Finally some word on the School Budget

Thanks to today's Daily Times cover story, we've finally received some quotes from the School District regarding the budget cuts.  So, will the school district close?

Chester Upland School District is facing a whopping $19.2 million funding loss under Corbett’s plan and a slightly less catastrophic $17.8 million under the House Republican plan, according to data from the House Appropriations Committee.

“With this kind of budget cut, we couldn’t really survive as a district,” said acting Chester Upland Superintendent Joyce Wells. “... It’s just debilitating. We have an 87 percent poverty rate in Chester Upland. It’s a significant loss to our students, to our community and our district as a whole. We’re the hardest hit district in the commonwealth. That, in and of itself, is significant considering that we’re a small, urban school district.”

Wells said 72 percent of Chester Upland’s budget comes from state and federal entitlement grants, which the district relies on to run viable programs.

“That’s how we do the kinds of things that we’re doing,” she said. “It does go hand-in-glove. It impacts us deeply in a bigger way than probably most school districts in this area, except for Philadelphia.”


Even papers in Lancaster have an opinion,


The problem is that the House Republicans adopted an equally inequitable formula for cuts when developing their budget. With their "restoration," Radnor's per student cut is $39 per student while Chester Upland's is $2,443 per student. Now imagine a class of 25 students. That is a $975 cut per classroom in wealthy Radnor and a $61,075 cut per classroom in Chester. This is what Republicans refer to as "shared sacrifice."