2,400 sign petition asking governor to fund school
By Stacy Brown | PA Independent
HARRISBURG — A small group of Chester Upland School District parents came to the Capitol on Thursday to deliver a big message to Gov. Tom Corbett.
"We want to tell Corbett to keep our schools open," said Danyel Jennings, who not only has two children in the fiscally distressed district but was herself educated there.
At issue is $20 million in state aid district officials are seeking so the school district can pay its bills and remain operating through the end of the school year.
Jennings and four others brought a petition signed by more than 2,400 people in support of the funding.
Inside the governor's office, a staff member accepted the petition as well as a handmade card with pictures drawn and signed by several district students delivered by second-grader Taaliyah Allen.
Corbett was in Punxsutawney on Thursday.
Though Allen attends the not-for-profit charter school Widener Partnership School in Chester instead of a public school in the district, her presence underscored the need for state funding for Chester Upland, said Jennings, Taaliyah’s mother.
Taaliyah is learning math using blocks, similar to the ones better performing and better funded schools use with kindergarten students.
"When (Taaliyah) was in kindergarten in a district school, there were 20 kids in that class and when they moved on to first grade, only (Taaliyah) and one other student had the ability to do the work," Jennings said.
"We have good teachers, but they don't have the resources, the tools and supplies they need to teach. We don't have books, and when our students graduate high school, unlike other districts whose kids are ready for college, ours are told they have to go to a bridge program," Jennings said.
State Department of Education Secretary Ron Tomalis and Corbett last month said the school board in charge of running the district has badly mismanaged the district’s funds.
Tomalis said that since 2003, the school district has received nearly $31 million in financial assistance above what the state was required to provide.
However, "the state gave us $10 million in debt and told us to manage it," said Desire Grover, who was a part of Thursday's group. "How can they label you as bad managers because of that?"
Last month, Judge Michael Baylson in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia ordered the state Department of Education to provide $3.2 million in immediate funding, so the district could meet payroll through the end of February.
Litigation is ongoing in the case as the district is seeking about $20 million more from the state.
Corbett and Tomalis are against providing additional funds.
"We just want to know we will make it to June and beyond," Jennings said.
