Now, Barnes wants the state to come in with additional funding to relieve the charter school debt, which he hopes will cause Kenney to reconsider the proposal.
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A Delaware County judge has struck down the key provision of the Wolf administration-backed bailout plan for the failing Chester Upland School District – a decision that reverberates in all of Pennsylvania’s 500 public school districts. This is the second time in recent memory that Chester Upland teachers voted to work without pay.
Borrowing money to operate their programs is a risk but it’s one that Pre-K for PA, a statewide coalition pushing for access to quality preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, says many are willing to take out to ensure youngsters are kindergarten-ready. “It’s mind-boggling because there’s truly uncertainty”. More than half of the district attends charter schools, but fewer than half of the $112 million Chester Upland budget is spent on those students.
It called for reduced special education funding for the cash-strapped district’s charter schools.
The district is required to pay charter schools about $40,000 per year for each special-education student they enroll, according to the Wolf administration.
The governor’s spokesman blamed several factors, including local mismanagement and state cuts in education spending under the previous governor.
The district is about 20 miles (32 km) west of Philadelphia and serves approximately 3,300 students, majority low-income.
The state missed a major aid payment to public schools earlier this week because of the stalemate. Eventually, a federal judge ordered the state to pay the district and lawmakers devised a bailout system so paychecks would arrive just a couple of days late.
A step toward a solution, some say, could be to have the state, not the district, directly cover the costs for the charter schools, as is the case in states such as Massachusetts, Texas, and Ohio. That’s twice the amount that Chester Upland spends on its own students with special needs, according to The Washington Post. And the traditional schools enroll more students with severe disabilities than do the charters.
Chester Upland’s financial problems date to 1994, when it was first classified by the state as being in “economic distress”.
However, the judge did approve some of Wolf’s suggestions including a forensic audit, the appointment of a financial turnaround specialist, and the restructuring of a loan agreement with the state Department of Education.
Same thing at Penn State University where 18,000 students are waiting on the state to release a combined total of about $25 million in state grant money for the fall semester. Its approved budget for the year is about $133 million, most of which is supposed to come from the state government.
“Depending on the length of this impasse, we would have to consider all options”, said Northern’s Superintendent Eric Eshbach. In supporting the proposed plan, Gov. Tom Wolf said that those infusions weren’t helping to address the structural deficit facing the district. “At this point, we don’t have a final plan”.
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“I can not believe the governor or Legislature would let public education fail just for the sake of a dollar”, he said.
