Chester Upland court case confuses me

For the past month, the school district has been in federal court to determine whether the state is providing Chester Upland School District with the funding necessary to meet its lawful obligations to students with disabilities. 

The Daily Times reports today that expert witness Ralph Girolamo testified that Chester Upland will have about $ 48.7 million to run in- district programs, including special education, once $ 41.9 million in out- of- district tuition payments are subtracted from its projected $ 90.68 million budget.

Is out-of-district tuition charter school payments?

Girolamo said Chester Upland will have $ 12,641 per student, including those enrolled in special education. With $ 6.55 million budgeted strictly for in- district special education, Chester Upland will have an additional $ 8,914 for each of its 735 special education students, he said.

My calculator concurs.

That leaves $ 21,375 available for each special education student attending schools within the district, Girolamo said, adding that varying disabilities require a range of financial resources.

My calculator concurs again. 

“Twenty- one thousand is a considerable amount of dollars,” Girolamo testified. “Chester Upland reported that the vast majority of their students are mildly to moderately disabled and would not be consuming resources at the $ 21,000 level.”

So why are we in court?


Click HERE for more