Category: Government Actions

PDE Provides ‘Governor’s Breakfast Champions’ Program (October 30, 2024)

The Governor’s School Breakfast Challenge is a three-month program to encourage increased participation in the Universal Free Breakfast Program and recognize schools for increasing breakfast participation while implementing sustainable changes that incorporate more nutritious and local foods in their meal offerings.

Participating schools raise awareness about the free breakfast program, boost participation by improving access within school buildings, offer more low-sugar options, and include more locally sourced foods. This year, 37 schools successfully completed the Challenge.

The top 10 schools with the greatest increase in participation received a banner to hang in their school, a certificate, and a breakfast recipe book including recipes submitted by schools that completed the Challenge.

The program delivered free breakfast for Pennsylvania’s 1.7 million students last year. The 2024-25 budget builds on that progress with a $16.7 million increase to continue the universal free breakfast program, making sure students have access to healthy meals to start their day on the right foot, and making sure no kid goes hungry during the summer by funding the summer food service program.

Over the past school year, 91.4 million breakfast meals were served in schools, an increase of nearly 10 million since the 2022-23 school year. More than 7 million of those breakfasts were served to students at-risk for hunger or from low-income families.

For more information, please visit the website or follow PDE on Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube, or Pinterest.

Leaders Convene 2nd Annual PA MASLOW Convening (October 30, 2024)

On October 29th, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) hosted school leaders, state officials, and advocates in Harrisburg for the second annual PA MASLOW convening to support postsecondary students in meeting their basic needs.

Collegiate Basic Needs are important at every institution of higher education across the Commonwealth, including public two- and four-year institutions, private, not-for-profit institutions, and business trade and technical schools. Students in higher education institutions throughout the Commonwealth and nation experience anxiety and other mental health issues, food insecurity, housing insecurity, sexual violence, and more.

PA MASLOW is a cross-agency partnership that expands upon the mission of PDE—ensuring every student not only has access to education, but that the education pursued provides them with support and resources to create optimal learning environments. This initiative complements investments in higher education and engages postsecondary institutions in several pillars of work, including digital equity, housing and transportation, mental health, personal needs, adult student needs, financial, and safety and belonging.

The 2024-25 budget provides nearly $60 million to make postsecondary education more accessible and affordable to Pennsylvanians, with a $35.1 million increase for Pennsylvania State System universities, a $15.7 million increase for community colleges, and an additional $143 million to PHEAA to make college more affordable for PA students, including: a $54 million increase for student grants, a $5 million increase for disadvantaged students’ scholarships, a $36 million increase for the Ready to Succeed Scholarship and expanded criteria to increase the number of eligible students, and $25 million for the new Grow PA Scholarship Program.

Earlier this year, PDE launched a new anti-stigma campaign to ensure students know it’s okay to ask for help. Through the PA MASLOW “You Good?” campaign, PDE developed posters that colleges and universities can personalize, print, and post on their campuses directing students to critical resources. PDE convened student panel discussions around the state as a proactive way to inform the anti-stigma campaign as well as the programs and policies that postsecondary institutions are implementing. Through quarterly virtual meetings, the department has been engaging with the field on ways to expand upon and improve anti-stigma efforts. 

While most of PA MASLOW’s efforts have been to help practitioners support their learners, PDE also created the EmpowerU landing page, directed to the Commonwealth’s diverse learners themselves to provide health, safety, and basic needs supports by connecting them with important resources right on their campuses and at their fingertips. For more information from PDE, please visit the website or follow PDE on Instagram, X, YouTube, or Pinterest.

PDE to Begin to Accepting Applications for Contingency Funds for Extraordinary Expenses (October 30, 2024)

The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) will begin accepting applications for the Special Education Contingency Funds for Extraordinary Expenses on November 18, 2024. The fund’s purpose is to provide additional state funding for the implementation of the Individualized Education Program (IEP) for a student with significant disabilities. Interested local educational agencies (LEAs) will have until January 3, 2025 to apply.

The application and review process for the 2024-25 school year is specified in the Contingency Funds Guidelines. Applications for the Special Education Contingency Funds must be submitted electronically through the contingency funds request system website.

Questions regarding Special Education Contingency Funds for Extraordinary Expenses should be directed to Janette Fulton, Special Education Adviser, Division of Analysis and Financial Reporting, at 717-425-5442 or [email protected].

As GAO Report Looked at Effectiveness of ESSER, PA Reports Appropriate Funds Usage (October 30, 2024)

According to a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released October, 23, 2024, school districts prioritized spending of COVID-19 emergency (ESSER) funds based on community input, financial need, state policies and other influences. It also found that the effectiveness of the ESSER money for COVID-19 recovery efforts is difficult to determine because school districts were involved in many activities during the pandemic. Additionally, long-term improvements are unknown because not enough time has passed since initial positive effects were noted.

Republican members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee had asked GAO to examine school district ESSER spending. Some conservative lawmakers at the federal level have questioned the proper use of the money. A statement posted on the Senate HELP Committee GOP page on X said that the report “found it difficult to determine what uses were effective. More research is needed from the field,” read a statement posted Wednesday on the Senate HELP Committee GOP page on X.

In addition, AASA, The School Superintendents Association released a September report on spending practices from ESSER’s allocations from the American Rescue Plan and found most districts directed money toward expanded learning time, including summer programming and after-school activities. But because districts had various fiscal priorities and approaches for investing the money in different phases, it was difficult to generalize the best practice approaches for the emergency funds.

GAO’s report said education officials from varying states sometimes differed on what they considered was an allowable expense for district-level use of federal COVID-19 emergency funds for schools. Directives from state legislatures also influenced spending practices. Pennsylvania officials told GAO researchers that proposals to renovate or upgrade athletic fields, stadiums or tracks were denied because school districts could not justify that those improvements were necessary to respond to the pandemic.

For more from K-12 Dive, click here.

CDC: A Decline in Routine Vaccinations and Increase Exemption Rates can Lead to Outbreaks (October 29, 2024)

Fewer kindergartners are getting routine vaccinations compared to pre-pandemic times, dipping from 95% in the 2019-20 school year to less than 93% in 2023-24, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Meanwhile, the vaccination exemption rate for this group rose from 2.5% in 2019-20 to 3.3.% — the highest level ever reported — last year. Exemptions increased in 41 states and territories, and surpassed 5% in 14 of them. That amounts to more than 126,000 kindergartners with an exemption from at least one vaccination for the 2023-24 school year.

The combined decrease in routine shots and increase in exemptions “jeopardize” the 95% kindergartner vaccination rate goal for measles, mumps and rubella by 2030 set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It also “set[s] the stage for accumulation of clusters of undervaccinated children, which can lead to outbreaks.”

For more from K-12 Dive, click here.