Author: elcadmin

Proposed changes in Pittsburgh schools’ student conduct code emphasize progressive and positive discipline

July 20, 2014 – by Eleanor Chute, Pittsburgh Post Gazette – The board of Pittsburgh Public Schools will vote Wednesday on Code of Student Conduct revisions that replace zero tolerance with more discretion, incorporate ideas from a student-proposed bill of rights and provide explicit protection of students for sexual orientation and gender identity expression.

Cheryl Kleiman, an attorney with Education Law Center, which worked with the district on the proposal, said this version eliminates remaining zero tolerance policies and allows individual discretion.

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ELC Statement on State Budget: Missed opportunity to address school funding crisis

UPDATED July 22, 2014

Governor Corbett’s 2014-15 state budget does little to address Pennsylvania’s systemic public education funding crisis.

“This budget was a missed opportunity for the legislature and the Governor —  and a loss for public school students,” said Rhonda Brownstein, Executive Director of the Education Law Center. “There were several options for our state leaders to not only provide adequate funding to our schools, but to also enact cost-saving measures.”

The General Assembly pursued a fix to the state’s special education funding system that would have addressed the flawed approach to providing funding to students with disabilities in public schools — both charter-operated and district-run. The fix would have more accurately calculated costs and aligned resources to those costs, providing a significant savings to school districts throughout the state and ensuring that children with disabilities receive the services they need. Instead, the whims of political insiders thwarted that effort — resulting in a job half done that does not fix the admitted problem.

The effort to secure a consistent state revenue source for schools was also abandoned, leaving the legislature and Gov. Corbett to fall back on one-time funding schemes and last-minute deals to create a patchwork of public school funding that remains completely disconnected from the cost to provide all students with the necessary resources to meet the state’s academic standards.

“We cannot continue to rely, year after year, on political horse-trading and last-minute budgeting contortions that, ultimately, leave our schools lacking basic resources and leave our communities struggling to make up the difference with local revenues,” said Brownstein. “Our public schools require, and deserve, a thorough and efficient system — an actual system — of education funding as mandated by our state’s constitution.”

Op-Ed: More school nurses are needed to protect our children

May 28, 2014 – by Maura McInerney, Public School Notebook – Our hearts go out to the family, friends, fellow students,and teachers of Sebastian Gerena, the 7-year-old boy who died at Andrew Jackson Elementary last week. In the absence of a school nurse on duty (a nurse is present only on Thursdays and every other Friday), school staff called 911. We know they did everything they could with the resources they had to respond.

Read the complete op-ed.

DN Editorial: Sick of it all

May 23, 2014 – Philadelphia Daily News Editorial – The death of any child is a tragedy. The death of two children who fell ill while at school is unspeakable. And while the cause of death for a first-grader at Andrew Jackson School has not been determined, both cases demand that we take a hard look at the impact the district’s budget realities may be having on children.

Read the full editorial.

 

What happened to Bache-Martin School?

May 16, 2014 – by William Bender and Solomon Leach, Philadelphia Daily News  – Fifth-graders have been sent to kindergarten. An eighth-grader was banished to first grade.

Draconian “behavior contracts” stipulate to whom certain children can speak and where they can eat breakfast.

These are among the incidents that have fueled concerns at Bache-Martin Elementary in Fairmount this year, and left parents asking: What has happened to our school?

Read the full story

 

Pennsylvania schools face funding, construction challenges

May 12, 2014 – Editorial, Allentown Morning Call – Pennsylvania faces a long-term challenge in public education and economic development. Current policies are defining the haves and have-nots statewide. It’s not good for students, and it’s bad for local economies.

However, the angst being heard in some communities may help to explain the election-year momentum and optimism for changes to public school funding in Harrisburg. With bills moving through the Legislature to address basic education funding and school construction, minds are changing all the way up to the governor’s mansion.

There are two foundational state funding streams that schools depend on — basic education funding for operations and school construction dollars.

Read the full editorial

 

Action Item: Attorney Action Day for Education

Join fellow Philadelphia lawyers to tell City Council that Philadelphia cannot function without good public schools, and high-quality public schools require adequate funding.

Philadelphia’s schools can’t provide the basic programs and services our children need to have an opportunity to learn —class sizes have grown, counselors and nurses reduced, libraries closed. The local economy on which the legal community depends will continue to decline without a strong system of public education.

While the state education budget continues to be inadequate and inequitable, there are options to provide local funding. City Council can move on those options now, but needs encouragement to secure the resources necessary for our schools.

WHO: Leading Philadelphia Attorneys

WHAT: Take Action on School Funding

WHERE: Outside City Hall, North Broad Street entrance

WHEN: Thursday, April 24, 11:45 a.m.

RSVP today! http://www.eventbrite.com/e/lawyers-day-of-action-for-education-tickets-8171817125

 

Racial disparities in school discipline: A Radio Times discussion

March 31, 2014 – WHYY, Radio Times – New information released by the Department of Education shed more light on a disturbing difference when it comes to school discipline — minority students are suspended at a much higher rate than white students. The same applies to expulsions and harsher punishments and the problem is particularly acute in Pennsylvania. With more research to show that zero tolerance policies are ineffective, some educators are rethinking the whys and hows of school discipline.

WHYY’s Radio Times talks to Harold Jordan of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, Deborah Klehr of the Education Law Center, and University of Pennsylvania education professor Matthew Steinberg about the issues around school suspensions, expulsions and even arrests, particularly when it comes to minority students.

Listen to the discussion.

Philly district orders school police to stay out of level 1 offenses

March 25, 2014 – by Kevin McCorry, Newsworks – Philadelphia School District has directed school police officers to stop responding to calls related to Level 1 student conduct offenses. The proscribed violations range from “failure to follow classroom rules” to “truancy” to “verbal altercations” to “inappropriate touching/public displays of affection.”

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Op-Ed: Major flaws in charter school bill

March 9, 2014 – David Lapp, Special to the Sunday News – Significant problems exist with Pennsylvania’s current charter school policy, and we agree with state Sen. Lloyd Smucker that charter school reform is needed in the commonwealth.

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Easton Students Return to School; Lawsuit Resolved

January 16, 2014 – Teenage brothers, who were disenrolled from the Easton Area School District because their family was experiencing homelessness, are back in school as a result of legal action by the Education Law Center.

The Law Center filed the case in early December when the students — one of whom is in 12th grade — were abruptly disenrolled from Easton Area High School because they lived with their parents in a camper outside the district.

“The federal McKinney-Vento Act requires school districts to continue to educate students experiencing homelessness even when they are living outside their prior district. The Act also requires the state to ensure that school districts comply with this law in part by resolving enrollment disputes,” said Maura McInerney, ELC Staff Attorney.

In response to ELC’s motion for a preliminary injunction and presentation of the dispute to the court, the District agreed to re-enroll the children days later.

A record number of public school students have become homeless in Pennsylvania and in the nation, putting more than 1.1 million children nationally at increased risk of falling behind in school, dropping out and perpetuating the cycle of homelessness. In Pennsylvania, the number of K-12 students experiencing homelessness increased to 19,905 in 2012 from 18,531 the previous year, an increase of 7 percent. In the nation, the number of homeless students increased by 10 percent, according to October 2013 data from the U.S. Department of Education.

The Law Center has urged the state to adopt guidance to improve the dispute resolution process for families and to ensure that what happened to these students will not happen to others.

“We have asked the state to issue guidance explaining that school districts cannot unilaterally disenroll students based on the duration of homelessness, and that families must be notified — in writing — of the basis of any decision to deny enrollment, including the resolution of appeals to the state. Children have the right to stay in school as long as a dispute is pending,” said McInerney.

The family has since secured permanent housing within the District, and ELC has withdrawn its lawsuit.

“This is a terrific outcome for these students and this family,” said McInerney.

 

 

CONTACT:
Brett Schaeffer
Education Law Center
[email protected]
Office: 215-238-6970 ext. 334
Mobile: 215-519-6522

 

 

 

 

ELC Webinar January 22, 2014

Join Education Law Center attorney Maura McInerney as she presents a webinar for families of students with disabilities who are home schooled, educated in cyber charter schools, charter schools, private schools or parochial schools.

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