Category: State Government Actions

Secretaries of Education, Labor & Industry Visit Assistive Technology Event to Promote Tools for Students with Vision and Hearing Needs (October 31, 2024)

Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry (L&I) Secretary Nancy A. Walker and Secretary of Education Dr. Khalid N. Mumin recently teamed up to promote services for individuals with disabilities and reinforce the Shapiro Administration’s commitment to ensuring that all Pennsylvanians have real freedom and opportunity to chart their own course toward success.

The Secretaries visited an event hosted by the Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network (PaTTAN) – the training arm of the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s (PDE) Bureau of Special Education (BSE) — to showcase assistive technology (AT) tools and resources for students with sensory impairments across the Commonwealth. The Technology Adventure for Students with Vision and Hearing Needs series brings together families, educators, and AT vendors to share information about advancements in assistive technology for individuals with vision and/or hearing loss.

More than 6,000 PreK-12 students in Pennsylvania have sensory impairments. Assistive technology plays a vital role in the education of those students by allowing them to fully participate in the general education curriculum alongside other students.

To help ensure that Pennsylvania students have the resources they need to learn and grow all year long, the state’s 2024-25 budget prioritizes services for Pennsylvanians with disabilities that support independence without barriers by investing an additional $787,000 in vocational rehabilitation. More than 50,000 individuals with disabilities receive services through the vocational rehabilitation program and an additional 17,000 students with disabilities utilize OVR’s pre-employment transition services program annually. Pre-employment transition services become available to Pennsylvania students with disabilities starting at age 14.

L&I’s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR) helps Pennsylvanians with disabilities achieve independence through competitive, integrated employment. Services available at no cost to eligible individuals include diagnostic services, vocational evaluation, counseling, job training, placement assistance, assistive technology and more. Within OVR, L&I also offers specialized assistance to individuals with visual impairments and individuals with hearing loss.

For more information on the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry and its workforce development initiatives, please visit the website or follow L&I on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn.

For more information on the Pennsylvania Department of Education, please visit the website or follow PDE on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or Pinterest.

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.

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