Funding lawsuit ruling ‘long overdue,’ says SV board president
SHENANDOAH – The president of the Shenandoah Valley Board of Education expressed cautious optimism following Tuesday’s landmark Commonwealth Court ruling which rendered the state’s education funding system unconstitutional.
“It’s long overdue,” Dan Salvadore, board president, told the Sentinel Wednesday afternoon. “We were underfunded for years, and people like you suffered from it, because we didn’t have the finances to have any specials and electives. I’m hoping the future students won’t be deprived of what you were deprived of, or my kids.” This reporter is a Shenandoah Valley High School graduate.
Since 2008, Shenandoah Valley has had electives and specials, especially on the elementary side, gutted due to funding shortfalls. Both librarians, the elementary art teacher, a high school art teacher, a high school gym teacher, and elementary music teacher were all furloughed in the early 2010s.
“We’re very happy, today should’ve been a great day for Shenandoah Valley and underfunded school districts,” Salvadore added.
Salvadore said he hoped the past funding shortfalls aren’t overlooked in any changes the ruling may spark. He also expressed cautious optimism for the road ahead.
“We’ll see it through. You know they’re going to appeal,” Salvadore said. “Moving forward, hopefully we’ll get the right funding put in place for all school districts.”
Expert testimony presented to the court in the lawsuit explained the difference in tax income between a poorer school district and an affluent school district, comparing Shenandoah Valley to the New Hope-Solebury School District in Bucks County.
Matthew G. Kelly, a Penn State assistant professor, explained to the court that, if both districts had a tax rate of 19.1 mills, the state average in 2018-19, New Hope would bring in six times more than Shenandoah Valley.
“Their mills are [worth] way more than ours,” Salvadore said Wednesday.
Shenandoah Valley joined six school districts from across the Commonwealth in suing the state to address funding inequities allegedly caused by the state, saying the state is not investing enough, particularly in the lower-wealth school districts across the Commonwealth and, as a result, “are not meeting their constitutional duties.”
Tuesday, Commonwealth Court President Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer ruled in favor of Shenandoah Valley and its co-litigants, saying the Commonwealth has “not fulfilled their obligations to all children under the Education Clause in violation of the rights of Petitioners.”
She said education “is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Pennsylvania Constitution to all school-age children residing in the Commonwealth” and that the constitution imposes an obligation upon the Commonwealth “to provide a system of public education that does not discriminate against students based on the level of income and value of taxable property in their school districts.”
“Students who reside in school districts with low property values and incomes are deprived of the same opportunities and resources as students who reside in school districts with high property values and incomes,” the judge wrote. “The disparity among school districts with high property values and incomes and school districts with low property values and incomes is not justified by any compelling government interest nor is it rationally related to any legitimate government objective.”
“As a result of these disparities, Petitioners and students attending low-wealth districts are being deprived of equal protection of law,” Cohn Jubelirer concluded.
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