Mahanoy, Shenandoah school leaders discuss funding increases

MAHANOY CITY – Local school districts are seeing a funding increase with the new state budget, and it was a topic of conversation at this month’s Mahanoy Area School Board meeting.

“It wasn’t quite what the Governor had proposed, but it was more than most people were expecting,” Jack Hurst, Mahanoy Area’s business manager, said. “I believe it’s a step in the right direction.”

Hurst said the school district is receiving around $420k more this year across various increases and subsidies.

“One of the happiest things I can report is, there was some movement on charter school reimbursement. Although they didn’t necessarily change the formula for calculating tuition, they did create a $100M reimbursement fund for schools,” Hurst said. “We will get a portion of that based on our tuition cost in relation to the entire tuition cost across the state.”

“Overall, we could see close to $200k coming back for charter school reimbursement which is nowhere near our $1.7M cost, but it’s certainly the first time in many many years that they’ve done anything with charter schools,” he added.

Shenandoah Valley, one of the plaintiffs in the historic education funding lawsuit, is also seeing additional funding.

“Ultimately, we are grateful for the funding we have received,” Superintendent Brian Waite told the Sentinel. “We want to be able to continue to plan further than the 2024-25 school year though, as I imagine many districts want to be able to do. The Commonwealth’s constitutional shortfall still leaves nearly 90% of the gap yet unfilled by some undefined date in the future, or not at all.”

Regarding the funding gaps, Waite said “the first step is recognition, with the second step being a plan that will enable districts to better plan further into their ‘budget futures’ beyond a year.

“If the current funding stream continues, districts will have to wait until for nine additional years to meet funding adequacy. By that time, the gap may grow larger.”

“Imagine being a student entering kindergarten for the 2024-25 school year and not meeting funding adequacy until they are in 10th grade. How many support services could we provide between now and 10th grade?  How much learning are they going to lose because they don’t have the services?”

“We have students in desperate need of interventions in literacy, numeracy, and language deficits to name a few.  We want to be able to support their learning gaps as soon as possible, while continuing to meet the diverse needs of all our students, including those that excel.”

North Schuylkill staff did not return a request for comment regarding the impact of the new state budget.

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