district has more time — until May — to prepare the budget and
"gives taxpayers confidence that they will not be gouged in taxes,"
said Rosselli. "It's an unprecedented world and things change day by
day."
Line Mtn. super:
Cyber schools have an unbelievable power in Harrisburg
Gettysburg
Times BY TIM ZYLA THE NEWS-ITEM tim_z@newsitem.com December 2, 2020
MANDATA —
Line Mountain Superintendent Dave Campbell used Wednesday night's board meeting
to express displeasure for a perceived special treatment cyber schools receive
from state lawmakers compared to public schools. "People can pontificate
all they want. If you do not believe cybers have an unbelievable power in
Harrisburg and at the federal level, I have the Sunbury Veterans Bridge to sell
you," he said. Campbell questioned why state lawmakers have allowed cyber
schooling operations to continue raising tuition while, in some cases, holding
tens of millions of dollars in fund balances. "Pa. Cyber had a 2017-18
final expenditure of $144,082,865.37 and a fund balance of $90,738,078,
equaling 62.98% of their total expenditures," Campbell said. "My
question to senators and representatives is, if we must follow Act 1 with our
fund balance, (why is) Pa. Cyber allowed to raise tuition every year, which
comes directly from taxpayers?" Public schools are required to pay for
tuition of students in the district that choose to attend cyber schools. Line
Mountain, like many other public school districts, offers its own cyber
schooling program, which costs district taxpayers about $4,200 per pupil, while
outside cyber schools are charging the district $12,609.98 per pupil.
“According to the Pennsylvania
Association of School Business Officials enrollment in cyber charter schools is
up by approximately 24,000 students at an estimated cost of $350 million. This
is on top of the automatic charter and cyber-charter increases occurring
annually for students. All of these funds will be extracted from local school
districts that are hard pressed to deal with the growing costs of educating
children in the middle of a world health crisis.”
OP-ED: No more
pencils, no more books ... no more schools
York
Dispatch by Richard Robinson York Suburban school board December 2, 2020
The $350
million time bomb is a figure of speech to describe future school funding in
Pennsylvania. No cause for alarm. Right now it’s time to finish all
the leftovers from Thanksgiving and start thinking about a “Very COVID
Christmas” with holiday-themed face masks and hand sanitizer gift sets. Why
not? With each passing day another drug company announces successful clinical
trials for a new vaccine that will conquer COVID-19 and end the worldwide
pandemic by spring time. Oh yeah? The losses and damage done by COVID-19 will
not simply vanish with a vaccination. Months and years from now there are going
to be long-lasting consequences and influences on the way we live and work. This
is where the time bomb comes in. When school districts across Pennsylvania were
forced to close in mid-March they had to act fast. Teachers,
students and administrators had to adapt all in-person instruction to a
remote format for every student, in a matter of weeks. They did. It ought to
come as no surprise that opportunists in charge of private charter and
cyber-charter schools acted fast, too. They saw COVID-19 as a miraculous
opportunity. Misleading television ads began touting the value of
tuition-free, private cyber academies, and showed children smiling at computer
screens where a smiling adult at a chalk board illustrated geometric theorems
or asked who was the nation’s most prolific president (answer: John Tyler. He
fathered 15 children). Cyber-charter schools were able to play on the
fears of concerned parents without even having to mention germs or infections.
It worked.
How a Lancaster soccer
club won a $1.2 million grant from DeVos’s Education Department to open a
charter school
Washington Post
By Valerie
Strauss Reporter Dec. 3, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. EST
Here’s a
new, rather remarkable story about charter school grants recently awarded by
the Education Department — including one for more than $1 million that went to
a soccer club in Pennsylvania that had no experience running a school. This is
one of a number of pieces I have run in recent years about the Federal Charter
School Program, which has invested close to $4 billion in these schools since
it began giving grants in 1995. Charter schools, a key feature of the “school
choice” movement, are financed by the public but privately operated. About 6
percent of U.S. schoolchildren attend charter schools, with California having
the most charter schools and the most charter students. Charters had bipartisan
support for years, but a growing number of Democrats have pulled back from the
movement, citing the fiscal impact on school districts and repeated
scandals in the sector.
Norwin covid-19 cases
top 100; 21 new cases reported
Trib Live by
JOE
NAPSHA | Wednesday, December
2, 2020 9:49 p.m.
Norwin
School District officials said Wednesday the district has 21 new covid-19 cases
among its students and staff, pushing the total number of cases since school
began Aug. 31 to more than 100. The reports of 21 new cases, pushing the total
to 114 cases of the coronavirus, is the highest number of cases the district
announced in one day since school began. The spike in cases comes just two days before Superintendent
Jeff Taylor previously said he might notify the state Department of Education
that Norwin would move from all-remote instruction for its 5,300 students this
week to the previous hybrid model of instruction.
https://triblive.com/local/westmoreland/norwin-covid-19-cases-top-100-21-new-cases-reported/
Danville School
Board: Students to learn virtually until Jan. 15
Daily Item By
Rick Dandes rdandes@thedanvillenews.com December 3, 2020
DANVILLE —
Danville School District students will continue to learn remotely until
Jan. 15, 2021. That decision, approved by the school board at Wednesday night's
meeting, did not come without serious discussion, said several board members
before voting on it. New school board President Chris Huron, who was only
installed as president earlier in the evening during a reorganization meeting,
said that kids learn optimally with in-person learning, but given the number of
COVID cases exploding almost everywhere, the safety of students had to be
paramount. Another factor in going all virtual, he said, was staffing.
"How can you have kids taught in person if we are down in staff?"
Big Beaver Falls Area
moves to remote learning
Big Beaver Falls
Area School District on Wednesday moved from a hybrid model to remote
instruction. All schools will remain virtual through Jan. 8 due to an
increasing number of employees testing positive for COVID-19.
Chrissy
Suttles Beaver County Times December 2, 2020
BEAVER FALLS
— All Beaver County school districts have now transitioned to remote learning
amid a surge in regional COVID-19 cases. Big Beaver Falls Area School
District students and staff on Wednesday moved from a hybrid model to virtual
instruction — the final district in the county to do so. All
district schools will remain virtual through Jan. 8 due to an increasing number
of staff members testing positive for the virus, or quarantining, in recent
weeks. Several district employees tested positive ahead of Thanksgiving.
Dallas Middle School
learning goes online Thursday as 'increased number' of teachers quarantine
Citizens
Voice BY
MICHAEL P. BUFFER STAFF WRITER Dec 2, 2020 Updated 8 hrs ago
Dallas
School District suspended in-person learning at the middle school Thursday, and
“an increased number” of middle school teachers have been ordered to
quarantine, according to an announcement posted on the district website
Wednesday night. The state Department of Health ordered the teachers to
quarantine. All middle school students will learn on the online streaming
platform on Thursday. “The district has enacted protocols to identify close
contacts, informed close contacts of proper next steps and communicated with
the Department of Health,” Superintendent Thomas Duffy said in Wednesday’s
announcement. “The communication with the Department of Health is ongoing.”
Tyler Titus, 1st
openly transgender person elected to public office in Pa., is new Erie School
Board chief
Ed
Palattella Erie Times-News December 2, 2020
Tyler Titus
has again made history. He was elected president of the Erie School Board
on Wednesday night, becoming the first openly transgender person to hold the
post. When he was elected to the Erie School Board in 2017,
Titus became the first openly transgender person elected to public office
in Pennsylvania. He was elected head of the School Board at its annual reorganization
meeting. Fellow School Director Darlene Feeney, also
elected to the board in 2017, was elected vice president. Both votes were
unanimous.
A radiant, bountiful
meteor shower, a 'double' planet and a full moon [December's astronomical
calendar]
Lancaster
Online by MICKAYLA MILLER | Website
Producer December 3, 2020
Bundle up
and get outside: December will be a full month of astronomical events from
radiant meteor showers to a bright full moon. December's first big
astronomical event will be the Geminids meteor shower, which is known as the biggest meteor
shower of the year. The Geminids will be at its peak from Dec. 13 to 14, and
will produce as many as 120 meteors per hour. A total solar eclipse will happen on Dec. 14, though it won't be visible
in the United States. The eclipse will pass through the southern end of South America
and will stop near the western central edge of Africa. Next
will be the Winter Solstice on
Dec. 21, which marks the first day of winter. The northern hemisphere will be
tilted away from the sun, which will lead to the longest night of the year. The
same night, there will be a rare "conjunction" of Jupiter and Saturn. Briefly, the two
planets will cross paths, making them look like one large, bright double
planet. Also that night, and into Dec. 22, the Ursids meteor shower will be visible and could produce 5 to
10 meteors an hour. The Ursids is a much smaller meteor shower than the
Geminids. Closing out the month will be the full
cold moon on Dec. 30. Native American groups
called that moon the full cold moon to honor the long winter nights.
Adopt the 2020 PSBA resolution
for charter school funding reform
In this
legislative session, PSBA has been leading the charge with the Senate, House of
Representatives and the Governor’s Administration to push for positive charter
reform. We’re now asking you to join the campaign: Adopt the resolution: We’re
asking all school boards to adopt the 2020 resolution for charter school
funding reform at your next board meeting and submit it to your legislators and
to PSBA.
Resolution for charter funding reform (pdf)
Link
to submit your adopted resolution to PSBA
332 PA school boards have
adopted charter reform resolutions
Charter school funding reform continues to be
a concern as over 330 school boards across the state have adopted a resolution
calling for legislators to enact significant reforms to the Charter School Law
to provide funding relief and ensure all schools are held to the same quality
and ethics standards. Now more than ever, there is a growing momentum from
school officials across the state to call for charter school funding reform.
Legislators are hearing loud and clear that school districts need relief from
the unfair funding system that results in school districts overpaying millions
of dollars to charter schools.
https://www.psba.org/2020/03/adopted-charter-reform-resolutions/
Know Your Facts on Funding and Charter Performance. Then
Call for Charter Change!
PSBA Charter Change Website:
https://www.pacharterchange.org/
The Network for Public Education Action Conference has
been rescheduled to April 24-25, 2021 at the Philadelphia Doubletree Hotel
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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