March 2024
A State Budget Proposal
PA Legislators Must Embrace
A 2023 Harrisburg rally for fair funding. Speaking is Nicole Miller (at lectern), a longtime kindergarten teacher
in William Penn School District who delivered key testimony at the school funding trial two years earlier.
A robust budget proposal announced by Gov. Josh Shapiro on Feb. 6 calls for an unprecedented $1.1 billion one-year increase in basic education funding, targeted primarily to the districts with the greatest need. The governor proposes to implement all the key elements of year 1 of the plan adopted in January by the state’s Basic Education Funding Commission.

The commission identified adequacy gaps for each school district, adding up to a total statewide shortfall in education spending of $5.4 billion. With 94% of that to be borne by the state, according to the commission, the state’s responsibility is to close those gaps by raising its annual funding level by $5.1 billion over seven years beyond its normal, annual increases. The $1.1 billion figure comprises the first of seven steps toward that total along with an increase in formula-driven basic education funding for all districts and additional funds for tax relief to districts with extraordinarily high local tax rates.

The Shapiro budget plan includes these elements and $300 million to address environmental issues in public school buildings – a record investment in school facilities – as well as investments in mental health, special education, pre-K, and early intervention.

The budget proposal is a substantial first step toward fixing how our schools are funded. Its adoption would start us on a path that could be transformational for generations of Pennsylvania children in communities where students have been denied their right to quality education. Along with our partners in the statewide PA Schools Work coalition, we’ve called it a budget proposal worth fighting for.
 
But we must build support for a long-term plan to complete the job by providing sufficient funding in every district, allowing all students to thrive, as the court’s ruling mandates. Please contact the governor and your legislators to let them know we need this budget – and legislation committing the state to a long-term plan.
Advocates Gather on
First Anniversary of Fair Funding Decision
Surrounded by education advocates from across the state, ELC executive director
Deborah Gordon Klehr speaks at the Capitol on Feb. 7. Photo: Education Voters PA.
“Today we gather not just to celebrate the anniversary of our court victory but also to talk to legislators about making the right to quality education a reality in Pennsylvania,” ELC executive director Deborah Gordon Klehr told a crowd of more than 100 education advocates who converged on the Capitol in Harrisburg on Feb. 7.

One year had passed since Commonwealth Court ruled decisively in our favor, declaring that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is unconstitutional, that education is a fundamental right, and that state officials must reform the system to ensure that students receive a “comprehensive, effective, and contemporary public education.” It is a decision worth celebrating.

The event, organized by the PA Schools Work coalition, emphasized progress made since the court ruling in the continuing struggle to achieve an adequate, equitable, and racially just school funding system – including the January report from the Basic Education Funding Commission, followed by Gov. Shapiro’s encouraging budget proposal. Participants fanned out to legislative offices, bringing a message to pass the governor’s 2024-25 budget and also enact a complete, multiyear plan to provide public school children all of the support they need.
Meetings Ordered on COVID-Related Compensatory Education
The state’s Bureau of Special Education issued a monitoring report on Feb. 23 that flagged the School District of Philadelphia’s failure to make progress to comply with corrective action ordered in response to ELC’s complaint filed on behalf of students with disabilities. The bureau again ordered the district to hold meetings to determine compensatory education services owed to students with IEPs and 504 plans who experienced education deprivations during the COVID school closures. More than 20,000 students are affected.

The district was required to hold meetings with parents for all students with IEPs or 504 plans to determine compensatory education for the COVID school closure period. The bureau reviewed 50 randomly selected student files and found that, while 88% percent of the files show that the district determined whether a student was eligible for make-up services, or compensatory education (often called “comp ed”), only 8% of the files (four students) showed that the required meeting was held. Only four of the 50 students were offered any compensatory education. The bureau ordered the district to take steps by April 5 to correct its violations.

If you are the parent of a student with a disability, the district is required to invite you to a meeting to review data and determine your child’s eligibility for compensatory education. See our fact sheet to learn how to prepare for this meeting. If you have not been invited to a meeting and believe your child may be eligible for make-up services, contact your child’s school or ELC’s Helpline.

The district must also provide notice in writing of any decision to award or deny compensatory education in a Notice of Recommended Educational Placement (NOREP). You have the right to accept or disagree with that decision; check out this this resource to learn more.
Potential School Closures:
A Call for Transparency and Inclusivity
Photo: Katrina Ohstrom
ELC staff attorney Christine Porter testified before the Pittsburgh Public Schools Board of Directors on Feb. 26 about the need to increase transparency, center racial equity, and engage meaningfully with the community as the district considers school consolidations and closures.

She called on the district to establish a stakeholder engagement process that would establish and share clear criteria used to identify any schools for consolidation or closure. She said the district should focus not only on enrollment numbers in this process but also on the impact on underserved students, including students with disabilities and multilingual learners, and on the impact of any school closures on predominantly Black neighborhoods. “Racial equity must be a fundamental component of the decision-making process,” she said. 
Summary Citations Have No Place in Pittsburgh Public Schools
Pittsburgh Public Schools will continue its moratorium on issuing summary citations to students. In her Feb. 26 testimony before the board of Pittsburgh Public Schools, staff attorney Christine Porter was one of several speakers in favor of continuing the district’s summary citation moratorium. She urged the district to make its moratorium permanent and eliminate the use of summary citations as a school disciplinary practice. The board then voted to table a set of proposed revisions to the district’s summary citation policy and to continue the moratorium.

Summary citations (also called “non-traffic citations”) criminalize children for minor infractions such as “running in the hall” or “interrupting the teacher in class” and can push them into the school-to-prison pipeline and impact educational and employment opportunities. The expungement process is difficult for families to navigate and can require children to wait many years to clear their records. Board members have pointed to discrimination in the issuance of these citations, with Black students – and Black girls in particular – being unfairly and disproportionately targeted.
Symposium: Brown v. Board
and the Struggle for Racial Equity 
ELC invites you to join us at a symposium entitled 70 Years Later: Revisiting Brown v. Board of Education & The Struggle for Racial Equity in Education at Georgetown University Law Center on March 7. The event will bring experts from across the country into conversation with each other about the state of racist barriers to education. ELC staff attorney Paige Joki, who leads ELC’s Black Girls Education Justice Initiative, is one of the presenters on a panel on school discipline and exclusionary practices starting at 11:50 a.m.

The event has a virtual attendance option and is free and open to all. Learn more here and register here. Registered virtual attendees will receive materials from the organizers by March 4. Please share the flyer with anyone who may want to attend!
Complaint: Students in Residential
Facility Wrongfully Excluded From School
Led by staff attorney Rebecca Preuss, ELC filed a complaint in February with the Bureau of Special Education of the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) on behalf of students residing at Pediatric Specialty Care, a residential care facility for children located in Philadelphia.

The complaint alleges that the School District of Philadelphia and PDE discriminated against students at the facility by failing to provide them with a free appropriate public education. It alleges that students with disabilities were wrongfully excluded from school because the district did not provide nursing care for students who needed it, failed to provide appropriate homebound instruction, and did not adopt or implement IEPs nor provide services to students at the facility. In one case a child was denied access to educational services for years. Our complaint requests that the bureau promptly issue relief for the students residing at the facility so that they no longer are deprived of the education they are entitled to, and that PDE issue guidance and provide oversight to ensure access to education for all children in similar settings.
Check Out Our Job Postings!
ELC is hiring a policy director, with the position based in Philadelphia or Harrisburg.

ELC is seeking a director of our Western Pennsylvania office in Pittsburgh.

See our website for a description of internship opportunities at ELC.
What We're Reading
Education Law Center | 215-238-6970 (Philadelphia) | 412-258-2120 (Pittsburgh)
A copy of the official registration and financial information of the Education Law Center may be obtained from the Department of State by calling toll-free, within Pennsylvania, 1-880-732-0999. Registration does not imply endorsement.