Following on our October report, “Shortchanging Children with Disabilities: State Underfunding of Special Education in Pennsylvania,” the Education Law Center wrote Gov. Tom Wolf in January, urging that his 2019-20 budget proposal include a $400 million increase in state funding for basic education and a $100 million increase in special education funding, to be distributed to districts through the existing funding formulas. Read our letter, press release, and news coverage.
Author: elcadmin
Response to Rescission of Federal School Discipline Guidance and to School Safety Recommendations
The widespread problem of racial discrimination in school discipline is well documented. The 2014 federal discipline guidance from the Obama administration formally recognized that for the first time and challenged exclusionary discipline practices that disproportionately impact students of color and students with disabilities. A December 18, 2018, report from the Federal Commission on School Safety, led by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, has called for rescinding those guidelines. ELC’s statement in response said that a decision to rescind the federal guidance as recommended is bound to allow discriminatory practices in schools to proliferate.
Three days later, on December 21, the federal government proceeded to rescind the guidance, despite widespread opposition. ELC’s statement in response is here.
ELC Stands with Tamaqua Area School District Educators Opposed to Arming School Personnel
The Education Law Center-PA stands with the Tamaqua Area Education Association and many in the Tamaqua school community in eastern Pennsylvania in opposing their school district’s new policy allowing teachers and administrators to carry guns. ELC joined three other organizations in the filing of an amicus brief December 21, 2018, in support of the education association’s lawsuit to block this illegal and dangerous policy. Read about the brief here.
The presence of guns in schools and arming of untrained school staff pose significant safety risks to schoolchildren and communities and are not authorized by state law. See the ELC statement on the new policy.
Trial in Pa. School Funding Lawsuit Scheduled for Summer 2020
In a breakthrough for efforts to fix Pa.’s broken school funding system, Commonwealth Court
has set a schedule for hearing the facts in William Penn et al. v. PA Dept. of Ed. et al.
December 6, 2018 – Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court released on Thursday a briefing and trial scheduling order in the lawsuit challenging the state’s school funding system. The trial is tentatively set to begin in summer 2020. Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer issued the order and will oversee the pre-trial proceedings.
Continue reading
Fair Funding Lawsuit Goes to Trial Nov. 12, 2021
Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has scheduled our historic fair funding lawsuit for trial with a start date of Nov. 12, 2021.
All children in PA have the right to a high-quality public education. This isn’t just an opinion – it’s the law, written into the state constitution in the 1870s. But in PA, not every child gets the resources they need.
By failing to provide enough state funding, our leaders in Harrisburg have created a school funding system where the students who need the most get the least, simply because of where they live. Our leaders are severely shortchanging students in low-wealth school districts across the state, including where most of our Black and Brown students live.
It’s wrong, it’s unconstitutional and our leaders in Harrisburg are responsible. That’s why we’ve taken the state to court.
We filed our lawsuit in November 2014, challenging the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s inadequate, inequitable school funding system. (Here is a short summary.) Seven years later, that case – filed on behalf of six school districts, two statewide associations, and several parents – is headed to trial.
Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer has been overseeing the pre-trial proceedings and will preside over the trial, which is expected to continue through the fall and into January.
The trial will take place in the Pennsylvania Judicial Center in Harrisburg and will be livestreamed (link to be posted here as soon as it is available).
Read more about the case here – FundOurSchoolsPA.org is a website devoted to the lawsuit jointly produced by the Education Law Center and our co-counsel, the Public Interest Law Center. It will be updated with daily highlights during the trial.
A chronology of the case and relevant court documents are on the Cases page of our website.
PDE Orders Philadelphia School District to Create New System to Protect Students with Disabilities Experiencing Homelessness
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 30, 2018 Contact: Paul Socolar, Education Law Center, 215-906-1250, [email protected]
PDE Orders Philadelphia School District to Create New System to Protect Students with Disabilities Experiencing Homelessness
Philadelphia – ELC has secured an important victory for unaccompanied students with disabilities experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia and statewide. As a result of a complaint filed by ELC with the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), these vulnerable students living on their own will have surrogate parents promptly appointed to enforce their rights in the special education system. Absent the prompt appointment of a surrogate parent, unaccompanied students under age 21 are unable to enforce their legal rights, leaving them without a mechanism to get the services they need in school. Federal law requires school districts to appoint surrogate parents within 30 days to represent unaccompanied students throughout the special education process. It also permits school districts to authorize shelter staff to serve as temporary surrogate parents until a permanent surrogate parent can be appointed. Through our partnerships with shelter providers, ELC learned of two unaccompanied students with disabilities in the School District of Philadelphia who were not assigned surrogate parents. Both suffered severe educational consequences: one student was pushed through to graduation and forced to forfeit future educational rights; the other student languished in a life-skills classroom that could not meet her needs. In response to ELC’s complaint, a state investigation revealed that both students’ rights were violated and that the District did not have an adequate system to track and assign surrogate parents. Alarmingly, it also found that the District had only assigned two surrogate parents across the District during the previous school year for all children in foster care or experiencing homelessness. In a November 8 Complaint Investigation Report, PDE’s Bureau of Special Education ordered the district to design a new system to ensure surrogate parents are appointed promptly. It also ordered PDE to issue specific guidance to all school districts about their legal obligations to assign surrogate parents. For both named students, the Bureau ordered the immediate assignment of surrogate parents and awarded compensatory education services. “The state’s action in this matter represents vital progress for unaccompanied youth with disabilities, who will now have a system that identifies and serves them,” said Paige Joki, Independence Foundation Public Interest Law Fellow at the Education Law Center. “As our clients’ cases illustrate, youth who on their own risk being pushed to graduate or being deprived of services they desperately need to succeed in life.” During the 2016-17 school year, over 4,000 students statewide were unaccompanied.
# The Education Law Center-PA (ELC) is a nonprofit, legal advocacy organization with offices in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, dedicated to ensuring that all children in Pennsylvania have access to a quality public education. Through legal representation, impact litigation, trainings, and policy advocacy, ELC advances the rights of vulnerable children, including children living in poverty, children of color, children in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, children with disabilities, English learners, LGBTQ students, and children experiencing homelessness. For more information, visit elc-pa.org or follow on Twitter @edlawcenterpa.
Testimony: Philadelphia City Council Hearing on the Philadelphia School District and Board of Education
At the first Philadelphia City Council hearing since schools came under the tenure of the city’s new board of education, ELC policy director Reynelle Brown Staley gave testimony on November 27, highlighting the centrality of resource issues for the school district. “The fact that Philadelphia schools simply don’t have enough resources is in part a Harrisburg problem, but it’s one that we locally can play a bigger role in affecting,” she said.
Staley noted that meeting the educational needs of the district’s most underserved students – including English learners and pregnant and parenting teens – will require “significant funding commitments from the Mayor and Council as well as policy and practice changes within the district.”
Please support the Education Law Center on Giving Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023!
ELC works every day to ensure access to education for all children, including students living in poverty, students of color, students with disabilities, students in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, multilingual learners, LGBTQ youth, and students experiencing homelessness.
Our work is made possible by generous contributions from individuals like you. Giving Tuesday 2023 kicks off our year-end fund drive.
Please contribute via our donation page!
Or please click here to donate via Facebook!
We encourage you to give as generously as you can.
And thank you for making your tax-deductible donation to ELC on Giving Tuesday, so we can help more children receive the education they need, deserve, and are legally entitled to receive.
Education Law Center Names New Policy Director
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 19, 2018
Contact: Paul Socolar, Education Law Center, 215-906-1250, [email protected]
Education Law Center Names New Policy Director
Philadelphia – The board and staff of the Education Law Center-PA are thrilled to announce that Reynelle Brown Staley, Esq., has been named ELC’s policy director.
“Since joining ELC’s staff in August 2017, Reynelle has been an essential member of our team, thoughtfully, strategically, and effectively carrying forth our mission through policy advocacy,” said Deborah Gordon Klehr, ELC’s executive director. Continue reading
ELC and CASA Philadelphia Webinar for Educational Decision Makers (EDMs)
This webinar was hosted by the Education Law Center-PA and CASA Philadelphia as a training for court-appointed Educational Decision Makers (EDMs) who represent children in foster care to ensure their access to a quality public education. The presentation features an overview of an “EDM Toolkit” prepared by these agencies and includes education issues relating to enrollment, access to special education services, and school discipline. The Toolkit helps Pennsylvania CASA programs train CASAs to serve as EDM volunteers and serves as an ongoing resource for EDMs to address questions and challenges that encounter in meeting the needs of children in foster care. The Toolkit includes checklists, suggestions, and resources to help EDMs ensure that students who are in foster care have school stability, access to needed services, and achieve academic success.
Click here for the toolkit, here to view the webinar PowerPoint slides, and here to stream a recording of the webinar.
ELC Joins Civil Rights Organizations in Issuing New Report Challenging Curtailment of Important Protections for Children of Color
ELC joined more than a dozen other civil rights organizations in releasing a new report highlighting the ways the Trump Administration is aggressively and intentionally limiting the civil rights protections of children and youth of color in schools. The Report was prepared by the Civil Rights Roundtable, a national coalition of organizations and academic professionals who are experts in the fields of school discipline, civil rights, and disability law. The Report analyzes recent changes in policies, regulations, and enforcement agency action which significantly impact children and youth of color, including reductions in Office of Civil Rights investigations of systemic claims, the proposed rescission of the Title VI discipline guidance, and delay and potential rescission of racial disproportionality regulations under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. These changes threaten to have a devastating impact on a generation of children and youth of color who are already disproportionately excluded from the classroom. The Report demonstrates that the policy, regulatory, and guidance revisions undertaken by the Trump Administration surpass the ordinary actions of a new administration and should be recognized as an intentional and substantial threat to decades of civil rights protections. The Report highlights a series of important recommendations to change this trajectory. Read the report here.
Philadelphia School Board Testimony on the Need for Additional Resources for Students with Disabilities
At the October 2018 action meeting of the Philadelphia School Board, ELC offered testimony supporting a proposal that would increase transitional training and support services for students with disabilities. Federal and state law require transition planning for every child beginning at age 14, including requiring school districts to provide every child with a disability with comprehensive services that will help them transition from school to post-school-life. ELC highlighted the need for additional transitional training and support services for Philadelphia schoolchildren with disabilities and highlighted the role of inadequate state funding and charters in impacting the district’s ability to provide these needed services.
View ELC’s full testimony here: October 2018 School Board Testimony.
Reynelle Brown Staley testifying at the Philadelphia School Board Action meeting.
Skyrocketing special ed. costs falling heavily on Pa. school districts, taxpayers
A newly released Education Law Center report reveals that Pennsylvania school districts are having to shoulder most of the burden of funding growing expenses of special education. Over an eight-year period, districts contributed nearly $20 toward special education cost increases for every dollar of dedicated funding that came from the state. Continue reading
Editorial: New school year, old funding problem
An editorial in the Delaware County Daily Times says that it is time to fix the problems of inadequacy and inequity in school funding that led the William Penn School District and other districts, organizations and families to mount a court challenge to the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s school funding system. Continue reading
Save the Date! Please join us for ELC’s Annual Celebration
The Annual Celebration will take place this year on September 26, 2018 at The Crystal Tea Room in Philadelphia. The event begins at 5:30 PM. We anticipate more than 300 legal, corporate, and community supporters joining us for a cocktail reception, silent auction, and dinner presentation. More details here!
Extra info can help some gain admission
The LeGare process, established through a case filed by ELC, is intended to provide an equal opportunity for Philadelphia special education and English-learner students to get accepted to the city’s selective public high schools. Alyssa Biederman of the Philadelphia Public School Notebook explains the process. Read more here.
Statement to the State Board of Education on the Model Memorandum of Understanding Between Schools and Police
The PA Safe Schools Act, amended in 2010, requires all Pennsylvania school districts to draw up a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with local law enforcement agencies to govern their working relationship. The state then created a model MOU addressing school-police cooperation, which must be reviewed every two years and guides the drafting of local MOUs. In September 2018, ELC submitted comments on the model MOU to the Pennsylvania State Board of Education School and University Safety Committee, including recommended changes to avoid the overcriminalization of student behavior and the racial disproportionality in school discipline and police-involved incidents.
School funding lawsuit can proceed, judge rules
The landmark Pennsylvania education funding lawsuit filed by ELC and its partners can proceed, a Commonwealth Court judge ruled, as reported by Dale Mezzacappa of the Philadelphia Public School Notebook. The judge rejected the argument made by Republican legislative leaders that it has been rendered moot and should be dismissed. Read more here.
In victory for students, Court rules that Pa. school funding lawsuit is not moot
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 21, 2018
Contact: Paul Socolar, Education Law Center, 215-906-1250, [email protected]
Jonathan McJunkin, Public Interest Law Center, 267-546-1305, [email protected]
In victory for students, Court rules that Pa. school funding lawsuit is not moot
Commonwealth Court dismisses Senator Scarnati’s motion that the case was rendered moot by the adoption of a fair funding formula in 2016
Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court ruled Tuesday that a lawsuit challenging the state’s school funding system can move forward, denying a claim by state legislative leaders that the lawsuit was rendered moot by the state’s adoption of a funding formula in 2016.
The lawsuit was filed in 2014 by the Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center on behalf of parents, school districts, and statewide organizations alleging that the state’s school funding system violates Pennsylvania’s constitution, due to significant underfunding and gross disparities in allocations that penalize students in low-wealth districts.
The ruling is a significant victory for petitioners in the lawsuit William Penn School District et al. v. PA Department of Education et al., eliminating a major obstacle to a trial in the case.
Judge Robert Simpson wrote the court order, rejecting claims by Senate President Scarnati and House Speaker Turzai that a change in the school funding formula made the issues in the case moot.
“We are pleased that the court has denied respondents’ baseless attempt to dismiss our lawsuit,” said Education Law Center Legal Director Maura McInerney. “As the court recognized, our challenge to the inadequacy and inequity of Pennsylvania’s broken school funding system will persist. We look forward to presenting our case at trial.”
The petitioners’ brief responding to the mootness challenge demonstrated that the spending gap between wealthy and poor school districts has actually widened since the lawsuit was filed, and that state funds available for classroom spending have declined. Pennsylvania’s school funding formula applies to only a tiny fraction of the state’s K-12 education funding.
“Pennsylvania’s school funding system still deprives students of the resources they need,” said Public Interest Law Center Staff Attorney Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg. “We are talking about the basics: not enough teachers, out-of-date books, and buildings that crumble around the children inside of them. That was the reality when we filed the case, and it continues today.”
Respondents in the case – legislative leaders, the governor, the secretary of education, the department of education, and the state board of education – will finally be required to answer the allegations in the lawsuit. Gov. Wolf opposed the mootness challenge and urged the court to move the case to trial swiftly. Petitioners have requested a scheduling conference and hope to proceed to trial quickly. The date for a trial is not yet known.
The petitioners in the case are six families, six school districts – William Penn, Panther Valley, Lancaster, Greater Johnstown, Wilkes-Barre Area and Shenandoah Valley – the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, and the NAACP of Pennsylvania. In the fall of 2017, in a landmark ruling, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined that there are judicially manageable standards for courts to review school funding issues. The state’s highest court remanded the case to Commonwealth Court for a full trial. Since that ruling, two respondents – Senator Scarnati and Representative Turzai – have tried to dismiss the case or further delay trial. A May 2018 Commonwealth Court ruling dismissed most of their preliminary objections but directed parties to file briefs on the issue of mootness.
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The Education Law Center-PA (ELC) is a nonprofit, legal advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring that all children in Pennsylvania have access to a quality public education. Through legal representation, impact litigation, trainings, and policy advocacy, ELC advances the rights of vulnerable children, including children living in poverty, children of color, children in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, children with disabilities, English language learners, LGBTQ students, and children experiencing homelessness. For more information, visit elc-pa.org or follow on Twitter @edlawcenterpa.
The Public Interest Law Center uses high-impact legal strategies to advance the civil, social, and economic rights of communities in the Philadelphia region facing discrimination, inequality, and poverty. We use litigation, community education, advocacy, and organizing to secure their access to fundamental resources and services in the areas of public education, housing, health care, employment, environmental justice and voting. For more information visit www.pubintlaw.org or follow on Twitter @PubIntLawCtr.
State leaders respond to ‘moot’ claim in education funding lawsuit
Delco News Network quotes ELC Legal Director Maura McInerney in an article on Governor Wolf and Senator Joe Scarnati’s opposing briefs on the legal status of ELC’s school funding lawsuit. They write: “‘The governor recognizes that our public school children continue to suffer the painful consequences of underfunded schools every day. He understands that their need for justice is now,’ said Maura McInerney. ‘There can be no question that a dispute continues to exist regarding the adequacy and equity of Pennsylvania’s broken school funding system.'” Read more here.