Here’s the link:

Special-needs funding in Monroe County’s 4 school districts could get $500K boost

And the story:

Special-needs funding [...]]]> Dan Berrett of the Pocono Record has a good piece today on what enacting HB 704 would mean for Monroe County schools.

Here’s the link:

Special-needs funding in Monroe County’s 4 school districts could get $500K boost

And the story:

Special-needs funding in Monroe County’s 4 school districts could get $500K boost
Bill would more fairly spread money
By Dan Berrett
Pocono Record Writer
July 02, 2009 6:00 AM

A half-million more dollars for special education could flow to the area’s four school districts if a new bill making its way through the state’s House of Representatives becomes law.

The proposed bill, House Bill 704, would rewrite the state’s funding formula for special-needs students in order to make it more equitable.

The bill was reported to the floor from the House Education Committee on Wednesday. It was sponsored by Rep. Mike Sturla, D-96, and had 65 co-sponsors, including Reps. John Siptroth, D-189, and Mike Carroll, D-118. Thirty-six advocacy groups, including the Education Law Center, Disability Rights Network, and Good Schools Pennsylvania, also back the measure.

Siptroth and Carroll, as well as Rep. Mario Scavello, R-176, were in session late Wednesday and unavailable for comment.

The bill aims to close an “adequacy gap” over six years by basing state funding for special education on a five-year average of the actual number of students receiving special education services in the district.

While a more systematic formula for funding a share of basic education statewide was put in place in last year’s budget, special education funding has remained divorced from the actual costs and needs.

“It’s a number we pick out of the air that we think we can afford,” Sturla told the Intelligencer Journal in April, describing the existing system of funding special education. “It has nothing to do with the reality of the costs out there.”

The bill could prove most helpful to Pocono Mountain School District and its special-needs students, as more than half of the additional money proposed for the area would flow to that district alone. Increases next year would range from $55,320 in Stroudsburg to $282,609 in Pocono Mountain, for a 5.7 percent increase.

Locally, the percentage of students classified with special needs ranges from about 12 percent in Pleasant Valley to close to 19 percent in East Stroudsburg.

The median share among the state’s districts — the point at which half are higher and half lower — is about 15.2 percent, according to an analysis of data provided by Sturla’s office.

Current estimates are that House Bill 704 would need $32 million additional money each year in order to meet funding targets for special education statewide. Over the six-year phase-in, the total spent would come to about $200 million, according to Sturla’s office.

Money to support the first two years of the program would come from the federal stimulus bill, which allocates $375 million over the next two years to school programs serving special education students, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Of this total, more than $7 million is targeted to special education services in the area’s four districts and two charter schools.

Still, the bill is being proposed in a tough budget year, with an estimated $3.2 billion shortfall looming.