COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE HEARING
STATE CAPITOL MAIN BUILDING HOUSE FLOOR HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA
MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2021
PRESENTATION FROM PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
BEFORE:
HONORABLE STANLEY SAYLOR, MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE MATT BRADFORD, MINORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE ROSEMARY BROWN HONORABLE LYNDA SCHLEGEL-CULVER HONORABLE TORREN ECKER HONORABLE JONATHAN FRITZ HONORABLE KEITH GREINER HONORABLE DOYLE HEFFLEY HONORABLE JOHNATHAN HERSHEY HONORABLE LEE JAMES HONORABLE JOHN LAWRENCE HONORABLE ZACH MAKO HONORABLE NATALIE MIHALEK HONORABLE TIM O'NEAL HONORABLE CLINT OWLETT HONORABLE CHRIS QUINN HONORABLE GREG ROTHMAN HONORABLE MEGHAN SCHROEDER HONORABLE JAMES STRUZZI HONORABLE JESSE TOPPER HONORABLE RYAN WARNER HONORABLE JEFF WHEELAND, virtual HONORABLE DAVE ZIMMERMAN
————————— JEAN DAVIS REPORTING POST OFFICE BOX 125 • HERSHEY, PA 17033 Phone (717)503-6568 1 BEFORE (cont.'d):
2 HONORABLE AMEN BROWN HONORABLE DONNA BULLOCK 3 HONORABLE MORGAN CEPHAS HONORABLE AUSTIN DAVIS 4 HONORABLE ELIZABETH FIEDLER HONORABLE MARTY FLYNN, virtual 5 HONORABLE EDWARD GAINEY, virtual HONORABLE PATTY KIM 6 HONORABKE EMILY KINKEAD HONORABLE STEPHEN KINSEY 7 HONORABLE LEANNE KRUEGER HONORABLE BENJAMIN SANCHEZ, virtual 8 HONORABLE PETER SCHWEYER HONORABLE JOE WEBSTER 9
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2 1 ALSO IN ATTENDANCE:
2 DAVID DONLEY, REPUBLICAN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR RITCHIE LaFAVER, REPUBLICAN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 3 ANN BALOGA, DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TARA TREES, DEMOCRATIC CHIEF COUNSEL 4 HONORABLE BARBARA GLEIM HONORABLE MARK GILLEN 5 HONORABLE CRAIG STAATS HONORABLE CURT SONNEY 6 HONORABLE MARK LONGIETTI HONORABLE NAPOLEON NELSON 7 HONORABLE MARY ISAACSON HONORABLE BOB MERSKI, virtual 8 HONORABLE CHRISTINA SAPPEY, virtual HONORABLE PERRY WARREN, virtual 9 HONORABLE JAKE WHEATLEY, virtual
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12 JEAN M. DAVIS, REPORTER 13 NOTARY PUBLIC
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3 1 I N D E X TESTIFIERS 2
3 NAME PAGE
4 NOE ORTEGA, ACTING SECRETARY, 6 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 5 MATT STEM, DEPUTY SECRETARY, 18 6 ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 7 DANIELLE MARIANO, DEPUTY SECRETARY, 44 8 ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
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4 1 P R O C E E D I N G S
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3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Mr. Secretary, are you
4 there?
5 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I am. Can you hear me,
6 Chairman?
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I can hear you.
8 Mr. Secretary, I understand it's you and it's
9 Danielle Mariano, who is the Deputy Secretary for
10 Administration; and also Matt Stem, who is the Deputy
11 Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education.
12 The three of you will be testifying this morning;
13 am I correct?
14 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: That is correct.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Anyone else?
16 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: No, that will be it
17 from our team.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: All right.
19 Well, to get started, if you all three would
20 raise your right hand and I will swear you in.
21
22 (Witnesses sworn en masse.)
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Thank you.
24 And with that, we'll start off with our first
25 questioner, which is Representative Rosemary Brown.
5 1 REPRESENTATIVE R. BROWN: Good morning. Happy
2 Monday.
3 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Good morning. Happy
4 Monday to you.
5 REPRESENTATIVE R. BROWN: Good morning.
6 Listen, I'm standing up here today not only
7 speaking as a legislator but also as a mother of three
8 children, one in college, one in high school, and one in
9 middle school as well. So I have been through the year of
10 not being in school for almost a full year, full time, with
11 my two children at home. I have seen the struggles. I have
12 had the conversations with my children. I've watched
13 emotional aspects of the situation.
14 This is setting our children back for years,
15 years that they will never get back, let alone on the
16 educational piece. But let's talk about the mental health,
17 the truancy, the food and safety aspects, the parent
18 employment parameters. There's a great concern here to get
19 our children back to school full time as soon as possible.
20 Last week I questioned Secretary Beam and the
21 Department of Health in regards to the State's distribution,
22 the Vaccine Distribution Rollout Plan, and the
23 disappointment with that plan and the inefficiency.
24 I'd like to know, at this point, what the Wolf
25 Administration is specifically doing to get our teachers
6 1 vaccinated and prioritized.
2 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative Brown,
3 thank you for the question.
4 And if I may begin with a strong heartfelt
5 apology to the many students who have been impacted by the
6 pandemic. These are really challenging times. And many of
7 them have gone, as you mentioned before in your question,
8 without access to in-person instruction in the way that's
9 more familiar to them for quite some time now. It doesn't
10 end there.
11 There are folks that are also being effected
12 beyond the students, which are our staff, teachers, school
13 leaders, all of which I would be remiss to not say have
14 responded commendably to the challenges that they've faced
15 with regards to the pandemic.
16 From the onset, we, too, have been trying to
17 reconcile what's been coming to us from the CDC, the Federal
18 Administration, but also the developments that we're seeing
19 around research, as well as with the Department of Health
20 here in Pennsylvania has begun to put forward, to reconcile,
21 all this in a way that creates the condition for folks to
22 begin to return back to in-person instruction at their
23 schools.
24 We've offered guidance that allows schools to
25 begin to make these decisions at the local level and when
7 1 we've been required to, have had to pivot with regards to
2 local transmission as well. And this is just a narrative of
3 the way that it's gone by.
4 REPRESENTATIVE R. BROWN: So, Mr. Secretary, I'm
5 sorry. I know you know that the time is very limited here.
6 We get about five minutes.
7 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
8 REPRESENTATIVE R. BROWN: You know, I understand
9 that with some of the local decisions. But there's been
10 other states that have gotten this accomplished. Why can't
11 we get it done?
12 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I appreciate the
13 clarification. So let me just move ahead with regards to
14 the second part of the question, Representative Brown, with
15 regards to what we're doing to make sure that we can get
16 students back in classrooms.
17 We've, of course, begun to put out guidance that
18 matches the CDC with regards to mitigation efforts and
19 continue to work with the Department of Health, the most
20 recent Legislative Task Force as well, the Joint Task Force
21 as well, with regards to the importance of vaccination. And
22 as more information is made available to us, we continue to
23 advocate and work with folks to create those conditions.
24 At the moment, the vaccination protocol remains
25 aligned with what's been put out by the CDC, but we're also
8 1 working to make sure that while that's happening, while they
2 process information that comes to them, either federally or
3 locally, we continue to do what we can with what we have
4 available to us, which is comprehensive mitigation approach.
5 REPRESENTATIVE R. BROWN: So, Mr. Secretary, I
6 know that I signed on to a letter as well from many members
7 of the Education Committee on the House side. And I know
8 there's been individual letters sent to the Administration
9 and to the Department of Health requesting that our children
10 get back to school and that we need to vaccinate our
11 teachers in order to have this happen.
12 The ancillary effects are tremendous on our
13 families, our children, our society. I still can't
14 understand why we can't get it done when other states have
15 gotten it done. I think that that's the real gist of my
16 question here.
17 We have legislators pushing. I know the
18 Professional Teachers Association is looking to make sure
19 this happens. And I know my teachers are requesting it from
20 me. And I know my children are requesting it from me. So
21 why can't we get it done?
22 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: We are working closely
23 with the members that you described, the Teachers Union,
24 along with other professional groups, to have the
25 conversation on whether or not we need to continue to act
9 1 collectively and work to get vaccination recommendations
2 up -- and we do that -- as well as making sure that what's
3 being discussed with us also gets discussed in the
4 Legislative Task Force.
5 So I want to assure you that these conversations
6 about what you're sharing with us in terms of the importance
7 of vaccination are not lost on us, Representative Brown. We
8 continue to advocate and work with these stakeholders.
9 At the moment, what we have available to offer
10 our schools to create the conditions for safety is really
11 relying on the mitigation efforts that are in front of us.
12 But as we get more information and opportunities to
13 influence the conversation, we certainly will.
14 REPRESENTATIVE R. BROWN: Thank you, Mr.
15 Secretary. We need to get our children back to school.
16 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Agreed.
17 REPRESENTATIVE R. BROWN: Thank you.
18 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Next is Representative
20 Fiedler.
21 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
22 Thank you for joining us.
23 So Pennsylvania's school districts are
24 underfunded by $4.6 billion, according to a recent analysis,
25 with 428 out of 500 school districts, so 428 out of 500 not
10 1 able to spend enough for their students to meet statewide
2 standards. This funding gap is geographic and it is racial.
3 In Philadelphia, it is very clearly pronounced in
4 the conditions that our students meet every day when they
5 walk into school buildings or open up their laptops. The
6 current situation translates to 80 percent of black and
7 brown students in Pennsylvania attending a school that is
8 not receiving its fair share of funds.
9 I want to note that this budget provides a 21
10 percent increase in basic education funding and makes
11 significant steps to get closer to both adequate funding and
12 equitable funding.
13 Can you give us concrete examples of how this
14 funding could change the lives of Pennsylvania students?
15 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, I
16 appreciate the question. And I also want to reiterate the
17 importance of making sure that what we put in place is
18 something that's equitable and fairly funded for all our
19 students. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it's that
20 folks have been disproportionately affected. And in many
21 ways, this has a large part to do with resources available
22 at the institutions.
23 It's important for us to make sure that the
24 budget that's put forward by the Governor suggests that we
25 increase the funding for basic education, particularly at
11 1 the time where we need it the most. These are funds that
2 are not going to just go there to help improve the provision
3 of learning, but most recently begin to help us make up for
4 some of the loss that we're going to begin to see with
5 regards to learning for young students, many of it
6 attributed to the pandemic as well, but also to improve our
7 schools.
8 Mental health is something that has been
9 mentioned before already. And I'm really pleased to hear --
10 but we need to make sure that we also tend to the needs of
11 folks around mental health and well-being. And it doesn't
12 stop there. Our teachers are affected by it. Our school
13 leaders are affected by it. In many ways this is where the
14 schools need to begin to think seriously about how they're
15 going to be able to move and address this comprehensively.
16 And so these are some examples of how the funding
17 that's being infused into basic education with the
18 Governor's proposed budget will certainly begin to help to
19 improve conditions for our school.
20 I appreciate the question. And I also don't want
21 to lose sight of the fact that many of these factors that
22 are concerning in many ways are attributed to race to a
23 certain extent, but it's not limited there. It's also
24 poverty. It's also geographic location.
25 And these are all things that are important to
12 1 begin to think about comprehensively in a proposal such as
2 like this.
3 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: Thank you.
4 And to echo the sentiment of my colleague who
5 spoke before, I'm also a parent. And before being a parent
6 I was a reporter and covered a lot of education issues. So
7 I know that this underfunding situation is not a new one.
8 And inflation adjusted dollars were $466 million behind
9 where we were in '08-'09.
10 Can you please talk about the longstanding
11 underfunding that exists in Pennsylvania and what happens if
12 we do not make this adjustment now?
13 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure. And thank you
14 for taking this back to the point where a previous
15 disruption had occurred because many of the things and
16 challenges that came out of the Great Recession were things
17 that were elements that we were beginning to move to
18 address, not just in the Department but in partnership with
19 the General Assembly.
20 You know, under this Administration, it has
21 significantly restored some of the funding gaps that existed
22 before then, but now we find ourselves with a new catalyst
23 that is affecting the funding scenario. And I think this is
24 where we have to begin to think about how we need to
25 position ourselves to address the concerns that previously
13 1 existed and fold them into concerns that are emerging.
2 I don't want to create the perception in the
3 comments that we make today because the Administration is
4 committed to moving back to in-person instruction, making
5 that available to all our students. But I also want to
6 acknowledge that even before the pandemic, we were already
7 facing challenges to make sure that we improve the
8 conditions in the classroom.
9 So while the current remote learning situation is
10 not conducive for everyone in terms of creating learning
11 opportunities and improving learning, we still had
12 challenges beforehand that we had to address. And in many
13 ways this is what the funding needs to begin to address.
14 Building conditions are central to the conversations about
15 returning back to in-person instruction. We need to begin
16 to move our schools and position them where they can address
17 concerns around lead, asbestos, and other things as well.
18 And so I think these are some prime examples,
19 Representative, of where the funding needs to be directed
20 and some of the concerns that have emerged because of the
21 funding gaps that have previously existed.
22 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: Absolutely.
23 And just finally, in my district we've got
24 students who speak dozens of different languages and
25 dialects. Could you talk briefly about the financial
14 1 challenges of ensuring all students receive a quality
2 education along cultural and linguistic lines, please?
3 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
4 So English learners and other folks who really
5 benefit from the in-person instruction are important to
6 begin to emphasize, Representative. And we really want to
7 make sure that the funds that we put out there, in fact, the
8 guidance that we put out there, really keeps populations
9 that have been disproportionally affected in mind. It
10 doesn't end there.
11 Students with disabilities really are also
12 struggling in this environment. And there's a lot of places
13 where remote instruction just does not work. And we want to
14 make sure that we can move in there and begin to address
15 those elephants.
16 But as you raise -- and I appreciate you raising
17 this as well. You know, English language learning, these
18 are things that we need to consider, continue to consider,
19 when we think about what we have to make up with regards to
20 the disruptions felt by the pandemic.
21 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: Thank you very much.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Next is Representative
23 Jesse Topper.
24 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
25 Good morning, Mr. Secretary.
15 1 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Good morning.
2 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: In your testimony that
3 you supplied to the Committee, I want to call your attention
4 to a line that talks about PDE's mission, which is to ensure
5 every learner has access to a world-class education system
6 that academically prepares children and adults to succeed as
7 productive citizens.
8 And I look back -- and maybe you're familiar with
9 this study. It came about as a collaborative study between
10 Brown University and the University of Virginia. And it
11 talked about last fall where they anticipated students
12 being. Now, keep in mind, this was only after the students
13 had missed a lot of class time, March through June, the
14 beginning of the pandemic. So it's not where we're at now
15 but where we were at the beginning of this past school year
16 in the fall.
17 And this study estimated that under the
18 projections, students are likely to return this past fall
19 with approximately 63 to 68 percent of the learning gains in
20 Reading relative to a typical school year and 37 to 50
21 percent of learning gains in Math, which I thought was a
22 pretty stunning number considering that they still had the
23 majority in. Now, this is nationwide, not specific to
24 Pennsylvania.
25 But I guess I'm wondering with that and with
16 1 those types of numbers that we're looking at just being
2 behind to start September and knowing that there have been
3 some districts in this Commonwealth that still have yet to
4 have a day of face-to-face instruction, many with some kind
5 a hybrid model. I know my two boys just started today fully
6 going back for in-person education even in Bedford County.
7 So my question is, with those studies that are
8 out there, do we have any kind of an idea of where our
9 students are at right now and how we're going to remediate
10 that over the summer in preparation for next school year,
11 especially with the new announcement that the standardized
12 testing would be moved back to next fall? What will our
13 markers be in terms of where our students are and how we can
14 catch them up?
15 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative Topper,
16 thank you for raising this question.
17 And this is just a challenge that Stem, at the
18 Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, along with a
19 number of us that have begun to take time. I'll invite him
20 to make a few remarks. But I just want to make sure that he
21 can unmute himself. I think there might be some concerns.
22 But you're right. This was brought up earlier in
23 the conversation. This is not something that's just a loss
24 that can be made up in a matter of months. We're talking
25 about generational loss, which is why it's important that we
17 1 think about how investment is going to help our educators
2 address it.
3 Matt, I'm not sure if you can unmute yourself and
4 add a few other things in terms of what you've already begun
5 to put together as a plan.
6 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Yeah. Thank you, Mr.
7 Secretary.
8 And thank you, Representative, so much for this
9 question.
10 This is first and foremost in our mind right now.
11 There's two equal priorities we have in the Department. The
12 first is returning students, creating the conditions to
13 return students to in-person instruction as quickly as
14 possible and as safely as possible. And then along with
15 that is to identify and mitigate the learning gaps that we
16 know exist.
17 And so, Representative, you are -- the research
18 that you cite is very consistent with all of the emerging
19 research on a national level. We're seeing that not only
20 what you shared in Reading and Math would be a
21 disproportionate impact on Math, but also disproportionate
22 impacts on our youngest learners. We're seeing especially,
23 you know, that primary age, kindergarten, first, second
24 grade, as well as targeted populations like Special
25 Education, EL, and students of color, that are all being
18 1 disproportionally impacted. But we're not going to be able
2 to, you know, from a state-level policy and local level
3 really address those well until we first identify the issues
4 and then mitigate.
5 So I'll be very brief, Representative, because I
6 don't want to take your time. But just know that the
7 Department, we have a few things that we're working on. We
8 are engaging in a two-year longitudinal research project
9 that has some short-term as well as long-term implications
10 in the areas of early childhood impact, social/emotional
11 impact, academic impact, and teacher pipeline impact. And
12 that's going to help inform our state and local efforts.
13 And additionally, right now we're working on a
14 project to help districts use local data that they have to
15 aggregate that data to help guide some of their local
16 decisions as well as to help inform us at a state level so
17 that we can direct our policies and supports in the right
18 direction. And we look forward to sharing that information
19 with you.
20 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Excuse me, Mr. Stem.
21 What is -- have you -- what is your guide? What
22 is your timeline in terms of providing guidance? Because I
23 guess what I'm hearing in there is that the Department is
24 working on these extensive plans. But we're coming up to --
25 we're in March. We're coming up to the end of a school
19 1 year. When will school districts likely see some of these
2 plans? I'm sure many of them are asking about them now.
3 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: They sure are,
4 Representative.
5 So there's two phases to this. One is the longer
6 range activities. But I couldn't agree with you more. We
7 have an immediate sense of urgency. So within the next five
8 weeks, we are rolling out resources for districts. There
9 are tools to help them with their local identification and
10 then there are strategies to support.
11 And I'd be remiss if I didn't thank our 29
12 intermediate unit partners. They are helping us to roll
13 this out. Just the other day we were on a call with 50 of
14 the individuals that are going to be helping execute this.
15 And to your point, districts are ready now for
16 those additional supports. And we've been providing
17 supports since the beginning of the pandemic. But we've got
18 to ramp them up and we have to do it soon. And we're
19 working on just that.
20 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: All right. I appreciate
21 that.
22 I mean, you know, my time has expired. I will
23 say that I think history will judge us very poorly because I
24 don't think it was simply the virus that caused this. I
25 think it was a lack of political will at the state and local
20 1 levels to make sure that our kids received that world-class
2 education that is in our mission statement.
3 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Matt, this is Chairman
5 Saylor. I wish you would send to the Appropriations
6 Committee exactly what you're communicating with the IUs as
7 to how you're going to help these school districts get these
8 students up and running and to improve their Math and
9 Reading skills to catch up.
10 We had the universities here the other day. And
11 we've had the PASSHE system in testifying before the
12 Appropriations and Education Committees as well. They have
13 great concerns as to what this means moving forward for them
14 as far as students coming into college.
15 So if you would send that plan over to the
16 Appropriations Committee so we can share with everybody, we
17 would very much appreciate it. We would appreciate it if
18 you could get that over to us as soon as possible.
19 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Chairman, we'd be happy
20 to do that.
21 Thank you.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Thank you.
23 Our next questioner is Representative Kinsey.
24 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
25 And good morning, Mr. Secretary.
21 1 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Good morning.
2 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Mr. Secretary, last week
3 we had before us the State-related universities. I shared
4 with the group a report that was done by the Black faculty
5 at Penn State. It was entitled, More Rivers to Cross, which
6 highlighted the low ratio or lack of faculty of color at
7 institutions of higher learning.
8 We received information in the state that
9 Pennsylvania has the 6th worst student/teacher
10 disproportionality rate in the country.
11 My question to you is, what can the Department do
12 to assist in improving the pipeline for teachers of color?
13 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative Kinsey,
14 this is an issue that we've been taking on this entire
15 Administration, particularly as it relates to educators in
16 K-12. But there's also conversations that have begun to
17 spill over into postsecondary.
18 I think also to add to your comments about its
19 importance, we know that there's outcomes, particularly for
20 students of color who had been historically
21 underrepresented. When we can change the faculty
22 composition and the teacher composition to match the
23 demographic shifts that we're seeing with regards to more
24 students of color in the classroom, you're going to see
25 exponential impacts on them.
22 1 We've launched a few pilot programs at the moment
2 in certain key areas that really looked to recruit more
3 students first into the profession, education, but also into
4 our ed prep programs as well.
5 One of the things that we need to do is to
6 increase the pipeline of folks coming through into
7 postsecondary and particularly going on to your terminal
8 degree and then other credentialing with regards to
9 doctorates and things like that that allow them to come back
10 and serve as faculty in the classroom.
11 So we continue to do that outreach to our schools
12 to work with ways to identify competencies that would help
13 more of the educators who are working with our students of
14 color to really understand the importance of culturally
15 relevant, culturally aligned approaches to learning and
16 teaching to help while we gain momentum on the recruitment
17 pipeline of educators of color.
18 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: I appreciate you sharing
19 that, Mr. Secretary.
20 And again, I'm not promoting the report done by
21 Penn State University. But I think that it is a worthwhile
22 read that can help address, help to assist to address this
23 particular issue.
24 Another issue I want to talk about, Mr.
25 Secretary, is that I know that as we deal with COVID and the
23 1 impact that COVID has had, there's been a lot of
2 conversations as it relates to mental health. But the
3 reality is that mental health has been an issue even prior
4 to COVID.
5 A point in case is that two years ago -- sorry.
6 Just last year we had a discussion with the Secretary, of
7 course, prior to you taking over the position, but there was
8 ongoing dialogue with your Department as it related to
9 incidents of bullying.
10 And what we've seen consistently over the past
11 five years has been an increase of bullying-related
12 activities, which unfortunately led to a high rate of
13 suicide in some cases, a higher rate of children not wanting
14 to go to school, and just a higher rate of children sort of
15 feeling isolated because of the fact, you know, with
16 bullying.
17 And let's be real. You know, we know with our
18 Smartphones and other apparatuses that a child doesn't have
19 to go to school in order to be bullied. They can be bullied
20 on any type of social media platform and so forth and in
21 their communities and so forth.
22 I guess my question, Mr. Secretary, is, what are
23 we doing to protect them? And again, I recognize that kids
24 are home for the most part. I mean, some kids are at
25 school. Some kids are doing the hybrid learning. But what
24 1 are we doing to protect those individuals from cases of
2 cyberbullying and so forth? I mean, what is your Department
3 doing to ensure the health, safety, and welfare and the
4 mental health of these young folks?
5 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, I
6 appreciate the question.
7 And I want to point out that when we've seen the
8 disruptions that have occurred because of the pandemic, I
9 know a lot of the conversations are generally about
10 instruction and the provision of learning, particularly
11 in-person learning for our young students.
12 But I want to remind us that schools, whether
13 they're K-12, early childhood, or postsecondary, also
14 provide students with life-sustaining services as well, as
15 you've pointed out. And the ability to address concerns
16 around mental health is extremely important.
17 When you think about what many people are
18 experiencing as a result of the pandemic, it only magnifies
19 concerns that already existed. And we put them in an
20 environment that's remote, that more of them are having to
21 reach out and utilize. So it presents more opportunities
22 for cyberbullying, as you mentioned as well before. And
23 these are all things that have been elevated as concerns for
24 us from the beginning of the pandemic.
25 We put out a number of resources and we continue
25 1 to do so in ways that educators can reach out and help
2 students but also ways that parents who have become kind of
3 the support system for a lot of students right now when
4 we're doing remote learning to provide them with some
5 resources as well for how to navigate this. And then we
6 continue to do outreach with our other educator
7 professionals to be able to continue to provide outlets for
8 young folks who need to reach out with regards to particular
9 concerns that they may have throughout the pandemic. We
10 continue to put these out.
11 And I think what I also want to emphasize,
12 because one of the questions earlier, what are some concrete
13 examples of what the increase in funding can do? this is an
14 area that's going to become of increasing importance as we
15 think of the coming months. It's going to require some
16 efforts to reacclimate our young folks to going back to
17 in-person instruction.
18 And there's a lot of things that they've
19 experienced throughout the past seven months that I think we
20 need to be prepared to address. And this is the only way
21 that we're going to be able to position ourselves to address
22 those.
23 So I appreciate everyone who shed light on this
24 really important issue, including yourself, Representative.
25 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
26 1 I recognize that my time is up. But I just want
2 to comment and say that in addition to the bullying
3 prevention consultation line, I'm hoping that there's other
4 ways that we can direct resources directly to communities
5 and institutions that can really work directly with the
6 families and the individuals.
7 Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
8 And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
9 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Great. Thank you.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
11 Representative Clint Owlett.
12 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
13 And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here
14 today.
15 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
16 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: I want to talk about the
17 financial impact the virus has had on our school districts,
18 specifically in three areas. Let's go ahead and start with
19 in terms of additional costs.
20 What has the impact been on our school districts
21 for additional costs?
22 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, when
23 you think about many of the things schools had to do early
24 on, there's a lot of things that have to do with
25 modifications, changing to make the classrooms safer. Lots
27 1 of the mitigation efforts are around protocols, around
2 cleaning, personal hygiene, things that require even
3 personal protective equipment for students and faculty.
4 So those are some of the examples as well as the
5 provision of the instruction. It's one thing to be in a
6 position to be able to pivot to remote learning. It's
7 another to have to build the infrastructure very quickly to
8 be able to do so. So resources with regards to devices, but
9 also access to sort of online learning for not just students
10 but teachers.
11 These are some examples of the costs that many
12 schools have incurred.
13 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: What about lost revenue
14 for our school districts?
15 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
16 So I don't have the number in front of me with
17 regard to lost revenue. But many of those have already been
18 put forward from a number of letters collectively. So it
19 continues to grow exponentially.
20 I'm suspecting you're referring to sort of K-12,
21 but I also want to point out it's continuing to grow both in
22 the K-12 but the postsecondary sector and early childhood.
23 And so when we see funds like, for example, the
24 most recent infusion of dollars, over $2 billion, that
25 doesn't even come close to meeting the needs of what some of
28 1 these revenue losses have been and experienced by some of
2 our schools. So I just want to point that out, that it is
3 exponential and it continues to grow.
4 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: What about reduced
5 expenses? I'm sure that there are some reduced expenses.
6 Talk about that for just a couple seconds, if you would,
7 please.
8 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
9 In terms of reduced expenses, there is a lot of
10 things that we're beginning to find out with regards to
11 where investments are needed. And so for many schools, they
12 still had to continue expending resources on things that are
13 still normal parts of routine operations, so salary, some
14 contracts, etc., but a lot dollars that had to go with
15 regards to pivot. So when you move from in-person
16 instruction to remote learning, you have to make
17 investments.
18 So in terms of reduced expenditures, it's
19 something that we're beginning to collect and figure out
20 now. I'll look to see if we have some specifics around
21 numbers from Deputy Mariano if she has them and she can
22 share them with you before your time is over or a little bit
23 later.
24 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Okay. That would be
25 great.
29 1 I mean, it would have been great if we could have
2 had those numbers. I mean, this is an appropriations
3 hearing. We're talking about the budget. So some of those
4 numbers would have been great. If you could have those
5 available for us to be able to look sooner rather than
6 later, that would be great.
7 So last May we passed here -- and the Governor
8 approved -- a budget that would fully fund school districts
9 for the '20-'21 fiscal year. And really making sure that
10 this wasn't a big burden on their final budgets, how
11 important do you think that was for the school districts to
12 have certainty going into their budgets?
13 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
14 You know, one of the things that this has really
15 been about, Representative, is really minimizing the
16 ambiguity and creating a great deal of certainty for our
17 schools for their planning purposes.
18 So they have continued to adjust and adapt to the
19 changing circumstances and really getting the handle of what
20 they're going to have available. Particularly to address
21 what Deputy Stem had shed light on, what are we going to put
22 in place to begin to address some of the learning that has
23 been offset because of the pandemic? And then to really
24 think about the mental health and well-being. And these are
25 only plans that can begin to be put in place when they have
30 1 an understanding of what the outlook is going to look like
2 both with State investment but also some of the Federal
3 infusion of dollars that are coming into the state as well.
4 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: I can only imagine what
5 it would have been like for them to be working on their
6 budgets without that certainty. And I really do appreciate
7 the House leadership and the Republican Caucus here to make
8 sure that that funding was available. That was very
9 important to us. And I know it was important to our school
10 districts.
11 Just in closing -- my time is almost up. But the
12 one thing that I heard earlier talking about the vaccine and
13 stuff and making sure that we get our kids back in school is
14 a little bit disheartening for me to hear that we're still
15 in the conversation mode. I realize the power of a
16 conversation and it's a good thing.
17 But we need details and as soon as we can get
18 those, that would be great so that we can make sure that we
19 get our students back in the classroom just as soon as
20 possible.
21 I appreciate you being here.
22 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
23 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I appreciate it,
24 Representative, and thank you.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
31 1 Representative Kinkead.
2 REPRESENTATIVE KINKEAD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
3 Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
4 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
5 REPRESENTATIVE KINKEAD: My question is about
6 charter schools. They have become a growing concern in my
7 district. What good government ethics and accountability
8 improvements are contained in the Governor's charter reform
9 proposal?
10 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
11 And thank you for bringing this up. I think, you
12 know, when we put forward in the budget recommendations,
13 there's a big part of this package that's devoted to
14 comprehensive charter reform. Much of what's being put in
15 there is really a way to hold our public schools, as
16 charters are public schools, accountable for some of the
17 same outcomes that we hold the entire sector responsible for
18 as well.
19 So some of the things that are in there have to
20 do with improving quality. We are the guarantor for most of
21 the charter schools that come to Pennsylvania and we want to
22 make sure that what we put out there holds them accountable
23 to the same outcomes. But you're also seeing some efforts
24 put into the charter reform around making sure that would
25 create some clarity around what the cost structure
32 1 associated with charter schools is as well.
2 So the reform includes something that creates a
3 State level tuition rate that schools can begin to use in
4 their planning and really think about what these actual
5 expenditures are going to look like. And, of course, there
6 are other things in there. But it looks to create savings
7 for schools in that way in upwards of $229 million in
8 savings.
9 REPRESENTATIVE KINKEAD: Thank you.
10 The PASSHE system is currently working on plans
11 to combine two sets of three institutions, one of which is
12 my alma mater, Bloomsburg University, into two new
13 consolidated institutions.
14 How does the Administration feel about what's
15 been done so far?
16 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, I want
17 to begin by first acknowledging the courage of the
18 Chancellor to take the necessary steps to begin to address
19 concerns that were presented to the State System long before
20 the pandemic and have only been exacerbated because of the
21 challenges they face financially.
22 You know, one of the things that's clear about
23 that plan is that integration does allow many of the
24 schools, like Bloomsburg University, to also maintain some
25 of the identity they've had of being able to share resources
33 1 across other institutions as well. And I think what we're
2 going to begin to see and we're already seeing across the
3 country is more systems, more institutions, having to think
4 about what collaborations and partnerships look like.
5 So while PASSHE did it within the system, I think
6 there may be opportunities for other institutions to begin
7 to look at what that looks like across sectors as well.
8 This is in large part going to have to be conversations that
9 other schools will have as well.
10 So I appreciate you bringing that up. I think
11 it's an important step to make sure that we can continue to
12 guarantee provision of postsecondary opportunities to people
13 in all places. And PASSHE schools are located in some of
14 our most remote and rural areas as well.
15 REPRESENTATIVE KINKEAD: Thank you.
16 Do you have any metrics or concerns that you'll
17 be focusing on when the full plan is presented to the PASSHE
18 Board that will help guide your decision on whether or not
19 it's a good plan?
20 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: For sure it has to be
21 aligned with some of the priorities that have been set by
22 the State System. And one of them is student success. How
23 is it going to improve recruitment, persistence, and
24 graduation rates among students? So I think that's going to
25 be an important aspect.
34 1 There's going to have to be demonstrations of
2 efficiencies that also are paired up with the decisions to
3 move towards integration of PASSHE State Systems. So we'll
4 be looking for what those fiscal efficiencies look like as
5 well.
6 And then, of course, we want to make sure that
7 efforts are made to also continue to maintain and keep and
8 retain quality faculty, which many of these institutions
9 have, and then continue to create work environments that
10 people want to be a part of.
11 So for me, those are three key metrics that we
12 would look at as well.
13 REPRESENTATIVE KINKEAD: Thank you.
14 And so one of -- one set of the universities in
15 the PASSHE consolidation plan are looking to expand
16 workforce offerings. At the same time, community colleges
17 are asking the General Assembly to give them the ability to
18 start offering limited baccalaureate degrees. There's also,
19 as you were kind of referencing, you know, adapting to how
20 different institutions work together.
21 There's been a push constantly by community
22 colleges to have their credits more acknowledged by
23 particularly our PASSHE schools for transfer. How do you
24 view the issue of competition versus coordination in our
25 public higher education system in Pennsylvania?
35 1 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Right.
2 I continue to advocate, Representative, for
3 coordination and collaboration in partnership within the
4 systems. We've already had some great policies that have
5 been put in place, many of them which came from the General
6 Assembly, which suggests that we've got to have a better
7 transfer and articulation oversight mechanism in place that
8 allows students to move across systems in a way that's
9 seamless. And this allows them to begin at a two year, in
10 some cases, even transfer some prior learning that they
11 could have had at a career tech center as well and put them
12 on the pipeline for moving towards a baccalaureate, if
13 that's what they desire, but also to look for ways to get
14 into the pathway.
15 So I completely support collaboration among the
16 various sectors particularly when right now competition is
17 not the one thing that we need. You know, there's a lot of
18 entities from outside the state that these institutions,
19 which is a quality postsecondary system in Pennsylvania,
20 have to compete with. I think if we partner in here, we
21 will turn this postsecondary system into the world-class
22 system that it was intended to be.
23 REPRESENTATIVE KINKEAD: Thank you.
24 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: You're welcome.
25 REPRESENTATIVE KINKEAD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
36 1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
2 Representative Lynda Culver.
3 REPRESENTATIVE SCHLEGEL-CULVER: Thank you, Mr.
4 Chairman.
5 Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being with us
6 today.
7 I want to take us back to vaccinations. Recently
8 I was contacted by several teachers in my district concerned
9 about a statement that they had heard from the Pennsylvania
10 School Board Association.
11 Recently it was indicated that school districts
12 -- this is what the Pennsylvania School Board Association
13 said -- could require their personnel to get a Coronavirus
14 vaccination as a condition of continued employment.
15 Has the Department's lawyers considered this
16 question and, if so, do they agree with the PSBA's
17 conclusion?
18 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you,
19 Representative.
20 And I want to also take an opportunity to invite
21 Deputy Stem back into this discussion. He has been leading
22 up a lot of the work with our educators, particularly around
23 questions that emerge around vaccination, Representative.
24 But I do want to elevate that we completely echo
25 the concerns that are being raised with regards to your
37 1 constituents.
2 Matt, I'm not sure if you can unmute yourself to
3 chime in with a few of the developments.
4 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Yes.
5 Thank you, Representative.
6 I'll just briefly say we haven't heard
7 specifically that issue or the report coming out of PSBA.
8 But our goal is certainly going to be to create flexibility
9 at the local level and whatever happens with vaccinations
10 while honoring all laws regarding employment and collective
11 bargaining and those sorts of things.
12 I can't speak to that with specificity but would
13 say in a generality that we expect that all school
14 districts, you know, public schools, all are going to be
15 honoring all applicable laws when it relates to employment
16 and requirements around things like vaccinations.
17 REPRESENTATIVE SCHLEGEL-CULVER: So can you -- I
18 guess my question is, will the Department be taking up a
19 policy position as to whether or not teachers are going to
20 be required to have the vaccination as a condition of
21 employment?
22 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: I think right now there's
23 no plan for the Department to take any specific position on
24 requiring vaccinations. We work with the Department of
25 Health and other agencies. That's not a conversation that's
38 1 been had. But I think what we will do and we anticipate
2 doing this very soon is putting out more information
3 regarding vaccinations to the field because we know this is
4 an important mitigation strategy.
5 And what we do, Representative, as questions come
6 in, we certainly do prop up either guidance or frequently
7 asked questions. So we appreciate you putting us on our
8 radar screen and we'll take this back and we'll look into
9 it.
10 REPRESENTATIVE SCHLEGEL-CULVER: So I've also
11 heard that pre-K through 12 public educators and private
12 educators will move into Category 1A shortly. And I've
13 heard that PEMA and the National Guard will be utilizing the
14 intermediate units across the Commonwealth as clinics
15 specifically for teachers maybe as early as the beginning of
16 March, which would be today.
17 Will teachers be mandated to receive the
18 vaccination? And if so, will they be required to receive
19 the Johnson & Johnson vaccination?
20 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Yes. Thank you for the
21 question.
22 At this point, there are no plans to require
23 anyone to receive a vaccination. I don't think that's been
24 a part of any conversation which we've been involved. But I
25 would defer back to the Legislative Joint Task Force that's
39 1 been established. And I know that they have met recently
2 and are discussing all of these issues. And we at the
3 Department are excited to be a part of supporting that work
4 in any way we can. And anything we can do to accelerate
5 vaccinations including, again, as you allude to, I think
6 there's likely to be some information that we're sharing in
7 more detail within the next few days. And the department is
8 going to leverage all of our resources to be helpful in
9 collaborating and leading in that and working with members
10 on the Task Force.
11 REPRESENTATIVE SCHLEGEL-CULVER: Thank you.
12 I mean, as I believe that the opportunity to get
13 the vaccination is extremely important to mitigation, I also
14 believe it's more important for every individual to be
15 allowed to have that freedom of choice and what is best for
16 them. And please consider that you have teachers that are
17 pregnant, have certain medical conditions, or just not quite
18 sure that there's been enough testing, you know, on the
19 vaccination or maybe they don't believe in getting
20 vaccinations or there's a religious reason.
21 So please, as you go forward, I think, you know,
22 offering the opportunity for every teacher to have the
23 vaccination is important, but remember that each teacher is
24 an individual and it's also important to honor those
25 freedoms.
40 1 I thank you for answering these questions.
2 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Thank you.
3 REPRESENTATIVE SCHLEGEL-CULVER: Thank you, Mr.
4 Chairman.
5 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you,
6 Representative.
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
8 Representative Pete Schweyer.
9 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Thank you, Mr.
10 Chairman.
11 Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you for being
12 here today.
13 And honestly, thank you for what is for me, as
14 somebody who represents the Allentown School District and
15 only the Allentown School District, one of the most exciting
16 budget proposals that I have seen in my now seventh year as
17 a member of the General Assembly. This one actually begins
18 to structurally address the problems of inequity of
19 systematic racism, of underfunding of our poorest school
20 districts.
21 And so I just want to say on behalf of the
22 122,000 people in the city of Allentown and the 17,000 kids
23 in the Allentown School District, including my two children,
24 thank you. Thank you for your leadership on this.
25 My theme of my question, sir, is going to be
41 1 about the question of equity. Last week we discussed with
2 Secretary Beam the need to vaccinate teachers, particularly
3 those in School Districts like mine that don't have the
4 ability to socially distance.
5 I know that Representative Cephas is going to be
6 addressing the question of equity when it comes to the issue
7 of the digital divide and the start of COVID.
8 I had 3,000 students of my 17,000 that didn't
9 have access to the Internet at home. And we've been 100
10 percent virtual for a year. We've gotten that problem
11 largely addressed. But even still, the complete and total
12 lack of preparedness for our most at-risk school districts
13 has been incredibly exposed throughout this process,
14 throughout this pandemic. Excuse me.
15 So with that, Mr. Secretary, I'd like to focus my
16 question about equity on the physical infrastructure of our
17 buildings. I have a school where over 1,000 kids, about
18 1,000 students go to a middle school that was completed in
19 1871. In 1871 Ulysses S. Grant was President of the United
20 States. The Civil War, as my colleague, Representative
21 Schlossberg, likes to say, the Civil War was that thing that
22 just ended a couple of years ago. And that's when we
23 commissioned the school building that is still in use today
24 for students in the Allentown School District in one of our
25 neighborhoods that is our poorest and is one of our most
42 1 diverse neighborhoods.
2 The new wing -- it did have a new wing -- that
3 was completed in 1891. This is emblematic of the problems
4 in the Allentown School District. We have buildings that
5 have lead. We have buildings that I suspect still have
6 asbestos in it. And when the pandemic -- now that we're
7 trying to figure out a new way to get our kids -- a safe way
8 to get our kids back into the schools, we're running up
9 against the question of antiquated buildings.
10 So that long drawn-out beginning of the address,
11 sir, I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about how
12 the Governor plans to help us recreate modern school
13 buildings, particularly in those areas of the Commonwealth
14 like Allentown that hasn't seen many new -- much new
15 construction of schools.
16 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you,
17 Representative.
18 And let me answer this question in two parts.
19 And the second part, I'll let Daniel Mariano, who is the
20 Deputy in OA, give a few details in terms of specifics that
21 are outlined and in the budget that can help with that.
22 But I want to elevate the fact that when you
23 bring up inequities with regards to the impact of the
24 pandemic, I think they manifest in a number of different
25 ways. The conditions and the structural elements of school
43 1 buildings are extremely important. And even more so, those
2 are already connected to inequities that exist because of
3 the way the funds are made available to our schools.
4 And a big part of the budget that has been
5 proposed by the Governor does suggest that we need to move
6 towards the fair funding distribution of many of the dollars
7 invested into the basic education system to make sure that
8 we get it into the hands of schools that need it but also to
9 create conditions in which no one is negatively impacted.
10 And so these are a lot of things that are getting
11 at the systemic root cause of the concern. But with regards
12 to immediate investments available to help with improving
13 conditions for schools, Danielle, would you like to shed
14 light on some things that appeared in the budget with
15 regards to buildings?
16 DEPUTY SECRETARY MARIANO: Absolutely. And I
17 thank you for that opportunity, Mr. Secretary.
18 And thank you for the question, Representative.
19 The Governor's Budget does include an expansion
20 of the RCAP Program in the amount of $1 billion that would
21 include school districts to address lead and asbestos
22 issues. That's something that I believe he has proposed
23 previously. And I think he underscores, as the Secretary
24 said, the importance of the Administration's recognition
25 that, you know, there are certainly school buildings that
44 1 are in the situation that you described in Allentown, you
2 know, in previous assessments that have been done at a state
3 level. You know, I believe the average school building age
4 was being built in the early part of the 20th and, as you
5 point out, some instances the 19th Century. So that
6 absolutely is a concern.
7 I think the Governor is hoping that school
8 districts will be able to take advantage of that program,
9 that grant program, that is included in the budget. And
10 certainly the additional basic education funding is also an
11 important part of that process.
12 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Do you think a billion
13 dollars is enough?
14 DEPUTY SECRETARY MARIANO: I think that it's
15 difficult to quantify. You know, what is enough? I mean, I
16 think certainly these are longstanding challenges. And I
17 think that, you know, it's going to take cooperation between
18 the Administration and the General Assembly and all of the
19 other stakeholders involved to try to see it through to the
20 end.
21 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Very good. Thank you.
22 I notice my time is up. I appreciate, again,
23 your questions. But I also more importantly appreciate the
24 incredibly bold and honest proposal that the Administration
25 has given us.
45 1 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
2 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you,
3 Representative.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
5 Representative Torren Ecker.
6 REPRESENTATIVE ECKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
7 And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here
8 today.
9 We talked a little bit about what the State has
10 done and what this body has done to help fund our schools
11 early last June. I want to shift gears now and talk a
12 little bit about what the Federal Government has done.
13 And you alluded to this earlier. But as you
14 know, Pennsylvania schools received -- pre-K through 12
15 received about $2 billion worth of education funding which
16 has been now put out to our school districts. And really we
17 received billions of dollars from the Federal Government to
18 help our school districts.
19 How has this funding helped our districts deal
20 with the additional expenses and potential lost revenue?
21 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you,
22 Representative. And I appreciate the question.
23 The infusion of Federal dollars is timely and has
24 been critically important for a number of our schools. In
25 fact, the number of what we received so far is closer to 3
46 1 billion than it is to 2 billion. I just want to point that
2 out there because I just want to emphasize the great need
3 that our schools have.
4 A lot of those dollars that came in early on were
5 to offset some of the concerns or setbacks that schools had
6 experienced in March. While we moved to remote instruction
7 and closed schools down, there were still maintenance
8 concerns that had to continue throughout even leading up
9 until the guidance was released to help schools reopen. So
10 a lot went to that as well as ensuring that they were able
11 to maintain protocols for cleaning, etc., as well.
12 And they continue to figure out what else needs
13 to be invested. I can't emphasize this enough. We are
14 going to begin to find out exactly how much has been lost in
15 terms of learning and what we're going to do to begin to
16 address that. And those are going to require some
17 significant investments as schools are beginning to put
18 plans forward and our Department is beginning to work with
19 them to do as well.
20 REPRESENTATIVE ECKER: And, Mr. Secretary, has
21 the Department been monitoring how the Federal funds have
22 been specifically allocated to these districts being that it
23 is, you know, a one-time fund? This money that came in
24 through the Federal Government is a one-time offer. Has the
25 Department been doing anything to monitor or encourage
47 1 school districts that this money isn't necessarily coming
2 again from the Federal Government?
3 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, the
4 Department is required to monitor the way that all the funds
5 are expended that we have distributed to our K-12 schools in
6 particular. And they do submit regular -- they do submit a
7 budget narrative as well as reports to us as well so we can
8 keep doing that.
9 REPRESENTATIVE ECKER: So given that, you know,
10 we've infused a ton of Federal money here. You know, there
11 are school districts out there that do have a significant
12 amount of fund balances available to them. You know, how
13 would you rate the overall financial distress of our school
14 districts?
15 I mean, I'm sure there are some out there that
16 are in financial distress. But it sounds like there's
17 plenty that may have, you know, somewhat weathered the storm
18 much like our business community and other non-profit
19 community has done.
20 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
21 You know, again, I want to go back and make sure
22 that what we represent to you is an indication of what we
23 know to be true about the conditions that many of our
24 schools are facing. But, you know, all of them have been
25 required to expend resources in ways that they were not
48 1 required to do so before. And I think right now our
2 emphasis has been on what needs to be invested to create the
3 conditions for continued learning for our folks. And remote
4 offerings, especially when you're not set up to do it, is an
5 expensive venture, much like the Department has had to also
6 work to direct some of its resources to helping schools.
7 Many of them have had to do this as well so they can ensure
8 the continued provision of lunches, for example, and other
9 services that are absolutely necessary.
10 So, you know, again, I think the question here is
11 trying to inquire on whether or not there are schools that
12 have enough reserves to have weathered the storm. But I
13 think the concern is that not every school was in a position
14 to have the resources to even mitigate the pandemic
15 circumstances as they were playing out in realtime much less
16 tapping into reserves as well.
17 REPRESENTATIVE ECKER: Great.
18 Let me switch gears here a little bit.
19 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
20 REPRESENTATIVE ECKER: So in this year's budget,
21 the Governor has proposed a pretty substantial increase, a
22 46 percent increase, in the Personal Income Tax. A bulk of
23 that he's saying is going to go to fund, to infuse money
24 into education.
25 Mr. Secretary, my question to you is, what is the
49 1 income level at which a family of four will pay in taxes
2 under this proposal?
3 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
4 Let me just emphasize that in the proposal for
5 how we would fund the infusion of dollars into basic
6 education, there's a number of factors with regards to the
7 personal income relief, in fact, that will be also provided
8 to a great percentage of individuals. So I know the
9 narrative has been with regards to tax increases, but
10 there's a lot of relief that this proposal puts forward as
11 well with a significant portion of the population.
12 With regards to the specific numbers on how that
13 would change, I would have to ask Deputy Mariano to see if
14 she can give some specifics around that.
15 REPRESENTATIVE ECKER: Mr. Secretary, if I could,
16 my time has expired. But just real briefly, do you have
17 concerns with increasing personal income tax? Those folks
18 that will pay an increased personal income tax, do you have
19 concerns for those families to be able to provide for their
20 families' education and college and other educational
21 opportunities?
22 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I think what our
23 concerns are with this budget, Representative, is to make
24 sure that we infuse and make an investment to ensure that we
25 can recover financially and fiscally as a state and to also
50 1 improve the conditions for learning for young folks.
2 I understand the premises and the question. But
3 I also want to emphasize that there's also a need to create
4 savings for some folks and to invest in the redevelopment of
5 our schools. Those are things that are extremely important
6 and concerning to the Department as well as reflected in the
7 Governor's proposal.
8 REPRESENTATIVE ECKER: Well, Mr. Secretary, I
9 thank you for your time.
10 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
11 REPRESENTATIVE ECKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
12 for this opportunity to question.
13 I just hope that, you know, we take, you know --
14 putting money in education is a great thing. But we've got
15 to make sure that we're investing it appropriately and that
16 there is a -- money doesn't grow on trees in these
17 circumstances. So there's plenty of things that State
18 government needs to fund.
19 So I appreciate the time, Mr. Chairman.
20 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
22 Representative Bullock.
23 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
24 And good morning, Mr. Secretary.
25 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Good morning.
51 1 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Education chronic
2 underfunding in our schools has created somewhat of a
3 conundrum for many communities of color. When I look at
4 families in my neighborhood and families in my district,
5 many of us, including my own family, find ourselves choosing
6 among charter schools, public schools, traditional public
7 schools, and private schools to find the right education for
8 our child.
9 The conversation around charter schools versus
10 traditional public schools is one of nuance for many of us.
11 As we seek to find the right solution for our children, some
12 families will have children in multiple school settings, one
13 child in charter, one child in traditional public, another
14 possibly attending a Catholic school.
15 That being said and with that background, I have
16 a few questions about charter school funding and reform.
17 First, many schools, charter schools, have received PPP
18 Loans. What role, if any, does the Department have in
19 monitoring the use of those loans and whether or not they
20 are forgiven and how that impacts the budget of those
21 charter schools?
22 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
23 With regards to the PPP Loans, there are certain
24 provisions with regards to the receiving of funding and I
25 think, in particular, for its non-publics, but I'll ask
52 1 Danielle Mariano to sort of provide some assistance with
2 that because I just want to make sure I don't misrepresent
3 it. But it's not so much the monitoring but it's the
4 availability of the resources that come at the Federal
5 level.
6 Danielle, do you want to provide some clarity
7 around that?
8 DEPUTY SECRETARY MARIANO: Sure. I can try.
9 You know, my understanding about the PPP Loans
10 are that those are for, you know, schools that are not
11 considered the public schools. I'm not -- that's not
12 something that our office has had a lot of input into other
13 than, you know, around some of our non-public schools.
14 There's a provision in one of the Federal -- recent Federal
15 allocations that looks at the Personal Payroll Loans.
16 So I'd have to get back to you with details. But
17 I do know that, you know, a charter school is a public
18 school so they would fall under the provisions of any other
19 LEA with regard to that funding.
20 I think one of the major differences is that they
21 don't receive a significant amount of subsidy. Their
22 primary source of funding is from the tuition rates that the
23 ascending school districts pay.
24 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you.
25 In Philadelphia, we've seen a significant number
53 1 or disproportionate number of Black-led minority schools --
2 Black (inaudible) charter schools face scrutiny on closures
3 and further discipline, if I may say.
4 What I am concerned about is that equity in all
5 of our schools is important particularly -- and it would
6 include our charter public schools as well. How can we
7 support Black (inaudible) charter schools so that they can
8 be more productive and supportive of the students and
9 communities in which they serve?
10 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
11 Representative, allow me to go back to sort of
12 the few things that you inserted at the beginning of your
13 question with regards to choice and the role of charters and
14 traditional publics and even non-publics in terms of the
15 provision of learning for our students.
16 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Sure.
17 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I just want to outline
18 one important underlying assumption with regards to the
19 charter reform. It is about improving the conditions for
20 learning for all students, particularly as it relates to
21 public schools. And the idea that much of the discourse out
22 there pits charters against traditional publics is something
23 that we want to begin to provide some clarity on.
24 This is about making sure that as an authorizer
25 for charter schools that we hold them accountable to the
54 1 same outcomes that we hold all our schools accountable to.
2 And it's important because they are educating a number of
3 folks.
4 As you mentioned, the concerns around charter
5 schools, Black-owned charter schools specifically, there's a
6 number of communities of color who are also enrolling in our
7 charter schools as well.
8 And then I also want to parcel out one additional
9 element with regards to the charter conversation, which is
10 the understanding that some of these provisions are directed
11 at cyber charter schools. And each one of them has
12 different levels of accountability and different levels of
13 expectations.
14 And it should not be a secret to anyone here that
15 we've seen enrollment shifts happen during the pandemic
16 because of the experiences or the challenges that many
17 schools have had to face in terms of reopening, many of them
18 because they have to be accountable to some of the things
19 that are out there for the public.
20 And so we're doing everything we can to partner
21 with our schools and really understand how to improve the
22 learning. And I want to just reiterate the fact that your
23 request with regards to what we can do particularly for
24 Black-owned charter schools, we can continue to outreach to
25 make sure that we understand some of the challenges that
55 1 they're facing.
2 I have a feeling that a lot of it has to do with
3 things like human capital investment, other concerns that we
4 can help them address with regards to some of the services
5 that we provide, like professional development, for example.
6 And so we need to make ourselves most available to them as a
7 solution to those problems but also to make sure that folks
8 understand what we're trying to accomplish with the charter
9 reform.
10 So I appreciate you shedding light on those
11 nuances that are very important to talk about.
12 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you.
13 And I agree that it's a very nuanced conversation
14 for many of our families and communities, as we all want to
15 make sure our children are educated and prepared for their
16 futures.
17 Thank you.
18 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
19 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Next is Representative
21 Ryan Warner.
22 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Thank you.
23 Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being with us here
24 today.
25 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
56 1 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: So at the end of November
2 last year, the Department developed an attestation form that
3 had to be signed by the President or Chair of each public
4 school's governing board or the Chief School Administrator
5 for every school district in a county with substantial
6 transmission. The form simply stated that the district was
7 implementing Coronavirus mitigation efforts.
8 Regarding that form, first of all, were private
9 schools -- was there any requirement for them to sign the
10 form?
11 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
12 Let me invite Deputy Stem to speak to the
13 specifics of the attestation forms since his team led the
14 way to putting it out.
15 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Okay.
16 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Matt, please feel free.
17 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Thank you.
18 Representative, no, private schools were not
19 required to submit attestation forms. The Department
20 doesn't have authority in that space.
21 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Okay. Just regarding the
22 forms real quick. Can you give an example of something that
23 a district could do that would basically break their -- you
24 know, to break that attestation form, something that would
25 go against it?
57 1 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Yeah, I can answer that.
2 First, just very quickly I want to commend all of
3 our district leaders because they have overwhelmingly
4 followed the attestation. I would be remiss if I didn't add
5 that.
6 But to answer your specific question, the only
7 ways to break the attestation would be not to follow either
8 the face covering order from the Department of Health or not
9 to adhere to the recommended guidelines for when you have
10 cases of COVID in your schools.
11 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Okay. Is there any
12 penalty for not following?
13 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: At this point, I mean,
14 there always could be. But at this point, we have not
15 levied any type of penalties in that space. Again, we've
16 had the overwhelming cooperation of our public schools in
17 all sectors.
18 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Okay. Thank you very
19 much.
20 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Sure.
21 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Shifting gears just a
22 little bit. You know, this has been brought up quite a bit.
23 A lot of our school districts have been teaching, you know,
24 a significant portion of their days remotely.
25 Mr. Secretary, my question is, when teaching
58 1 remotely, are these districts being held to any standards to
2 reach their Act 80 hourly requirements?
3 The reason I bring this up is because there seems
4 to be a big disparity in my district between what each
5 school is doing and how much time each district has their
6 students online each day.
7 I know that, you know, personally having a
8 daughter that has done a lot of online learning. Hers is a
9 few hours. This school district might be two hours, another
10 one is three hours. Is there any type of set standard that
11 the districts have to follow or being held to?
12 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure, Representative.
13 And Deputy Stem is still on. But from the
14 get-go, from the onset, when we began to put out guidance, a
15 lot of this had to do with being able to make sure that we
16 monitor things like attendance, as you bring up as well.
17 Matt, anything else that you would add on that
18 particular request?
19 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Just to know,
20 Representative, that all school districts still have to take
21 and report attendance and that the guidance from the
22 Department has spoken a lot not only about attendance but
23 engagement and the completion of work.
24 So it is the Department's expectation that in
25 whatever setting students are in, that they are receiving
59 1 instruction and demonstrating that by completing work and
2 that schools are tracking accordingly.
3 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: But regardless of
4 attendance, is there any implementation to track or a
5 standard that these -- I mean, there's synchronous,
6 asynchronous. We're talking about standards that, you know,
7 that our charters and cyber charters should be held to the
8 same standards as our typical public and brick-and-mortar
9 schools.
10 Are our schools being held to the same standards
11 that the cyber charters are for synchronous and asynchronous
12 learning online?
13 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: I would say that right
14 now all sectors are being held to the same standards. And
15 whether or not we are fully remote or in more normal times
16 of in-person, those expectations haven't changed at a state
17 level in any of those sectors.
18 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: So what do I tell my
19 constituents back home about the disparity? Because that's
20 the issue that I have. It seems that one district is
21 teaching a certain amount of time online. And it's
22 different between grades, too. I understand that a
23 kindergartner can't be online all day long.
24 I am running out of time here and I do want to
25 get to another point. We're talking about remote learning.
60 1 I do have a son, a kindergartner. He's in private school
2 only because our public school is going to go online for a
3 significant amount of time in the beginning. My daughter is
4 still in public school and she's had weeks of online
5 learning.
6 The private schools, it seems to be, across the
7 state -- and I just read an article in the New York Times
8 talking about how private schools across our state have
9 hardly missed any time.
10 Two-part question. Why are the private schools
11 able to go, you know, in-person teaching and has there been
12 any significant spread among those private schools that we
13 can note, any significant transmission to note? And, two, I
14 also want to compare that to the state of Florida. The
15 state of Florida has mandated that their kids go to school
16 in person five days a week. Why is Florida able to do that
17 and we are not?
18 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: So, Representative, I
19 can't speak to -- unfortunately, I can't speak to Florida.
20 I don't know Florida well. And I apologize for that.
21 What I can say to you is related to our privates
22 and our public schools and that is, you are exactly right.
23 Different districts and different schools even within
24 districts have offerings that vary. And those are based,
25 you know, No. 1, our school districts are local control.
61 1 And that's something that's deeply codified as -- you know,
2 certainly as we are all aware, and we don't make those
3 decisions at a state level.
4 But what we've seen, whether in private schools
5 or in public schools, is that a lot of those decisions are
6 made based on the size of their buildings and available
7 resources. And so, you know, those are decisions that play
8 in. And we've had a number of public school districts that
9 have stayed in-person for the better part of the year as
10 well when they've had the resources and conditions to allow
11 that.
12 But again, based on the local-control nature in
13 our schools, we don't direct that.
14 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Thank you.
15 Unfortunately, I am out of time. But I do want
16 to note to what you said about not knowing about what
17 Florida is doing. I would probably suggest that we look to
18 see what Florida is doing because right now they have their
19 children in school five days a week. We should be looking
20 at the impact that that's having and, you know, present that
21 to our own state and to look at what private schools are
22 doing. We should look at that in-depth.
23 Again, I am out of time, gentlemen.
24 Mr. Secretary, I do want to thank you for joining
25 us here today.
62 1 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
2 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
3 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you, sir.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
5 Representative Cephas.
6 REPRESENTATIVE CEPHAS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
7 And good morning, Mr. Secretary.
8 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Good morning.
9 REPRESENTATIVE CEPHAS: My questions are going to
10 focus more so on infrastructure and just your Department's
11 strategy as we move forward to address the challenges that
12 we are experiencing not just today but that we'll be
13 experiencing for some time.
14 So as we know, COVID-19 has only shown us ongoing
15 gaps that exist within our education system across the
16 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, whether that be urban areas,
17 rural areas, suburban areas. Each of our school districts
18 across the Commonwealth have experienced significant
19 difficulties to essentially build two learning platforms in
20 order to accommodate for digital learning.
21 At the beginning of the pandemic, again, you saw
22 countless school districts struggle, whether that be because
23 of lack of resources to do so or families' inability to
24 access the Internet or simply challenges around
25 coordination.
63 1 But as we approach a year of when the pandemic
2 started, administrations have gotten extremely creative,
3 extremely innovative, whether that be spending down
4 surpluses or partnering with non-profit organizations or
5 private organizations. Your Department, similar to New
6 York, established a Grant Fund for school districts to tap
7 into.
8 But again, as I stated earlier, as we move
9 forward, our reality essentially is going to be the creation
10 of two learning platforms. How does your budget currently
11 essentially address these gaps and provide this financial
12 support for school districts but also as we are looking
13 towards the future budgets, how are you strategizing around
14 them, understanding that this is our new reality?
15 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you,
16 Representative, for the question.
17 And I think you shed light on a few concerns that
18 we continue to engage in conversations with members of the
19 General Assembly, in fact, around this. So structural
20 challenges are really something that persisted throughout
21 the pandemic. Many of the things that schools are being
22 asked to do, the Department is being asked to do, are things
23 that fall outside the traditional structure of the way that
24 we have gone about investing and funding our schools.
25 And by that I mean, schools are being asked and
64 1 they have been asked for this past year to pivot to remote
2 learning in ways that maybe they did not have the
3 infrastructure and capacity to do so.
4 I think what we see here, especially in the
5 timeliness of the investment proposed by the Governor in
6 basic education funding, really will position schools to be
7 able to think about how to do this. The duality and the
8 provision of learning is something that has not stopped
9 being a concern.
10 You know, even when conversations are beginning
11 to emerge around mitigation strategies, vaccination,
12 immunity, there's still a reality that we're not 100 percent
13 aware of what it's going to look like for schools to
14 function in. And it's going to require some investment in
15 dollars that they're going to have to put into that.
16 So in some ways we may find ourselves on parallel
17 tracks for a little while longer. And we want to make sure
18 that that's not lost in the conversations when we think
19 about what the current infusion of dollars can be invested
20 in and where the needs continue to exist and lay for our
21 schools.
22 REPRESENTATIVE CEPHAS: I appreciate that.
23 My other question lends to the expectation of
24 what we're supposed to be getting from the Federal
25 Government not just for COVID-19 relief spending but as they
65 1 are beginning to talk about an infrastructure bill.
2 As your budget has proposed, a billion dollars
3 through RCAP to support the remediation of buildings of lead
4 and asbestos, but as we look at the Federal money that
5 potentially can be coming down through infrastructure as
6 well as the COVID-19 relief, understanding that a lot of
7 that money is going to be one-time spending dollars, how are
8 you strategizing with the usage of those dollars to address
9 these ongoing concerns that we've had with our buildings?
10 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Right.
11 And I'll use this as an opportunity,
12 Representative, to also do an outreach to members of the
13 General Assembly. We're going to have to work together when
14 we think about the next infusion of dollars and how we can
15 direct them into ways where there will have to be some need.
16 And so this last round of funding that came
17 through from the Federal Government, which is about $2.2
18 billion, went directly to our schools. We did not want to
19 wait to get any dollars in the hands of schools that needed
20 it immediately by spending time to strategize on what we
21 would do with the set-aside, etc., and so we sent it
22 directly to the schools.
23 This next time we're going to have to be a little
24 bit more strategic with dollars that come through. The
25 Federal guidelines around the usage of dollars have taken
66 1 into consideration the need for some discretion to the
2 schools for ways to use it to rebuild infrastructure, to
3 build capacity as well.
4 And I think these are important things to keep in
5 mind because we still don't know fully what all the needs
6 are going to be for the schools. And I think you've raised
7 a couple of issues for many of them trying to figure out how
8 to navigate parallel paths that are really important.
9 And while lots of the conversations are around
10 the learning conditions and the provision of learning for
11 students, there are elements that stem beyond the students
12 as well that need to be considered significantly as well.
13 We don't know what the impact is going to be around human
14 capital as well. And money needs to be invested in terms of
15 retention and things like that.
16 And so there is going to need to be some really
17 good collaboration between the Department of Education and
18 members of the General Assembly to make sure that we can
19 provide the funding strategically to the schools in a way
20 that's going to benefit their rebuilding but also the
21 students have been displaced as well .
22 So I hope that we can continue to have these
23 ongoing dialogues.
24 REPRESENTATIVE CEPHAS: I appreciate that.
25 As you know, many members from Philadelphia
67 1 County, if not last year or the year before that, have
2 always come to the bully pulpit to argue for more funding to
3 address our lead and asbestos issue. But this year we're
4 coming to the same mike talking about the same issue, just
5 adding COVID-19 to the equation.
6 I think the dollars that are coming through from
7 an infrastructure perspective from the Federal Government is
8 a true opportunity for us to really address this issue that
9 has been going on for some time.
10 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
11 And thank you, Mr. Secretary.
12 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
14 Representative Lee James.
15 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
16 Good morning, Mr. Secretary and Deputy
17 Secretaries.
18 Early in this session, the Legislature who
19 actually represent the 12.8 million Pennsylvanians, got an
20 early piece of legislation passed. And it provided
21 direction on how to spend Federal Coronavirus Relief Funds.
22 In this particular instance, it sends funds to community
23 colleges, career and technical schools, schools for the
24 deaf, schools for the blind, etc.
25 When can these schools expect to receive this
68 1 money?
2 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: So, Representative,
3 we've begun to distribute the funds that have come in with
4 regards to ESSER 1, and many of those are going out. In
5 fact, right now, schools are submitting their plans for
6 requests on how they're going to spend the next round of
7 dollars that we have as well.
8 And so I think you're referring to a bill that
9 allocates the Governor's emergency relief funds. And so
10 those are things that we've begun to sort of open up the
11 applications for and are beginning to position ourselves to
12 distribute those funds.
13 I guess the best way to respond to that is any
14 minute now.
15 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES: Impressive. Very good.
16 Thank you.
17 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: You're welcome.
18 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES: Second question, Federal
19 CARES Act passed by President Trump in December provided
20 Pennsylvania with approximately $150 million which was to be
21 disbursed to non-public schools in the state. In some
22 cases, probably most cases, these are schools that have
23 never received funding from the State or Federal Government.
24 What are the challenges that the Pennsylvania
25 Department of Education is seeing getting this money out and
69 1 what are you doing to make sure all the schools that may be
2 eligible are aware of their eligibility?
3 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, the
4 most recent funding that we received around the emergency
5 relief funds, there was a pot set aside for non-publics as
6 well. And I want to point out that when you don't have a
7 traditional infrastructure to disburse these funds from the
8 department to the non-publics at this rate with this amount,
9 we did partner to address one of the challenges early on
10 which is how we're going to get the money out with our
11 intermediate units who came in immediately and offered up to
12 provide some assistance to get the funding out.
13 So we've been able to not just request the
14 funding in the recent week but also began to get the
15 infrastructure up and running to have them apply, submit
16 their budgets and then to have the money disbursed
17 immediately.
18 So I appreciate you elevating that. And I think
19 in large part thanks to our intermediate units we have been
20 able to really move past that hurdle and move into the
21 disbursement of those funds as well.
22 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES: Therefore, you're
23 satisfied that the non-public schools are aware of their
24 eligibility; is that correct?
25 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: That is correct.
70 1 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES: Okay. Thank you very
2 much.
3 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
4 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES: Mr. Chairman, I seek back
5 my remaining time.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
7 Representative Patty Kim.
8 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Thank you, Chairman Saylor.
9 Secretary Ortega, as you know, the Commonwealth
10 recently changed the Public School Code and children must
11 now be enrolled in school no later than the age of 6.
12 Children are now required to attend school until 18 or
13 graduate, whichever comes first.
14 I know this is the first academic year to
15 implement this change and COVID upended things. But do you
16 know of any school district that reopened its kindergarten
17 class because of Act 16?
18 Before you answer that, early education is
19 extremely important to me. And I believe offering full-day
20 kindergarten should be mandatory for all school districts.
21 In past years it was painful to see some of the school
22 districts cut full-day kindergarten in order to save money.
23 In addition to that question, did any schools
24 open up kindergarten classes? Do we need to bring down the
25 compulsory age to five to really have a stronger impact and
71 1 any unintended consequences because of this new law,
2 Secretary?
3 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
4 And, Representative Kim, I appreciate the
5 question.
6 Let me point out a couple of things with regards
7 to our understanding of the importance of early childhood
8 and pre-K investments as well, particularly access for a
9 number of folks.
10 So some of the challenges that we've seen because
11 of the pandemic and the move to remote learning, I want to
12 point out with regards to disproportionate impact, our young
13 learners are certainly the ones that were impacted the most.
14 I think it was mentioned by a few other folks
15 with regards to folks coming up and trying to learn
16 remotely, particularly with screen time in front of them, a
17 certain age is absolutely a challenge. And many of us who
18 have kids at home are seeing that firsthand with regards to
19 how it's playing out.
20 In terms of guidances put out with regards to
21 reopening and returning to classes, much of what we put out
22 recently in terms of steps that schools can take have
23 emphasized the importance of the early years, so
24 kindergarten courses all the way up to even early elementary
25 years as well have been really important for this reason.
72 1 Folks have continued, as Deputy Stem mentioned
2 earlier, to move at different rates with regards to
3 reopening. But we continue to place emphasis especially
4 with our new proposals of guidelines that have come out as
5 early as December on how important it is to think about
6 those early years and the reopening strategies.
7 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Okay. I'm sure I didn't
8 pose this question very clearly.
9 But because of the new law, did any school
10 districts, not because of COVID, reopen kindergarten or
11 offer kindergarten because of the new act? That was my
12 question, Secretary. So a school district didn't have it,
13 didn't offer full-day kindergarten but now did because of
14 the new law.
15 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I don't have a response
16 to that question at the moment.
17 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Okay.
18 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Let me check back with
19 the team so I can provide you a definitive response,
20 Representative, before your time is up.
21 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Okay.
22 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
23 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Thank you. I'm sorry for it
24 being confusing.
25 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: No, that's okay. I
73 1 just want to make sure that I respond concisely.
2 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: If I have time, my second
3 question is, a lot of parents have had a deeper appreciation
4 for teachers. We've overheard lessons when our students
5 learn remotely. This has been an extremely challenging time
6 for teachers and administrators. I am worried about the
7 pipeline of future teachers. I know that we already have a
8 substitute teacher shortage problem.
9 From your vantage point, what do you think are
10 the barriers or trends for people thinking of going into the
11 teaching field and what is your Department doing to recruit
12 more teachers in general?
13 I know that Representative Kinsey talked about
14 diversity. But my question is more general. And will the
15 increase in salary proposed in the Governor's budget be
16 helpful?
17 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
18 And, Representative Kim, let me start with the
19 proposal that the Governor has put forward in terms of
20 increased salary. And that will be absolutely essential to
21 improving not just the recruitment of new teachers but the
22 retention of teachers who are currently there as well. So,
23 you know, I think that is certainly something new that can
24 help insure that we can recruit more folks.
25 When we think about how we talk about the
74 1 profession of education as well, particularly when you
2 consider a lot of the expectations that have emerged
3 recently, the Department has really used kind of a framing
4 strategy or a discourse strategy around elevating the
5 profession and its importance as well.
6 And then our ed prep programs. We've got over
7 100 education preparation programs in Pennsylvania, lots of
8 schools that can support the production development of
9 teachers. We've been working with them for the past couple
10 of years as well in developing programs that really go out
11 and actively recruit students, particularly historically
12 recruit students into the profession.
13 And for us, this is something that we want to
14 continue to build on and expand. In fact, we've reached out
15 to members of the General Assembly to find ways in which we
16 might be able to create sources of funding that are directed
17 at recruiting as well. So these are really important.
18 But we've also been able to do things in
19 partnership with members of the General Assembly during the
20 pandemic that create relief, relief to allow us to move
21 folks through the certification process fairly quickly and
22 then even open up the recruitment pipeline during the
23 pandemic so we can make sure we don't disrupt the pipeline
24 more so than it had already been in the past several years.
25 And so those kinds of policy practice efforts are
75 1 being matched up with some of our innovative efforts that
2 are coming from our education preparation program. So we'll
3 continue to advocate and form partnerships around that as we
4 move forward as well.
5 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
6 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
7 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
9 Representative Zach Mako.
10 REPRESENTATIVE MAKO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
11 And, Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. I
12 appreciate it.
13 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
14 REPRESENTATIVE MAKO: I have a question.
15 Last week the House Education Committee heard
16 testimony from non-public schools that about 90 percent of
17 the non-public school students had an option for in-person
18 learning and instruction from their schools.
19 Do we have any data on the public schools about
20 this? And what percentage of students have the option for
21 some in-person instruction and what proportion of these
22 public school students are only receiving virtual
23 instruction?
24 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, we do
25 have information that's published almost routinely.
76 1 Matt, I'm not sure if we have access to the most
2 recent figures to share with the Representative.
3 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Yes, Representative.
4 We do keep those numbers. Those numbers do
5 change from week to week. The fundamental answer to your
6 question is, you know, all of those decisions to offer
7 in-person are made at the local level. So the State has
8 never prohibited schools from offering in-person instruction
9 for the entire pandemic, just for clarity.
10 But in terms of which districts have or haven't,
11 right now we're at a space where roughly 50 percent of
12 districts are still in remote instruction. And again, those
13 change from week to week, so that's why I'll just speak in
14 ambiguities. But right now roughly half of school districts
15 are still in a remote setting. And that number continues to
16 go down each week as counties' cases continue to go down.
17 REPRESENTATIVE MAKO: Okay.
18 So kind of going back to the question. Do you
19 think that the private schools have a higher proportion of
20 their -- and I haven't seen the data, but do you think that
21 the private schools have a higher proportion of their
22 students back to in-person learning than the public schools?
23 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: We don't have -- the
24 private schools don't report that data to us, so
25 unfortunately, Representative, I don't have that
77 1 information. We've only been able to track what's been
2 happening in our public schools.
3 REPRESENTATIVE MAKO: Okay.
4 Switching gears here. Moving to my next
5 question. My understanding is that dual enrollment was a
6 program that was kind of cut a couple years ago; is that so?
7 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: That's correct.
8 REPRESENTATIVE MAKO: So I guess right now -- and
9 nobody wants to see more education than I do because I'm a
10 big fan of it. We're spending the most amount that we've
11 ever spent on education. Is there any appetite to bring the
12 dual enrollment program back to the high schools?
13 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, thank
14 you for the invitation to engage in that conversation.
15 Absolutely, if we could work together to figure
16 out ways to create that. You know, our expectation is as
17 well with the infusion of dollars and some of the savings
18 that would result given some of the proposals that the
19 Governor has put forward that those are investments that
20 could be made.
21 But again, this would just be made by some
22 schools. I think it's important for everyone to be able to
23 think about how they can provide folks with dual enrollment,
24 particularly now when we know that that's certainly a way to
25 improve postsecondary outcomes, but also success when folks
78 1 move on into some sort of postsecondary pathway.
2 REPRESENTATIVE MAKO: And I agree, too.
3 And then my third question, the Nellie Bly
4 Program, from my understanding that's trying to take the
5 horse racing funds and then apply that to the PASSHE system;
6 is that correct?
7 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: That is correct.
8 The Nellie Bly Scholarship does allow for PASSHE
9 institutions to offer tuition support for a number of
10 students who enroll in them. There's income thresholds and
11 things like that, but it's just another way to address the
12 college affordability and the student loan debt concerns
13 that exist in Pennsylvania.
14 REPRESENTATIVE MAKO: And I don't know enough
15 about that program to be honest. But is there any appetite
16 to including the community colleges in that, maybe a way of
17 tying it into the dual enrollment?
18 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, this is
19 a first step in what needs to be a comprehensive effort to
20 address college affordability across all sectors. And I
21 think continuing to move forward and engaging community
22 colleges in this conversation is extremely important,
23 particularly the role that they're going to have to have to
24 play as we think about the recovery from the pandemic.
25 You know, many of these community colleges are
79 1 entry points for a number of folks for postsecondary
2 opportunities. And I don't want us to lose sight of that
3 fact.
4 REPRESENTATIVE MAKO: I mean, I would be a huge
5 advocate for the community college and the PASSHE system as
6 I'm a product of both of them. So moving forward, if you
7 want to work on trying to get this together, I would be more
8 than happy to work with you on that, Mr. Secretary.
9 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Fantastic.
10 I appreciate it, Representative.
11 REPRESENTATIVE MAKO: Thank you.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
13 Representative Krueger.
14 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER: Thank you so much, Mr.
15 Secretary, for joining us here today.
16 Before today's hearing with the Department of
17 Education, I reached out to some of my local superintendents
18 and local administrators to ask what was top on their mind
19 for them. And one of the two issues I heard about was
20 mental health.
21 I have talked to some of the school social
22 workers who have identified that the need is higher than
23 ever. Have school districts reported an increase in mental
24 health needs for their student bodies during this COVID-19
25 pandemic?
80 1 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I can't speak directly
2 to the kind of reporting that was done around mental health
3 and well-being. I mean, if we use an indicator with regards
4 to the frequency, it comes up in our stakeholder meetings
5 that we have routinely. It comes up each and every time.
6 And so that to me is a signal that indicates its importance,
7 and it's drawing importance throughout the pandemic.
8 Matt, anything that gets reported to the Office
9 of Elementary and Secondary Education specifically around
10 this?
11 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: No, not reported
12 specifically to our office on this issue. But it is
13 something that our team continues to work closely on and
14 elevate as a high priority issue. Nothing that comes
15 directly, but indirectly through the cross agency groups
16 that we sit on with DHS and others, that's where we get some
17 data that comes back, as well as through some of the
18 technical assistance we provide through our system and
19 others.
20 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER: And a follow-up
21 question. And this is not something that was asked by the
22 administrators but a question that I've got.
23 What about mental health needs for teachers?
24 Every teacher I know is working incredible hours, some of
25 them being asked to go back into buildings without having
81 1 access to vaccines. And I've also noticed an uptick in the
2 public attacking teachers at the time when they're under the
3 most stress. So have we seen any reporting about mental
4 health needs for teachers or school staff?
5 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, I want
6 to point out similarly, you know, to what we were saying
7 before in terms of information that's coming our way and
8 then highlight one key thing that I think is important not
9 to lose sight of.
10 From the very get-go when we began to put out
11 resources about mental health and well-being for our
12 schools, it was clear that we had to move beyond students
13 and think about our teachers and school leaders as well.
14 And so we were very comprehensive in addressing
15 those needs collectively because we know of the increasing
16 pressure that many of them have faced as they make
17 decisions, they weigh decisions between what to do and how
18 to do it moving forward. And so these are things that are
19 extremely important. And I thank you for shedding light on
20 them.
21 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER: And I would appreciate a
22 followup from the Department on exactly what you're doing to
23 help both our students and teachers because this is an
24 incredibly challenging time for so many of us. I'm just
25 cognizant of the fact that our teachers are under tremendous
82 1 pressure.
2 Another question that I got from local
3 administrators was about the State assessments. So I saw
4 that the Department recently submitted a letter to the U.S.
5 Department of Education confirming that Pennsylvania will
6 allow public schools the option to postpone mandated testing
7 until the fall. And I noticed that the new Federal guidance
8 also allows for a reduction of State assessments.
9 Will the Department of Education be recommending
10 any test reductions due to COVID?
11 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
12 Representative, let me invite Deputy Stem into
13 this conversation because he's the one that has been leading
14 the efforts around this. And I think he can provide some
15 really good updates to yourself and others who are joining
16 us today.
17 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER: Sure.
18 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Yes, thank you.
19 And thanks for raising the issue around
20 assessments. This is front and center in the minds of our
21 families and of our educators.
22 I'll try and be brief to honor your time,
23 Representative.
24 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER: Thank you.
25 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: The Federal Government
83 1 specifically has invited waivers on accountability. And the
2 Department is in the process of requesting those waivers.
3 Actually, we're waiting for the template to come from the
4 U.S. Department of Education to specifically request waivers
5 for accountability and test participation.
6 To your point, USDE has also allowed states to
7 make certain modifications. And we have taken full
8 advantage of the opportunity to move our assessment window
9 forward all the way into next fall, which we believe
10 positions districts to have more time to ensure that test
11 administration is done safely.
12 In terms of reducing tests, the Department did
13 not allow states to reduce tests. What they said was that
14 states could reduce testing time. As you may be aware, we
15 engaged in that work. We did reduce our testing time on
16 PSSAs by over 20 percent just a few years ago.
17 So to answer your question, they didn't allow us
18 to reduce tests. They were saying that if there were a way,
19 you know, states could look at other ways to reduce test
20 time, but it wasn't about reducing the number. So again,
21 we're taking advantage of the opportunity to extend into
22 September at least.
23 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER: And last question again
24 from a local superintendent. This is a yes-or-no question.
25 Are you open to PSSA testing being reduced to once per grade
84 1 level rather than once per year?
2 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: That's all directed by
3 the U.S. Department of Education. Sorry for not giving you
4 a yes or no. We have to follow -- we have over
5 three-quarters of a billion dollars from USDE so we have to
6 follow their direction on that.
7 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER: Thank you, Mr.
8 Secretary.
9 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
10 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Yes.
11 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
12 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: The Chair thanks the lady
13 and recognizes the gentleman from Wayne, Mr. Fritz.
14 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
15 Good morning, Mr. Secretary.
16 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Good morning.
17 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Mr. Secretary, I'd like to
18 take some time to discuss career and technology centers in
19 Pennsylvania.
20 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
21 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: And I'll start off with
22 curiosity. Out of the 80 or so across the Commonwealth, how
23 many are back face-to-face, Mr. Secretary?
24 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: So many of them are
25 beginning to offer some level of hybrid learning and some of
85 1 the classes that need to be with hands-on learning as well.
2 Matt, do we have a specific on how many have
3 reopened or can we get one?
4 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Thank you.
5 We really appreciate the question.
6 Representative, in order to honor your time, I'm
7 going to look that up here. I might have that available as
8 you're still questioning. If I can really quickly, I just
9 want to correct the record I said on something two
10 representatives ago.
11 Right now we have about 50 percent of our
12 students that are in remote learning, as I had mentioned
13 before, but not 50 percent of LEAs. It's about 30 percent
14 of school districts. They represent about 50 percent of
15 students that are remote right now. I just wanted to be
16 clear there.
17 And then, Representative, I'll see if I can pull
18 the CTC numbers while you're still up.
19 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Okay.
20 I would appreciate that. Thank you.
21 I'll take the opportunity to mention that my
22 district is home to the Susquehanna County Career and
23 Technology Center. And this school is just very, very well
24 run and plays an incredibly big part in readying students
25 for a productive career.
86 1 And I'll speak to that, Mr. Secretary. Thanks to
2 industry options in my district, a student, a young man or a
3 young woman, can graduate job ready and enter the workforce
4 making seventy, seventy-five thousand-plus dollars a year.
5 Now, a young person, 18 or 19 years old, without student
6 debt making that kind of money is incredibly life-changing.
7 These are real examples, friends, of the American dream.
8 Thanks to industry, thanks to strong work ethic, thanks to
9 good schooling and guidance, the American dream is alive and
10 well in the 111th Legislative District.
11 Now, Mr. Secretary, what I'm seeing in my
12 district, the 111th, are we seeing this elsewhere in the
13 Commonwealth?
14 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Yes, we are.
15 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Do you have geographic
16 regions of perhaps industry that you think are fueling some
17 of those examples?
18 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
19 I can't answer specific industries that are
20 fueling the growth, Representative, but I just want to
21 reiterate what you're saying in terms of the pathway for a
22 lot of young folks. This is serving for many folks as a
23 really good opportunity to move into a livable wage. In
24 fact, what you're raising here is something that is a good
25 wage for folks coming out of secondary schools moving into
87 1 the workforce immediately. And it also makes some
2 contributors to the economy and society as well.
3 And I think that's something that often gets lost
4 from the narrative.
5 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Mr. Secretary, please help
6 us in dispelling some of the misinclination that STEM jobs
7 and opportunities are only for the brainiest kids in the
8 classroom. Can you kindly speak to that?
9 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
10 You know, I think we keep seeing the STEM work
11 continue to grow in its importance and its need. Many of
12 them -- and what we're seeing with regards to partnerships
13 with industries, many of them are coming from credentials
14 that are accessible to a number of folks that don't
15 necessarily require entirely a credential like an
16 Associate's or a Bachelor's degree, although it improves the
17 circumstances with regard to lifetime earnings, etc.
18 I think there's a number of ways that folks can
19 step into those careers. And I think what you're shedding
20 light on, Representative, is important for us to make sure
21 it not lost in the narrative. The postsecondary attainment
22 goal for Pennsylvania includes high-quality credentials
23 alongside the Associate's and the Baccalaureate degrees.
24 And it's inclusive of counting all these individuals who you
25 are shedding light on as part of our attainment goal for
88 1 Pennsylvania.
2 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: And, Representative, this
3 is Deputy Stem. If I could just say -- I just want to say
4 thank you. Sorry, Mr. Secretary, for jumping in.
5 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: That's okay.
6 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: I just want to say thank
7 you for your support and all the members' support on career
8 and technical education. This has been one of our highest
9 priorities in K-12 over the past few years, is
10 destigmatizing career and technical education, showing us a
11 viable pathway not just to the workforce but also to
12 postsecondary.
13 And we've increased by over 30 percent the number
14 of students receiving industry credentials over the past
15 number of years. And we've been able to increase our CTC
16 enrollment even while overall high school enrollment drops
17 throughout the state. And that's not something we can do
18 alone at the Department. And it's because of members like
19 you and others that have been champions with us in this.
20 So thank you for that.
21 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: You're welcome.
22 And I'll mention that I notice $20 million of
23 your appropriation will be used for the PAsmart Initiative.
24 And upon seeing that, I took to the website, the PAsmart
25 website. And it was there that I learned that Pennsylvania
89 1 Commonwealthwide has 18,000 unfilled
2 computer-science-related positions.
3 And I'll just take a moment again just to plug
4 that website as being very useful, very easy to navigate,
5 and, of course the mission altogether.
6 So, Mr. Secretary, the skill gap issue is very,
7 very real. I think we all realize that. Please enlighten
8 us with what we are funding in this budget and speak to the
9 PAsmart particular component.
10 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
11 And so the PAsmart does direct a lot of the
12 resources to making sure that we can direct some of the
13 emphasis to fill those jobs that you shed light on. And so
14 there's a number of programs to get funded across the
15 Commonwealth through a competitive process.
16 We're happy to share the information on the types
17 of abstracts that are submitted from some of those programs.
18 But I don't want to lose sight of the fact that it is merged
19 and tied to our recommendations or our efforts directed at
20 improving and filling some of those career pathways for a
21 number of folks.
22 So they're used in really innovative ways. And
23 we hope to continue to get some support to invest in those
24 types of programs in the future.
25 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Okay.
90 1 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
2 And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your time.
3 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
4 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: The Chair thanks the
5 gentleman.
6 Mr. Secretary, we're going to take one more
7 question and then we will break. And we're probably going
8 to break until about 1:30. I think that will also give you
9 an opportunity and your team if there are questions that you
10 have said you would get back to some of us on. Perhaps that
11 would be an opportunity that you could take to find some of
12 that information if it's readily accessible.
13 I just wanted to give you the heads-up on that.
14 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
15 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: And with that, the Chair
16 recognizes the lady from Bucks, Ms. Schroeder.
17 REPRESENTATIVE SCHROEDER: Thank you, Mr.
18 Chairman.
19 Hello, Mr. Secretary.
20 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Hello.
21 REPRESENTATIVE SCHROEDER: How are you?
22 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I'm doing well. How
23 are you?
24 REPRESENTATIVE SCHROEDER: Good. Thank you.
25 So I have the last question before lunch. Here
91 1 we go.
2 My question is about early childhood education.
3 Since passed into law in 2007, the General Assembly has
4 invested in pre-K in a bipartisan manner with the Pre-K
5 Counts and Head Start Supplemental Assistance lines now
6 totaling over a combined 281 million in funding.
7 A recent study by the University of North
8 Carolina was the first one specifically done on PA's Pre-K
9 Program and its efficiencies, correct?
10 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: That's correct.
11 REPRESENTATIVE SCHROEDER: Okay.
12 Can you summarize its findings and its
13 suggestions for next steps for policymakers?
14 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
15 And I just want to highlight the fact that up
16 until now we have been relying on secondary information with
17 regards to its importance, which speaks highly of the value
18 of programs like Pre-K Counts as well as Head Start
19 Supplement. But the study that you're referencing, which
20 was funded by the William Penn Foundation -- I just want to
21 take a moment to point that out -- did find some very
22 important things that I think would help inform kind of
23 continued investments in this area .
24 First and foremost, higher level of language
25 skills with regards to performance by a number of folks who
92 1 participated in those programs relative to those who didn't,
2 along with improved math skills, which we've all known
3 really in many ways inform and dictate the success that
4 young people will have as they think about what their
5 postsecondary options are going to be.
6 In fact, what we've been seeing as a trend among
7 a number of postsecondary institutions during the pandemic
8 and even before, some move away from assessments and
9 testings as prerequisites for administrations and look at
10 performance in certain key areas in secondary school, which
11 include Math. And I think this really speaks to the leg up
12 that it gives young people when they participate in these
13 programs.
14 So we will continue to find ways to reach out to
15 do additional studies in these areas. We hope that we might
16 be able to even work with -- in this case we worked with the
17 University of North Carolina, but with local institutions to
18 help inform the efficacy of these investments.
19 REPRESENTATIVE SCHROEDER: I think that's a great
20 idea.
21 And also I see though that the Governor in his
22 budget has 30 million more in that line. Exactly what would
23 that be used for?
24 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
25 Thank you for the question.
93 1 The 30 million was invested in early learning
2 programs and 25 would go to the Pre-K Counts Program.
3 REPRESENTATIVE SCHROEDER: Okay.
4 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: And 5 million will go
5 to the Head Start Supplemental Program. Just to quickly
6 point out, you know, the Pre-K Counts Program in
7 Pennsylvania is one that tends to serve a larger number of
8 individuals in Pennsylvania relative to the Head Start
9 Program as well.
10 So that's the way the money is being distributed
11 between those two programs.
12 REPRESENTATIVE SCHROEDER: Okay.
13 So I have a little bit of time here. So I was
14 going to ask you a question to follow up to something that
15 we discussed last year during a Joint House and Senate
16 Education hearing. And that was about GEERS Funding, and
17 that's the Governor's Emergency Education Relief Fund.
18 And last year when I asked the question, I said,
19 is there any type of ways we're trying to do,
20 outside-the-box ways, of addressing the physical classroom
21 to make teachers, staff, and students feel safer to go back?
22 The idea is like a filtration system, things that are
23 long-term investments even for a safe classroom.
24 So I wasn't sure if there was any updates on that
25 that you've looked into or if we're looking at how other
94 1 states are maybe addressing this and comparing what we could
2 maybe do better. And just seeing on the website, if you
3 look, over 104 million has been given out since I think the
4 pandemic. So I was just seeing, you know, what your
5 thoughts were on that.
6 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
7 So we are following and tracking the research
8 that comes with improvements that are needed to include safe
9 environments. The Emergency Relief Fund, while we made sure
10 that we tried to address and give funds to institutions that
11 may be -- or K-12 schools that were not recipients of the
12 ESSER funding as a top priority, in many cases those
13 investments were sent to schools to create safe conditions.
14 But most went to modifications needed at the school and then
15 acquiring protective equipment. While they could have spent
16 it on things like filtration systems and other things like
17 that, those are sizable investments.
18 However, what the recent round of Federal
19 investment has done is created flexibility for schools to be
20 able to use the current set of funding coming in for that,
21 which is a much more sizable investment. When you think
22 across the board, it's about 2.2 billion. And we anticipate
23 that more of that funding will be coming and can be used for
24 some of those things.
25 We are trying to do our best to compile
95 1 information on best practices around that funding to share
2 with our schools. As you know, these are local level
3 decisions driven by decisions made by the leadership there.
4 And so to that extent, we'd like to inform to make sure
5 there's an understanding of where and how that money is
6 being invested in other places.
7 But I appreciate you elevating that aspect. And
8 we will continue to sort of direct folks to best ways to
9 invest those dollars to create safe learning environments.
10 REPRESENTATIVE SCHROEDER: Thank you so much.
11 I appreciate that.
12 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
13 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: The Chair thanks the
14 lady.
15 At this time, Mr. Secretary, if that is
16 agreeable, we will come back at 1:30. Be prepared for the
17 rest of the questions for you. And then we'll continue on
18 with the Community Colleges shortly after that.
19 And once again, if there are -- if you were
20 taking some notes -- I'm sure you were. If there are things
21 that you could get back with us, the Chairman will give you
22 some time as we begin to go over some of those statistics or
23 anything that you wanted to get back to us.
24 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
25 Much appreciated. I'll look forward to seeing
96 1 everybody at 1:30.
2 Thank you.
3 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: All right. We are
4 adjourned until 1:30.
5 Thank you.
6 (Lunch break.)
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Mr. Secretary, are you
8 there?
9 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I am here.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner
11 will be Representative Lawrence.
12 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: Thank you, Mr.
13 Chairman.
14 Mr. Secretary, at a recent press conference,
15 Governor Wolf said, quote, due to the COVID-19 pandemic,
16 enrollment in charter schools has skyrocketed in the past
17 year. Why do you think that is? Why do you think parents
18 chose to leave district schools?
19 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: So for starters, you
20 know, many of the district schools with having to respond to
21 recommendations around the instructional models and then
22 themselves were having to put in place in realtime the
23 infrastructure to move to remote, you know, when we think
24 about the disproportionate impact, Representative, some of
25 the cyber charters, in particular, already had a leg up on
97 1 the offering of remote instruction. And so it really gave
2 them an advantage that we're beginning to see in sort of the
3 pivots for enrollment.
4 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: Yeah, but the Governor
5 said that enrollment at all charter schools skyrocketed in
6 the past year, including brick and mortars. I guess my
7 question is, why were parents leaving district schools and
8 going to brick-and-mortar charter schools as the Governor
9 said in the press conference?
10 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
11 And so we're beginning to understand the
12 enrollment patterns at the moment. I think what we are
13 trying to see also is to understand what's happening before
14 we go back and ask the question of why.
15 Deputy Stem, Deputy Mariano, I'm not sure if you
16 want to add more context with regards to what we've been
17 finding out so far.
18 But I think at the moment it's just monitoring
19 the patterns and making sense of what to do next with
20 regards to guidance.
21 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: I guess what I'm saying
22 is, is that parents were making choices here, as the
23 Governor acknowledged. There had to be a reason for it. I
24 mean, the Governor is proposing cutting hundreds of millions
25 from charter schools at a time when parents are choosing
98 1 them in record numbers.
2 I mean, let's get real. All right. Without
3 charter schools, we would be in real trouble. I'm not
4 trying to downplay the contributions of every school in the
5 state. Certainly district schools are super important and
6 educate the majority of students in this Commonwealth.
7 I just find the Governor's timing here on
8 proposing cutting charter school funding when in some ways
9 they have been leading is troubling. Specifically, I mean,
10 in my area, the Avon Grove Charter School, which is about a
11 mile from my house, has proven very popular with parents.
12 It's a brick-and-mortar charter school, non-profit, run in
13 the area. Parents choose it as an alternative for their
14 children. They draw from districts that have some of the
15 top test scores in the state like Unionville-Chadds Ford and
16 they draw from some districts that have challenges like
17 Coatesville.
18 Hundreds of families have left the Coatesville
19 Area School District and chosen to send their kids to the
20 Avon Grove Charter School. The Coatesville Area School
21 District hasn't paid Avon Grove Charter School for years.
22 Avon Grove Charter has instead had to appeal to the
23 Pennsylvania Department of Education for payment.
24 As of this morning -- I called and checked --
25 Avon Grove Charter is waiting for over $3 million in
99 1 payments for educating these children.
2 What are you doing to make sure they get paid?
3 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I appreciate you
4 raising several points. And if I can circle back to sort of
5 address one -- a few from the beginning of your statement.
6 I just want to make sure that we're not coming
7 out in any way and no one is making statements with regards
8 to charter schools and their role. In fact, I think when
9 the Governor spoke about charter schools, he made it very
10 clear that they're doing some doing really, really good
11 work.
12 And I think, as a few of your colleagues have
13 mentioned, it's a nuanced conversation when you think about
14 brick-and-mortar cyber charters. What this does, it's a
15 proposal that holds them accountable to the same standards
16 that we hold all our schools to as well but also to create
17 some transparency with regards to funding payments being
18 made by the traditional public schools into the charter
19 system as well.
20 So I think all these things come into aspect. We
21 play a role with regards to the Charter Appeal Board. And
22 anytime questions emerge with regards to steps that we need
23 to take to intervene -- I can't discuss a lot of the
24 specifics around one of these cases, Representative. But
25 what I can tell you is that we make sure that we step in
100 1 when appropriate to make sure that we have a system that's
2 operating with a great deal of fidelity.
3 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: Well, I think we all
4 expect that as a minimum that we have a system that's
5 operating with a great deal of fidelity.
6 I guess my question, getting back to the Avon
7 Grove Charter School, is that they have been owed money in
8 some way, shape, form, or fashion from Coatesville Area
9 School District for two years. As of today, the balance is
10 $3 million, over $3 million that they're owed.
11 And, I mean, they're educating these children
12 that parents in the Coatesville Area School District have
13 chosen to send to the Avon Grove Charter School, which
14 frankly has very good test scores.
15 My question is, what is your Department doing to
16 make sure that the Avon Grove Charter School is getting paid
17 for the children they're educating from the Coatesville Area
18 School District?
19 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
20 And so, Representative, as you've laid out, this
21 is something that's in litigation. And I can't discuss many
22 of the details with regards to what you're asking
23 specifically. But I can tell you that these are things that
24 are directly affiliated also to a redirection process that
25 our Department works on to fund directly to the charter
101 1 schools as well.
2 I just want to acknowledge what you're asking and
3 speak to its importance but not step into where I reveal
4 details in an area where I just can't.
5 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: My time has expired and
6 I'm not going to belabor the point. But I feel like you're
7 frankly dodging the question.
8 The question here is that -- we're not talking
9 about 10 cents. We're talking about over $3 million. For a
10 substantial number of students at the Avon Grove Charter
11 School, which has been open, brick-and-mortar, for quite a
12 while now, they're not getting these monies.
13 And at the end of the day, the law says your
14 Agency is supposed to make sure they get paid.
15 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you for the
16 question, Representative.
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Mr. Secretary, you
18 have no answer for that?
19 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I mean, I don't want to
20 disclose any details with regards to something that's
21 pending litigation, Mr. Chairman.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Okay.
23 It doesn't look good for your Administration, but
24 okay.
25 We'll move on to our next questioner, which is
102 1 Representative Zimmerman.
2 REPRESENTATIVE ZIMMERMAN: Thank you, Mr.
3 Chairman.
4 And thank you, Mr. Secretary and Deputies, for
5 joining us here today.
6 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
7 REPRESENTATIVE ZIMMERMAN: A little bit of an
8 extension to Representative Lawrence's comments, but maybe
9 just a bit further as well.
10 Can you explain the Governor's calls for more
11 funding for traditional public schools in his 2021-2022
12 budget while also proposing $229 million in cuts to charter
13 school students?
14 And you also explained why these public school
15 students deserve less than their peers in district schools.
16 Specifically, the Governor's proposal would cut 99 million
17 from students receiving Special Education services. How
18 will this impact those students?
19 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you for the
20 question.
21 And I appreciate that you're presenting them,
22 Representative, as sort of a comprehensive package because
23 they all are related.
24 With regards to making sure that we improve the
25 quality of the provision of learning, particularly at our
103 1 public schools, you know, you've got recommendations in
2 there that make sure that we hold our schools accountable,
3 all public schools, including charters, to the same that
4 we've held our traditional public schools to as well.
5 With regards to the funding particularly as it
6 relates to Special Education, they are being also required
7 to adhere to the same provisions that our traditional public
8 schools have to adhere to around the provision of Special
9 Education funding as well.
10 And when you think about the needs that we're
11 going to experience as we move in further, we need to make
12 sure that we've got the efficiency in place with regards to
13 funding and the way that public schools receive funds and
14 distribute them and pay out the charter schools as well. So
15 this is all sort of a comprehensive package that addresses
16 those very factors.
17 I'll look to my colleagues, Danielle or Matt, if
18 they want to add anything to that.
19 But I think it's important that we shed light to
20 how these work collectively.
21 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Representative, I want to
22 honor your time. I would just briefly add that the
23 recommendations are to bring the costs in line the same way
24 that services are actually provided. And the Special
25 Education Funding Commission put a formula in place for, you
104 1 know, all other schools related to actual services provided.
2 But that never flowed to the charter sector.
3 And what we see is that generates incredible
4 inconsistencies in the way that they're funded. So this
5 seeks to really create that consistency across both sectors
6 again, based on the work of the Special Ed Funding
7 Commission.
8 REPRESENTATIVE ZIMMERMAN: Yes, well, I
9 appreciate those comments.
10 I am concerned especially for the Special
11 Education students. I just get a bit of the sense in this
12 funding formula that we're looking at that we're in a sense
13 creating winners and losers. And when you look at a group
14 like Special Ed, for example, we certainly don't want to
15 make losers out of a vulnerable group already.
16 I would just encourage us to do what we need to
17 do in those areas.
18 Thank you.
19 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I appreciate that,
20 Representative.
21 REPRESENTATIVE ZIMMERMAN: Thank you, Mr.
22 Chairman.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
24 Representative Jim Struzzi.
25 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
105 1 And good afternoon, Mr. Secretary.
2 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Good afternoon.
3 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: I'm going to go back to
4 the mental health issues that were discussed somewhat this
5 morning and the bullying issues.
6 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
7 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: I'm very concerned. I
8 have four kids that are school-age students. I'm very
9 concerned with what kids have been through over these past
10 12 months with the fact that they haven't been in the
11 classroom. We can't have sporting events in certain
12 categories. You can't have people in the stands watching
13 them. They're missing out on proms and things like that.
14 And my concern is more of the bigger mental health picture,
15 suicides, addiction, things like that that we're going to
16 continue to see unfold.
17 And my question related to the budget is, are you
18 accounting for those needs? And is there funding within
19 your budget proposal to address those increasing mental
20 health needs within our school districts?
21 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, the
22 idea here is that the infusion of dollars but also the
23 flexibility that emerges because of the savings will
24 position schools to begin to address some of these emerging
25 concerns. They're not new in any way. They have been
106 1 concerns that have emerged within the Department for some
2 time. But there's now an ability to strategically direct
3 investments in that way. And it doesn't end there.
4 I hope that we can work together on this piece.
5 When the new Federal dollars come down, I think we also need
6 to be strategic in redirecting those, addressing some of
7 these concerns, because you are right. They're beyond the
8 classroom. They have trickle-down effects in areas that
9 you're addressing, suicide being one of them, but also other
10 concerns around opioids and things that emerge from the
11 inability to address mental health concerns.
12 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Are there any thoughts
13 to increase staffing of school psychologists? I know that
14 the ratio -- sometimes it's one psychologist per entire
15 school district. Are there any thoughts along those lines?
16 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
17 Most recently we worked in partnership with the
18 General Assembly to push forward some certification efforts
19 for school social workers because that's an area that was
20 identified some time ago. So we've now got these pathways
21 where we can offset in places where the school psychologist
22 may be something that can't be afforded by the school and
23 then create avenues where school social workers can now be
24 in place with the proper training to address this for this
25 very reason.
107 1 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Okay. Thank you.
2 I appreciate your attention to that. I think
3 it's going to be an emerging issue that continues to grow.
4 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
5 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: I want to change
6 direction a little bit here related to community colleges.
7 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
8 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: As the Secretary of the
9 Department of Education, are you aware of an articulation
10 agreement with all Pennsylvania community colleges, all 14
11 of them, with Southern New Hampshire University?
12 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Yes, I am aware of that
13 development.
14 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Who gives the approval
15 for that kind of an agreement?
16 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: So these are
17 agreements, Representative, that can be engaged in with
18 regards to the institutions by institutions themselves.
19 They have that level of discretion over decision-making.
20 I'm not sure if there was something else that you
21 were alluding to with regards to the question that maybe I
22 can drill down into even further.
23 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Sure. Here's my
24 concern. You know, we have a State System that's struggling
25 right now that offers on-line courses . We have
108 1 State-related schools that offer on-line courses. And then
2 you even said it earlier in your testimony that we need to
3 keep those partnerships here in Pennsylvania. You have the
4 community college system basically signing a contract for
5 on-line courses with Southern New Hampshire University,
6 which is an out-of-state entity.
7 So my question is, what kind of costs are
8 involved with this? How does this hurt Pennsylvania
9 schools? Could there not be another approach to try and
10 create these articulation agreements within Pennsylvania?
11 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Yes.
12 And, Representative, I think you raise a really
13 important question. And I think it's important to talk
14 about it at a hearing like this. We need to work better
15 even as a department, I will own it, to make sure that we
16 can have better partnerships between our two years and four
17 years. We've got articulation practices and policies in
18 place that helps.
19 But I know that one of the concerns that exists
20 between creating these partnerships is just simply the cost,
21 the affordability of an outside entity being able to come in
22 and undercut the State System in terms of partnerships. And
23 then other folks look externally for partnerships.
24 So we need to get better about being able to
25 address that. I think the Nellie Bly Proposal in the
109 1 Governor's address gets us one step closer to creating that,
2 to addressing that gap. But until we reduce the costs, it's
3 going to be a difficult thing to promulgate.
4 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Is there a cost? Are
5 the community colleges paying, you know, Southern New
6 Hampshire University for these courses? Is this
7 Pennsylvania money that's leaving Pennsylvania because of
8 this agreement? Do you have a figure for that?
9 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: No. It's not the
10 community colleges paying the tuition. But I think the
11 pathway that it's creating for the students coming out of
12 the community college into that four year and the idea that
13 there's an affordability factor, I'm sure that's probably
14 what's forming the partnership.
15 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Okay. I'm almost out of
16 time. I appreciate your response to that.
17 I would urge, though, in the future, you know, we
18 have the opportunity to really boost our State System, boost
19 our State-relateds as the State-relateds come in and ask for
20 an additional $40 million in this budget that we try and
21 work harder to keep these agreements within Pennsylvania so
22 that we can keep those tuition dollars, which are now going
23 to Southern New Hampshire University, here in Pennsylvania.
24 So thank you.
25 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you,
110 1 Representative.
2 And I support that recommendation as well.
3 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Thank you.
4 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
6 Representative Chris Quinn.
7 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
8 Mr. Secretary, first I want to say thank you for
9 being here today.
10 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
11 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: I have a couple of quick
12 questions. As I go through the Governor's Budget -- and I'm
13 looking at the Adult and Family Literacy section -- it's
14 page 29.
15 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Okay.
16 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: You highlight -- and
17 you've got to do a little bit of math. But there's
18 approximately only 20 percent of the people that participate
19 in that program show any type of gain or I should say show
20 gain of one or more educational functional levels.
21 Could you tell me what an educational functional
22 level is and if you think 20 percent of people that
23 participate if that's acceptable or do we need to relook at
24 this program? I mean, I look at the Family Adult Literacy
25 Program as an extremely viable type of program to get people
111 1 out of poverty.
2 So if you could help me with that, I'd appreciate
3 it.
4 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Absolutely.
5 And, Representative, if you don't mind, I'd like
6 to just put a little bit of context over the investments in
7 adultBasic education because I think the population --
8 there's a lot more significant factors already in play with
9 the population that takes advantage of those services.
10 And for many, you know, they seek these services
11 at a time when maybe they've seen their own paths go off
12 course and they come back and take part in some of these
13 services.
14 The educational factors or the increases that
15 you're referring to can mean different things depending on
16 the type of program. I'll use one for example. Folks who
17 come in as English language learners who come in there for
18 additional development and are able to improve their
19 language proficiency, let's say one or two grade levels or
20 one or two levels of improvement, and that's sort of the
21 outcome there.
22 There is a number of folks who don't complete
23 some of the programs. And it's for reasons that some of
24 them are positive. They may reenter back into the
25 workforce. Some of them may go on to a postsecondary
112 1 opportunity or some may simply complete their GED or other
2 sort of certificate and then move on.
3 And so that's what really underscores some of the
4 outcomes they could look for in the adultBasic education.
5 But I don't want to undersell their importance,
6 Representative.
7 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Well, I certainly
8 appreciate your answer. But if you could go back and look
9 at this program, I think 20 percent by anyone's metric would
10 be extremely low. So anything you can do to help with that,
11 I would certainly appreciate it.
12 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Absolutely.
13 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thank you.
14 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
15 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
17 Representative Doyle Heffley.
18 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
19 Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here today.
20 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
21 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: I think one thing that's
22 clear out of all the conversations I've heard today is the
23 importance of getting Pennsylvania students back in the
24 classroom. And anything that we can do to get the teachers
25 vaccinated and make that happen would be really important .
113 1 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Yes.
2 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: The question I have for
3 you is in the Governor's Budget proposal, the 46 percent
4 increase in the PIT would cost around $3.5 billion, I
5 believe, the first year and a $7 billion tax increase the
6 second year. In that, you're looking at a $1.15 billion
7 increase in funding for school districts and an additional
8 200 to be driven out through the new funding formula.
9 Is that accurate?
10 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, that is
11 accurate.
12 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: Okay.
13 So with the additional funding going to the
14 schools, one of the things you talk about is public
15 education in regions of the state that I represent. And
16 what it really comes down to is property taxes. I have some
17 school districts that have the highest percentage of their
18 annual income, household income, that goes to pay property
19 taxes in the state.
20 So with that, that 1.15 or that additional $1.35
21 billion that's going to be driven up as part of that $7
22 billion tax increase, how much of that would go for
23 dollar-for-dollar property tax relief for the residents in
24 the district that I represent?
25 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, I'll
114 1 have to call on -- maybe Deputy Mariano can help me with
2 this question. But I do want to point out one clear thing
3 that I think you are raising.
4 When the subsidy gets provided more so as the
5 budget recommendations from the Governor, you know, the idea
6 is that there would be less of a need for property taxes.
7 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: So let's just go back.
8 So the idea would be -- is there anything in the language
9 that would say that if this additional money is collected
10 through the PIT that it would stop school districts from
11 raising property taxes? Is that an idea or is that just a
12 suggestion?
13 Because the people that I represent, they
14 desperately need relief from property taxes. And I haven't
15 seen anything in this proposal except for a massive tax
16 increase on the same people that are paying property taxes.
17 And yet they are going to pay this additional money and
18 their property taxes are still going to go up.
19 So is this an idea or is this set in stone that
20 this money could go directly to dollar-for-dollar property
21 tax relief in those school districts? Because there are
22 proposals that would do that in the State House.
23 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
24 And I'll let Deputy Mariano sort of chime in on
25 that with some clarification and then we can circle back.
115 1 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: Okay.
2 DEPUTY SECRETARY MARIANO: So in answer to your
3 question, Representative, I would say that, you know, as you
4 pointed out, a lot of this occurs at the local level. I
5 don't know that there's any language that has been drafted
6 yet.
7 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: So there would be no
8 language to go along with the Governor's proposal to say
9 that any additional dollars would have to be given in lieu
10 of any property tax increases or actually that money could
11 go to relieving the tremendous burden of property taxes,
12 which is -- you know, school district property taxes are a
13 big issue across the state. But I haven't really heard any
14 talk about this in his $7 billion tax increase. And no
15 relief for homeowners doesn't add up to the people that I
16 represent.
17 And I just wanted to try to clarify that.
18 DEPUTY SECRETARY MARIANO: So I understand your
19 point. I think this is a proposal and I think that, you
20 know, as we move forward with the Budget, that will be
21 something that I'm sure will be part of the conversation, if
22 that's something that the General Assembly brings forward.
23 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: I think it's very
24 important that before we look at going back to the taxpayers
25 and asking them to, you know, pay more at a time when a lot
116 1 of these folks have been locked out of their business, I
2 mean, really prevented from going to work and at the same
3 time, you know, delay after delay in getting unemployment.
4 Now they're trying to find out, you know, when
5 they can get back to work, trying to find daycare because
6 their kids aren't in the classroom learning, and then coming
7 home for hours and working with their children and
8 essentially educating themselves. I think it's important
9 that before we look at putting more of a burden on the
10 taxpayers that we look internally as to what we can do to
11 relieve some of the tax burden if there's going to be more
12 of a tax shift than just a flat-out tax increase.
13 So I would hope that that would be part of the
14 discussion as we go forward.
15 Thank you.
16 DEPUTY SECRETARY MARIANO: Thank you.
17 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you,
18 Representative.
19 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
21 Representative Longietti.
22 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Thank you, Mr.
23 Chairman.
24 Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
25 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
117 1 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: I wanted to touch a
2 little bit again on assessment and remediation. You know,
3 it's good news to hear that the Federal Government is
4 allowing additional flexibility and that school districts
5 will be given until September and that you're seeking a
6 waiver on the accountability part of it and on the
7 participation rate.
8 What I wanted to ask about is assessment. It
9 seems like this year would be most productive to look at
10 where students are at, to find out, you know, what are the
11 deficits and what learning loss needs to be remediated.
12 And so what I wanted to ask is, will there be an
13 opportunity to revisit the PSSAs and the Keystones in terms
14 of perhaps reducing how many days students will be tested
15 and to more specifically focus them in on where the learning
16 loss is so that we can help students on an individual basis?
17 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Yes.
18 Representative, I appreciate your question. I do
19 want to invite Deputy Stem into some of the answers.
20 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Sure.
21 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: But I want to point out
22 something that you've just shed light on, which is once we
23 -- and we've done this successfully by working with the
24 General Assembly. Once we've been able to decouple the high
25 stakes from the assessment, we can use them more as a tool
118 1 to learn about the learning gaps, to be able to think of
2 them as a pre- and post-assessment that allows us to know
3 what we have to do and then ultimately find out how well
4 we've done and then figure out what the gap is between them
5 to begin to continue to address.
6 Deputy Stem, I'm not sure if you can share a few
7 more things about the plan that's been unfolding.
8 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Thank you.
9 So, no, Secretary, I think you handled it well.
10 And, Representative, thank you for that question.
11 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Sure.
12 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: We -- in addition to, as
13 the Secretary said, using that data for exactly the reasons
14 you named to identify not only learning gaps but even some
15 level of baseline and post data, we were also adding a
16 collection this year.
17 One of the questions we know members have asked
18 us frequently is, who are the students that have had more
19 uneven experiences in terms of access to technology, access
20 to connectivity? And so we are going to take an
21 opportunity, as suggested by the Department of Education and
22 other research institutions, and gather that data as well,
23 Representative, so that it will also help shed light on
24 what's happened over the past year and do it with a high
25 sense of urgency and timeliness.
119 1 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Thank you.
2 And as we look forward to more relief available
3 at the Federal level and I believe most likely more GEERs
4 funding, this last round of GEERS funding, I think
5 Pennsylvania was the only state where the Governor actually
6 didn't direct where that money went to. The Legislature
7 did. But will there be an effort to direct some of those
8 funds, particularly the GEERS money, towards summer
9 opportunities to address learning loss? And also I'm
10 thinking as well as graduating high school seniors might be
11 heading off to some form of higher education. Will there be
12 opportunities to assist them and make sure that they're
13 ready?
14 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I'll let Deputy Stem,
15 who has begun some of those conversations already with some
16 of the outreach that we've had because people have already
17 been having conversations. But I do think that we need to
18 work together, the Department with the General Assembly, to
19 put in some strategic investments with regards to a
20 potential setaside that comes in from the infusion of next
21 dollars, particularly to do things, Representative, like you
22 just said.
23 You know, in many cases when we think about the
24 learning gaps, particularly around secondary students who
25 might be going on to postsecondary, they're going to be
120 1 caught between the transition. And we've got to figure out
2 how we're going to be able to provide some guidance.
3 And then there's the opportunity, I think that
4 was alluded to earlier, you know, are there things that go
5 beyond the traditional school year that can also be taken
6 advantage of? And I think Deputy Stem has begun some of
7 these conversations already.
8 Please, I'll let you, Deputy Stem, wrap it up.
9 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Sure.
10 I would just very briefly add that, you know, our
11 responsibility is going to be to elevate those strategies as
12 local decisions are being made. And again, that is not only
13 for summer learning but also for extended day programs.
14 And also, Representative, you know, we want to
15 elevate what's happening in the Special Education space and
16 ensure that in all of those areas we are leveraging
17 resources and creating conditions for districts to leverage
18 those resources for exactly those types of programs.
19 And we appreciate you advocating for that as
20 well.
21 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Thank you very much.
22 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Sure.
23 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Thank you, Mr.
24 Chairman.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
121 1 Chairman Curt Sonney, Chairman of the House Education
2 Committee.
3 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
4 Mr. Secretary, it's good to see you again.
5 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
6 Good day, sir.
7 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: You said this morning
8 that you were tracking how the schools were spending the
9 Federal stimulus dollars. So where would you say the
10 majority of those Federal stimulus dollars have been spent
11 in our K-12 schools?
12 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
13 So let me clarify about the tracking part, which
14 I mentioned earlier. And it occurred to me that I wanted to
15 make sure that I just pointed out that quarterly submission
16 of budgets are given to the Department, particularly among
17 the Emergency Relief Funds, Representative. And so that's
18 where a lot of this indication comes.
19 As you can imagine, because the rollout schools
20 have been sort of having to move between learning
21 modalities, lots of the dollars are being used, of course,
22 to create the right conditions, modifications needed in the
23 classroom, personal protective equipment, cleaning protocols
24 and things like that. But there's a few dollars that have
25 gone already and continue to go towards things like
122 1 equipment and technology as well. And so those are sort of
2 a few of the items.
3 We're now seeing a pivot for people beginning to
4 think about what they're going to do around learning gaps
5 with regards to students and then professional developments
6 for teachers. And as we keep pushing towards moving back to
7 in-person instruction, folks are beginning to think more
8 seriously about what it's like to create the conditions for
9 more students to come back in the coming months as well.
10 So that's where the money is being directed.
11 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: As far as information
12 systems, PPE, and building modifications, out of those
13 three, do any one of those stand out as the most used or the
14 most needed?
15 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Deputy Stem, I'm not
16 sure if you know of those three which one is the most
17 frequent. They sound pretty much like the ones that come up
18 pretty routinely in your conversations.
19 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Yes.
20 Representative, it's too early to tell right now
21 where those -- how those are being leveraged. Those come
22 in, as was said, on a rolling basis. And we pay out on a
23 monthly basis. But we'd be happy to share those updates
24 with members with some more precision. I don't want to
25 misspeak on that. And they do continue to come in. So we'd
123 1 be happy to follow up.
2 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Thank you. I would
3 really like to see that information.
4 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Sure.
5 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Again, this morning I
6 think it was basically speaking about student attendance but
7 the comment was made that student attendance and achievement
8 was cited as information collected by the Department.
9 So, you know, if you are collecting achievement
10 information, you know, today, do you have any type of clear
11 picture on the learning loss?
12 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Deputy Stem, do you
13 want to offer a few comments on the learning loss, what we
14 know to date?
15 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Yes.
16 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Great.
17 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: So, Representative
18 Sonney, the data that's coming in right now -- in the
19 absence of State-level data, we don't have realtime data.
20 So in Pennsylvania, the Department of Education doesn't
21 collect local data. In fact, there are limitations in place
22 that prevent the Department of Education from directly
23 collecting local assessment data in our system.
24 So we're trying to work through that situation.
25 And we appreciate the collaboration of members. At this
124 1 point, what we've been studying to guide a lot of our
2 efforts are some other research and data sets that have been
3 done on a smaller scale throughout the country. But I think
4 it can be generalized in terms of the types of things that
5 we're going to see here, particularly with learning gaps
6 among our youngest learners, around students of color, and
7 just disadvantaged populations and EL and Special Ed.
8 But, no, there are limitations from us being able
9 to collect other than PSSA and Keystone and State assessment
10 data.
11 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: So we really might not
12 see it specifically on certain grades. We could very well
13 see it more specific to specific schools? Would that be a
14 correct statement?
15 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: I think depending on the
16 data that we collect in our PSSA and Keystones moving
17 forward, we'll have some look at what's happening on a
18 school level. And even that data, though, is going to be
19 limited.
20 I always want to be honest, Representative. We
21 know that administration this year is going to look
22 different than it has in prior years. So we're going to
23 have to be really careful how we present that to the public
24 and to others because of validity and reliability. But we
25 can tell you that we are 100 percent committed to providing
125 1 the most accurate picture we can.
2 And if we're able to get grade-level and even
3 more subgroup data as well, that would be our desire.
4 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Well, of course, the
5 grade level we will get whenever we test, correct? So we
6 should know specific by grade level once we do the testing.
7 I'll move on to the next question. Does the
8 Department have a schedule it uses to review and update
9 academic standards?
10 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: I'll take this one,
11 Representative, if I may.
12 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Sure.
13 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: So the State Board of
14 Education looks at standards. For example, right now, our
15 assigned standards in Science and Technology, Environment
16 and Ecology are being reviewed right now. And then the
17 State Board controls the schedule for looking at other sets
18 of academic standards.
19 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: So it's the State Board
20 and not written in law, I guess, you know, whatever that
21 specific schedule might be. In other words, you know, we're
22 not teaching, you know, Science standards that are ten years
23 old today?
24 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Well, that's our goal.
25 We have right now some of the oldest Science
126 1 standards in the nation. But thanks to the support of our
2 State Board, we've been able to get a proposed set through
3 the Board and now that's in the process.
4 But there are other standards, to be honest with
5 you, that are in the queue that we know our State Board is
6 supportive of, continuing to move through. And we at the
7 Department look forward to working on that with them because
8 we would like to see many of our standards updated.
9 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: And could you tell me if
10 there is a standard for virtual attendance?
11 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: To my knowledge, there is
12 not an academic standard around virtual attendance. I'll
13 stop there. I'll make sure I answer your question. Not to
14 my knowledge.
15 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Okay. Thank you.
16 And what is your involvement with the formulation
17 of local curriculum and specifically how do you ensure that
18 curriculum is age appropriate?
19 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: So curriculum is designed
20 at the local level. The State promulgates academic
21 standards. And then local districts create their
22 curriculums that are aligned to those standards. That's a
23 local control issue, so the Department doesn't review or
24 approve. So those are decisions made by local school
25 boards.
127 1 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: So in other words, if,
2 you know, I'm getting calls from a parent that are
3 complaining about what is being taught to their child in
4 their local school, you know, it is absolutely up to that
5 local school board to make those changes?
6 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: To be precise, if their
7 concern is around something related to academic standards
8 that the district is teaching as required under regulations,
9 that would certainly be something they could bring to our
10 State Board and to the Department. But if it's about
11 specific curriculum, books, textbooks, resources, lessons,
12 that would be something to bring to their local Board of
13 School Directors.
14 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Thank you.
15 And finally, have you had any conversations with
16 our Federal counterparts in the House and Senate concerning
17 the current proposal that is moving through Congress? I
18 believe the current proposal, you know, is not finalized
19 yet. But I believe it has 129 billion for K-12 schools.
20 Have you had any conversations with our Federal
21 counterparts on anything dealing with education?
22 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, yes.
23 So we've had conversations, ongoing
24 conversations, not just with our Federal partners, but we
25 are part of several professional groups as well, which
128 1 include folks who are advocating for recommendations that
2 are being put forth. And we've been part of those
3 throughout.
4 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: And do you see any of
5 this having any impact on the current budget proposal?
6 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Absolutely.
7 A lot of the developments that you're seeing that
8 we began to fold into a few of the recommendations you've
9 seen around, for example, how flexibility is around dollars
10 so schools can use it to invest in an infrastructure, things
11 that move away from just simply thinking about PPE and other
12 things that we thought about in the summer months and the
13 fall. So those are all things that we put out there to
14 influence.
15 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
16 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you,
17 Representative.
18 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: We are to start a
20 second round of questioning. And we'll start off with
21 Representative Lawrence.
22 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: Thank you, Mr.
23 Chairman.
24 Mr. Secretary, aren't all cyber charter schools
25 chartered by the Department of Education?
129 1 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Yes, I believe so.
2 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: All right. So the
3 Governor talks about holding underperforming cyber charter
4 schools accountable. My question is, why isn't he doing it
5 right now? You're the authorizer of the 14 cyber charters
6 in the state. And 11 of these schools are operating under
7 expired charter agreements, some of which are five years
8 past expiration.
9 I want to be clear. Your Agency charters and
10 oversees cyber charter schools. If cyber charters aren't
11 cutting it, why don't you pull their charters?
12 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: So the proposal that we
13 have in front of everyone, Representative, is to begin to
14 move in the direction of addressing the quality of the
15 provision of learning by our charter schools. And so this
16 is what we're trying to get to.
17 You know, there are some things that we need to
18 address in the laws that were never addressed before in
19 order to allow us to do that. But that's exactly what we're
20 trying to work towards.
21 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: I respect your answer.
22 But my point is that existing law today, you
23 charter these cyber charter schools, your Department. You
24 have authority right now. Eleven of the fourteen are
25 operating under expired charter agreements. You have all
130 1 the authority you need under existing law to hold them
2 accountable. So why aren't you just holding -- if they
3 aren't cutting it, why don't you just pull their charters
4 now?
5 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
6 And this is what we're beginning to move towards.
7 I'm going to sit here and acknowledge that we could do a
8 better job as well in what we're doing. But we want to make
9 sure that the conditions are in place through the statute to
10 allow us to do more of what's needed to do to make sure we
11 hold them accountable. But this is exactly where we're
12 headed. And I think what you're alluding to is exactly
13 where we want to go.
14 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: Let me ask you this:
15 The Governor has authority to nominate members to the
16 Charter Appeals Board. In his six years in office, my
17 understanding is he's never nominated anyone to the Board.
18 Five of the current members of the Board are serving with
19 expired terms and the last seat is vacant.
20 When does the Governor plan to nominate people to
21 this Board?
22 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: We've begun to work
23 aggressively.
24 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: Don't give me that
25 you've begun to do this or that. The Governor has been in
131 1 office for six years. When is he going to nominate somebody
2 to this Board?
3 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: We continue to work
4 with the members, Representative, to get the names out
5 there. This is a process that involves more than just us
6 and the Governor, but working very closely with folks. So
7 we continue to move those names moving forward.
8 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: Mr. Secretary, with
9 respect, that is a baloney answer.
10 I support parents having options when it comes to
11 the education of their own children. I support cyber
12 charters as one of these options. But everyone has to have
13 accountability. I guess my question is this: The Governor
14 is asking for more accountability in the charter school
15 space but yet he's not doing anything with the Charter
16 Appeals Board after six years in office. And 11 of the
17 current 14 cyber charters are working with expired charters.
18 If accountability is his goal, why isn't he using
19 the tools that are readily in his hands right now?
20 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: We've begun to renew
21 some charter schools as well, Representative, and move them
22 closer to establishing the quality assurance in the field.
23 And we'll continue to proceed moving forward in that
24 direction, continue to put forward names of folks to
25 continue to recommend for the Charter Appeals Board. And
132 1 then when we align the recommendations that we have here in
2 terms of the charter school reform, we're going to get
3 closer to creating the kind of quality that we want to
4 assure in the field.
5 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: Again, I want to be
6 clear. I support parents having good options when it comes
7 to the education of their own children. I have many parents
8 who are happy with the cyber charter education that they are
9 receiving. I have many parents who have moved to cyber
10 charters.
11 I guess what's frustrating to me is that I hear a
12 constant drumbeat that the Legislature needs to address
13 cyber charter schools. And I see the Governor who has
14 myriad tools at his disposal but he refuses to use them to
15 move the ball forward. It's just incredibly frustrating
16 that I hear, we're planning. We're beginning.
17 It sounds to me like COVID vaccines. Right.
18 We're planning. We're beginning. Right. There's no sense
19 of urgency with anything. It was the same thing last week
20 with the Department of Aging and the Department of Health.
21 Well, we're planning. I'll get back to you.
22 I just think it's incredibly frustrating that the
23 Governor, in this case, has specific tools that are already
24 in law that he's not using. Then he's coming to the
25 Legislature and says he wants more tools, tools that are
133 1 going to affect also brick-and-mortar charter schools and
2 cybers. And we've already talked about, a couple minutes
3 ago, how brick-and-mortar charter schools have been, you
4 know, performing in many cases in a very positive way during
5 this COVID pandemic.
6 It's very frustrating to me that the Governor is
7 not using the tools that are already at his disposal.
8 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, I'm not
9 sure you're posing it as a question or as a recommendation.
10 My apologies. I don't want to just have the awkward silence
11 be there.
12 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: With respect, there's
13 been a lot of awkwardness in this exchange, Mr. Secretary.
14 With respect, I'm not trying to be rude.
15 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
16 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: I just am frustrated
17 that the accountability tools that are well within the grasp
18 of the Governor are not being utilized.
19 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I appreciate the
20 recommendations, Representative.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
22 Representative Warner.
23 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
24 Thank you again, Mr. Secretary.
25 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
134 1 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: So to go back to on-line
2 instruction. I have a somewhat rural district. And one of
3 the issues that we have -- I know I hear this a lot from
4 parents back home -- that our districts are doing on-line,
5 learning at different times. There's been a lot of on-line
6 learning. I have a lot of kids that don't have access to
7 WiFi.
8 Could you describe, is there anything -- has
9 there been any planning or is there anything done to
10 accommodate these kids that don't have access to WiFi?
11 I do know, for example, cyber charters, they're
12 required to, whatever satellite system or whatever
13 technology they have, provide these children with on-line
14 learning capabilities. Could you describe to me what's
15 being done for these kids that don't have access to WiFi?
16 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
17 And the Department has been working with other
18 agencies as well since the start of the pandemic,
19 Representative, to address this particular concern.
20 We began to do our part from the first iteration
21 that came in in terms of stimulus funds. If you recall, the
22 announcement of the emergency reliefs early on carved out
23 $14 million to begin to address concerns around access,
24 particularly in some of our remote areas. We partner with
25 libraries in particular to go out to areas where they began
135 1 to assess and identify places where we had to invest
2 strategically. That was one of the efforts. Plus we also
3 early on made sure that we had some grants available to our
4 schools to be able to access both devices, but also to
5 create opportunities for folks to also invest in expanding
6 broadband access.
7 So those are just a few examples of the things
8 that we tried to do in partnership, I must say, with other
9 agencies, because this is a bigger problem and one that --
10 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: There still are students
11 out there that have schools doing on-line learning that
12 don't have access to WiFi; is that correct?
13 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: That's correct.
14 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: How disadvantaged are
15 these kids? Do we know the setbacks that a kid for a whole
16 nine weeks or for weeks at a time that their school is doing
17 on-line learning and they have no access to WiFi? Do we
18 know how far behind these kids are?
19 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Not yet.
20 In fact, the plan that we're putting forward with
21 regards to assessments will help us get closer to
22 understanding what that setback was.
23 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Okay.
24 With the time remaining I want to hop back to
25 something that we discussed a few times and that was that
136 1 Act 80 hourly requirement. And I want to go back to a
2 statement that was just made when the Chairman asked, when I
3 asked previously about the Act 80 requirements, one thing
4 that was told to me that the State is tracking is
5 attendance. But then I just heard from one of the
6 Chairman's questions that there was no standard for tracking
7 attendance.
8 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Matt, do we want to
9 provide some clarity with regards to how the data on
10 attendance is coming to us?
11 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Yes.
12 Those two are consistent responses. Attendance
13 data is collected and reported to our data teams at the end
14 of the year. So we wouldn't have right now the realtime
15 data, but districts are responsible for reporting that in
16 their end-of-year reporting. And then the Department is
17 responsible for communicating that out in very public and
18 transparent ways.
19 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Okay.
20 So just to be clear, we are tracking, but there
21 is no standards, correct?
22 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: The standard is 180 days,
23 990 hours or 900 at the elementary level.
24 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: No. The attendance. I
25 mean for online. There's no standard for the online; is
137 1 that correct? based on what the Chairman asked.
2 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: No, what I'm saying is
3 that online, districts have to report online and in person
4 in the same way.
5 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Okay.
6 Back to the Act 80 requirements. I have an
7 example from a school district here back in my district.
8 Period 1 starts at 9 a.m., 30-minute lunch. They're done at
9 12:25. That's less than three hours. And the remaining is
10 then asynchronous, which I found out that many times there's
11 no asynchronous learning after that.
12 How is that district being held accountable?
13 What standards, what reporting is there? Like a cyber
14 charter, like for asynchronous learning, they have to do,
15 you know -- they have to report. There's a standard they're
16 held to for asynchronous learning.
17 What are these schools being held to? Because
18 there is signature on-line learning right now or is it -- I
19 mean, is there just leeway because of the situation that,
20 you know, hey, whatever their best interest is, whatever
21 they want to do?
22 I'm confused at that. That's a schedule for a
23 middle school and high school. I'm looking and it's even
24 less hours I understand in front of a computer for
25 elementary students.
138 1 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Yes, Representative.
2 The standard is the same in all sectors. And
3 it's also very similar even to things like flexible
4 instructional days, which were codified into law, you know,
5 a few years ago.
6 Under local control, districts, including
7 charters, make determinations about the manner in which they
8 deliver their instruction. They're required to report it.
9 And, you know, those are, you know, certainly reports that
10 are required to be submitted and are required to be
11 published. So it's consistent across all sectors and,
12 again, very similar, even with things like flexible
13 instructional days when the accommodations of those
14 modalities are reported in.
15 But one thing we really encourage, if I may, is
16 we really encourage parents to be actively involved with
17 their administration and their school boards and within
18 their communities where those decisions are made. And if
19 there are any thoughts or concerns about the quality of
20 instruction they are receiving, certainly to bring those
21 forward, particularly to their local board s of directors
22 who are well positioned to address those.
23 That's sort of the way that the system is set up
24 at that local level.
25 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: My time has expired
139 1 again. I do want to thank you, gentlemen.
2 But I just want to leave on this note. I want to
3 ask the Secretary. Do you personally believe that two and a
4 half or less than three hours of synchronous learning online
5 each day is acceptable and is an acceptable manner to
6 educate our children?
7 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, the
8 pandemic has disrupted learning entirely. And I think our
9 push to go back to in-person is because we don't think --
10 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: I understand that. But
11 you can go online longer. I'm asking, is two and a half or
12 three hours of synchronous learning enough? That's what --
13 I mean, I understand you can go online. But you can be
14 online synchronous longer.
15 So I'm asking is two and a half or three hours a
16 day of synchronous learning enough?
17 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Our position is to
18 advocate for in-person instruction for all our students.
19 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Could you answer yes or
20 no? Do you think two and a half or three hours of
21 synchronous learning a day is enough?
22 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: No.
23 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Okay. Thank you.
24 That's all I wanted to know. That's the point
25 that I wanted to make.
140 1 And we mentioned earlier --
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative, I have
3 to cut you off.
4 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Mr. Chairman, I do
5 appreciate it.
6 Gentlemen, Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your time.
7 Thank you.
8 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
9 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Next is Representative
11 Zimmerman.
12 REPRESENTATIVE ZIMMERMAN: Thank you, Mr.
13 Chairman.
14 And thanks again, Secretary.
15 Shifting gears just a little bit. Recent changes
16 to the Public School Code created the Commission for
17 Agriculture Education Excellence, which is a commission
18 under the current authority of both the Department of
19 Agriculture and Department of Education and requires both
20 departments to provide staff to assist the Commission with
21 its duties.
22 So two questions. The first one, what is the
23 status of this Commission and efforts to enhance agriculture
24 education across the Commonwealth, especially given the
25 Department's recent focus on workforce development and next
141 1 generation of farms?
2 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
3 So let me invite Deputy Stem into this part of
4 the conversation. He's worked very closely with the Ag
5 Commission as well.
6 REPRESENTATIVE ZIMMERMAN: Sure.
7 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: So, Deputy Stem, do you
8 mind?
9 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Sure.
10 I want to make sure I answer the question
11 correctly. Let me just share that we've been able, along
12 with Secretary Redding and others in the Department of
13 Agriculture, to step in and cochair many of the meetings.
14 And the Commission has been functioning very well, has
15 achieved much. Thanks to members, we were able to look at
16 our certifications for ag ed educators and move some of
17 those from the instructional into the career and tech space,
18 among other accomplishments. So those meetings have been
19 held regularly and both departments have worked very well
20 together.
21 And I apologize if there was more to your
22 question. I would be happy to elaborate.
23 REPRESENTATIVE WARNER: Yes, I do have a second
24 question. So you're saying that the Department of Education
25 and the Department of Agriculture really have been working
142 1 together on this. Agriculture really is still the No. 1
2 industry in Pennsylvania, so it's extremely important.
3 Do you have the accounting of what staff
4 positions have been funded or filled to date per the
5 requirements of the act?
6 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Yes. Thank you for that
7 question.
8 I would have to take a look. I know we've had --
9 the Executive has been filled, I think almost the entire
10 time since the law was enacted or least several months in.
11 And that law has been pivotal.
12 I know that -- and forgive me I'm going to use
13 the wrong terms. But I know that one of the clerical
14 positions was also filled. And then beyond that I know that
15 there are other positions that the Commission is very
16 committed to trying to fill aggressively.
17 I think it's one of those that we can circle back
18 to you with a little bit more detail. I don't want to look
19 in my notes while I'm answering. But I know that the
20 Executive has been in place for quite some time as well as
21 one of the administrative positions.
22 And the Commission is committed to filling
23 others.
24 REPRESENTATIVE ZIMMERMAN: So just a quick
25 followup here then. Could you provide the Appropriations
143 1 Committee with actual numbers of staff, names of staff, and
2 the funding associated with that?
3 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Yes. We can follow up
4 with that.
5 REPRESENTATIVE ZIMMERMAN: Okay.
6 I appreciate it.
7 Thank you very much.
8 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Sure.
9 REPRESENTATIVE ZIMMERMAN: Thank you, Mr.
10 Chairman.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Next is Representative
12 Jesse Topper.
13 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Hello again, Mr.
14 Secretary.
15 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Hello.
16 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: I wanted to clarify
17 something that you had mentioned earlier and kind of make it
18 match with some of the other statements.
19 You said that the additional 2.5 billion in
20 Federal funding would -- I believe I'm using your words here
21 correctly -- not come close to making up for districts' lost
22 revenues; is that correct?
23 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: That's correct.
24 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: But you also said you
25 don't know how much schools have lost in local revenue. So
144 1 I guess I'm having a hard time understanding you don't know
2 but you assume that it's going to be far greater than 2.5
3 billion?
4 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
5 Representative, we engage in conversations all
6 the time. And I think when we get the data back, we'll be
7 able to reconcile it with the actual quantitative aspect.
8 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: But you believe it's
9 going to be higher than 2.5 billion. I mean, you don't see
10 any -- because PASBO, the school board -- excuse me. I
11 think the business administrators' worse case scenario was a
12 loss of 1 billion in revenue. But you're seeing projections
13 that put us out there far beyond that.
14 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: So we're hearing from
15 our stakeholders that there are setbacks that they've yet to
16 even determine what they are. So, yeah, I would say we can
17 expect to see significant shortfalls.
18 Again, we won't know until we get the
19 information. I hope that helps answer your question at
20 least in part.
21 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Who would some of those
22 stakeholders be just so that we can -- because this is
23 fairly significant. If 2.5 billion from Federal dollars is
24 not going to cover it, I think it would be helpful for us to
25 have as much -- I guess what I'm asking for is as much
145 1 information as you have, if you could share that with us, as
2 we look at trying to put this budgeting together.
3 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Absolutely. I'm happy
4 to do that.
5 And I also want to point out with regards to the
6 Federal dollars, please keep in mind that these are one-time
7 dollars that address some of the concerns that some of the
8 schools may have now. But we're also talking about setbacks
9 that are going to happen one, two, three years into the
10 future, I'm certain.
11 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Trust me, Mr. Secretary.
12 You don't have to explain to this caucus what one-time
13 influences of Federal dollars can cause to folks in school
14 districts in this Commonwealth.
15 But, you know, we do have some one-time costs
16 that will be associated with that as we discussed before
17 through mediation. So again, putting those dollars together
18 and putting them to use will be important.
19 And I guess that leads to I think a fundamental
20 question that we need to start answering in terms of
21 education and that is, how much does it cost to educate a
22 student in Pennsylvania?
23 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
24 I'm not sure if we have a figure that we usually
25 put out as part of a narrative in terms of the cost per
146 1 pupil, but I would imagine it's very contextualized.
2 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Contextualized in terms
3 of geography, in terms of, you know, various locations? Is
4 that -- I mean, we hear -- as we go back and forth with
5 funding, cyber funding, how much does it cost? What are we
6 putting into it now per school district?
7 And I guess that's just a fundamental question
8 that never seems to be answered. How much does it cost to
9 educate a child in Pennsylvania on a yearly basis?
10 DEPUTY SECRETARY MARIANO: I do think that is a
11 nuanced and layered, you know, answer. And I think --
12 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Well, then it needs to be
13 nuanced and layered when we're discussing issues in terms of
14 charter reform and any other funding that we do and we
15 engage in. It can't just be something that we assume when
16 we send out -- you know, when letters are sent out saying
17 that we don't fund enough here or we fund too much there.
18 We really -- then the whole conversation needs to be
19 nuanced. I don't argue with that. But then that's the
20 point that we need to get.
21 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Our next questioner is
23 Representative Torren Ecker.
24 REPRESENTATIVE ECKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
25 And thank you, Mr. Secretary.
147 1 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
2 REPRESENTATIVE ECKER: I'm going to follow up
3 again on going back to this attestation form. Does the
4 Department have any plans to revise this form or relax the
5 need for this form?
6 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: The attestation form,
7 Mr. Representative, is that what you're referring to?
8 REPRESENTATIVE ECKER: Yes. Correct.
9 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
10 Deputy Stem, do you want to share about sort of
11 the outlook with regards to what we plan to do in the coming
12 months?
13 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Sure.
14 So the attestation form was put in place in order
15 to ensure communities that districts were adhering to
16 mitigation strategies.
17 REPRESENTATIVE ECKER: Just out of an abundance
18 of time or lack of time, I recognize what the form is for.
19 Is there any discussion to change that, the requirements as
20 we move forward here?
21 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Sure. I just want to
22 make sure everyone was aware of the purpose of the
23 attestations.
24 But, no. It's under review. And it is possible
25 that changes could be made, but right now that's something
148 1 that's under review.
2 REPRESENTATIVE ECKER: Sure.
3 Well, here's my concern, Mr. Secretary. You
4 know, we say we want our locals to be in control here and
5 make decisions for their school district. And I've spoken
6 to some of my superintendents. And this form, quite
7 honestly, has been more of a burden than it has been, you
8 know, a help.
9 I know my local school district wants to do
10 what's right, protect our students. But they're better
11 situated to understand what an outbreak really is in that
12 school. For example, my family's elementary school, you
13 know, three kids get COVID in that school -- and it's a
14 pretty big school -- that school is required to shut down.
15 So, you know, this form has been more restrictive
16 than helpful. And especially, you know, I think of in the
17 news where one of our SCI facilities here in Cumberland
18 County had 400 cases, which obviously are going to keep
19 Cumberland County in a substantial transmission state for a
20 lot longer when we know it's located within a prison .
21 So I guess what I'm getting at here is if we
22 really want to get to local control and let our school
23 districts decide what's in the best interest of our families
24 that we start thinking about relaxing this attestation form
25 because, quite honestly, I think it's something that's been
149 1 used more as a scare tactic held over our school districts.
2 And this is more or less coming from the words of my
3 superintendents. It's something that's been used as a scare
4 tactic that they really don't feel like they have the right
5 to decide how to handle COVID within their schools.
6 So that's all I have with that. But I just want
7 to say, you know, if we could relax the standards as we
8 start talking about having in-person education, I think we
9 need to start relaxing that attestation form as well.
10 Thank you.
11 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: I appreciate the
12 recommendation, Representative.
13 REPRESENTATIVE ECKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Next is Representative
15 Bradford.
16 MINORITY CHAIRMAN BRADFORD: Thank you, Mr.
17 Chairman.
18 And thank you, Mr. Secretary. I know it's been a
19 long day. And I appreciate your candor on a lot of topics.
20 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
21 MINORITY CHAIRMAN BRADFORD: I wanted to point
22 out with maybe just a hint of irony that we've spoken at
23 great length about the need to reopen our schools. And I
24 share that concern. And I know that is exactly what we need
25 to be doing. I would note, though, some of the advocates
150 1 here today who won a statewide approach are the same folks
2 who wanted a local approach when the decision was a few
3 months back. So there is a little bit of lack of candor and
4 a little bit of disingenuousness about how all this plays
5 out.
6 But if I could, I want to talk to -- and I
7 realize you're not the Budget Secretary. But the Budget
8 implications of a lot of the gimmicks that we've played
9 financially in the last couple years in terms of balancing
10 our budget -- and the education budget is not alone -- but
11 it is worth pointing out since you're here today to go over
12 some of that.
13 PlanCon is an issue, especially in our growing
14 school districts, where there's great concern for new
15 construction. And we recognize the modifications and the
16 remediation that we need in many of our older districts.
17 Can you tell me how much money we are going to
18 appropriate -- new money, not payment on bonds -- but how
19 much we're going to spend on a cash basis this year to build
20 new schools or to remediate some of our old schools?
21 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Yes, Representative.
22 Let me have Danielle actually call out the
23 response to the question, since she's keeping track of that
24 for us.
25 Danielle, do you mind?
151 1 DEPUTY SECRETARY MARIANO: Not at all.
2 Thank you for your question, Representative.
3 Unfortunately, that program, the new dollars have
4 not been appropriated to the reconfiguration of that
5 program. The Department continues to work on putting things
6 in place to move that forward. That was something that was
7 passed by the General Assembly and it is something that we
8 continue to prepare for. But currently it has not been
9 funded.
10 MINORITY CHAIRMAN BRADFORD: And this is
11 problematic because one of the things that we see is, as
12 we've incurred more and more debt and frankly have stopped
13 paying things on an as-you-go basis instead of a line item
14 that we used to use to make those necessary repairs in
15 schools, instead what we're doing is paying debt on frankly
16 a backlog that built up for about five or six years when we
17 would artificially freeze the program.
18 What I see and what I'm worried about is that
19 we're planning on doing this for quite a bit of time ahead.
20 Do you have an idea of how much -- I believe we authorized 2
21 and a half billion dollars of construction bonds. How much
22 are we going to pay back in terms of debt service all in
23 over the life of that bonding?
24 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Deputy Mariano.
25 DEPUTY SECRETARY MARIANO: Sorry. I wasn't able
152 1 to get off mute there for a moment.
2 So I can get you those figures. We continue to
3 have a direct source to pay the debt service from the
4 General Fund. So that's where those expenditures come from.
5 If you're looking for a figure, I'm happy to get
6 back to you with that.
7 MINORITY CHAIRMAN BRADFORD: Can you do this?
8 Can you tell me how much in debt service we're going to pay
9 this year?
10 DEPUTY SECRETARY MARIANO: So I'm afraid not off
11 the top of my head. But as I said, I can certainly get back
12 to you with that number.
13 MINORITY CHAIRMAN BRADFORD: Gotcha.
14 Just looking at our staff, we're looking at about
15 $61 million in debt service just on the debt that's already
16 been incurred. And this is going to continue to grow for
17 many years ahead. And again, I think everyone recognizes
18 the need and no one, Democrat or Republican, pushes back on
19 the purpose. But when we don't pay our bills and we just
20 incur debt, what we do is crowd out our ability to make
21 these improvements and future generations, rather than
22 having a cash ability to make these improvements, will
23 instead just be making debt service payments as far as the
24 eye can see.
25 It strikes me that there's nothing conservative
153 1 about doing that type of budgeting. And these are the
2 structural deficit issues, structural debt issues, that we
3 have continued to talk about in our caucus.
4 One of the other issues that is similarly
5 situated is the issue of pupil transportation. And I
6 realize last year in a supplemental we did a little bit of
7 rectifying and balancing it out. But can you tell me why we
8 had a supplemental appropriation for about $100 million in
9 order to deal with the pupil transportation issue last year?
10 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Representative, I'm
11 going to call on Deputy Mariano, as well, who follows this
12 for us.
13 Thank you, Deputy.
14 DEPUTY SECRETARY MARIANO: Yes.
15 So we had a supplemental because the estimated
16 costs were lower than the actual costs in that line.
17 MINORITY CHAIRMAN BRADFORD: And when you say the
18 estimated costs, would it be fair to say that year after
19 year we continue to artificially underestimate what we were
20 going to spend in those lines?
21 DEPUTY SECRETARY MARIANO: Well, I wouldn't say
22 that it was artificial. I would say that, you know, that --
23 MINORITY CHAIRMAN BRADFORD: Overly optimistic?
24 DEPUTY SECRETARY MARIANO: I would say that, you
25 know, we requested what we thought was necessary. And then,
154 1 you know, because it's dependent on data that's reported
2 from the school districts. You know, sometimes there's a
3 difference there which, you know, we have to contend with
4 moving into future fiscal years.
5 MINORITY CHAIRMAN BRADFORD: Okay.
6 One of the concerns that was raised, I think by
7 the good gentleman from Bedford, was the use of one-time
8 monies. And as we do see the potential for Federal money to
9 come to Harrisburg to help us with some of our budget
10 challenges, having lived through the period where there was
11 obviously a falloff on Federal dollars, has the Department
12 given its opinion as to whether it's appropriate to use
13 these one-time dollars to backfill lines?
14 Do you have a position in that regard? And is
15 there any concern, having been through that period, that
16 when these Federal monies go away, there will be a funding
17 cliff that this Legislature will not be able to
18 appropriately fill without either devastating cuts or
19 pushing off the cost of education down to local property
20 taxpayers?
21 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
22 And we have given our opinion, Representative.
23 And I'll let Danielle Mariano just sort of speak to sort of
24 the equitable shares commitments that are part of the
25 Federal dollars as well.
155 1 DEPUTY SECRETARY MARIANO: Yes.
2 I think we all learned a great deal from those
3 years. I think, you know, we did see some backfilling of
4 expenditures in certain places. And then that did create
5 some issues, you know, problematically when that funding was
6 no longer there. I think that we're all acutely aware of
7 that because of that history.
8 You know, there are requirements within the
9 provisions of the Federal funding, you know, around
10 supplement. They're not all the same. We're trying to work
11 with our local school districts to make sure that it works
12 with them about what, you know -- where those guardrails are
13 and what they need to be paying attention to.
14 We, at the State level, certainly have a
15 maintenance of effort that we can't dip below, you know, in
16 terms of our State spending. That would put some of the
17 Federal funds in jeopardy.
18 MINORITY CHAIRMAN BRADFORD: So this will make
19 Chairman Saylor happy. But for clarity, I want to sound
20 like one of my Republican friends. Are you saying you do or
21 do not support using one-time funds to backfill education
22 lines ?
23 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Sure.
24 So certainly we would not want to use one-time
25 funds to backfill education lines, Representative.
156 1 MINORITY CHAIRMAN BRADFORD: Thank you for your
2 clarity on this.
3 I'm going to conclude with one thing by point of
4 commentary that I think is very important to address. And I
5 know this comes to the winners and losers as we look to
6 finally fund the Fair Funding Formula that was passed in a
7 bipartisan way with recognition that we have schools that
8 are horribly underfunded in the Commonwealth.
9 We've talked on many issues today and they are
10 all deserving and rightfully touched upon. But when you
11 talk about the inequities of funding, I often point out,
12 just in my own legislative district, the blowout in terms of
13 funding levels and how disproportionate they are.
14 And some of our poorest districts, frankly, are
15 districts that have a larger percentage of children of
16 color. This continues to be a problem. It continues to not
17 be addressed. It is now the source of a constitutional
18 challenge.
19 We have an opportunity with the Budget that the
20 Governor has put before us to legitimately address the
21 inequities that we all know. And again, I pointed out in
22 Montgomery County, which is blessed with tremendous
23 affluence, the difference between a Norristown School
24 District, which I represent, and the Methacton School
25 District, where my children attend, it is really disgraceful
157 1 that we've not addressed it up until this point.
2 I want to commend the Governor for showing the
3 courage to say that we need to address it. And that
4 obviously takes a pretty aggressive stance in this budget.
5 But I believe it is our duty, it is our obligation, to at
6 least answer what our proposal is. Everyone can pick and
7 choose things they like and don't like as to the Governor's
8 proposal. But the idea that we have literally hundreds of
9 school districts with hundreds of thousands of kids, again,
10 many of them kids of color, that are not getting the
11 adequate levels of funding that we all agree they should be
12 getting.
13 It just seems that the time is right in this
14 Budget with the challenges and the inequities being plain to
15 see and right in front of us that we should take this
16 opportunity to address them. I hope we will do so in this
17 budget year. I hope we will stop using the gimmicks and the
18 charades to deal with our budget challenges and look
19 honestly at the challenge and the costs that it takes to
20 properly educate a child in Pennsylvania.
21 Thank you.
22 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
23 MINORITY CHAIRMAN BRADFORD: Thank you, Mr.
24 Chairman.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: The gentleman from
158 1 Montgomery County gave me a lot to say.
2 First of all, I want to make it clear the
3 Republicans in this General Assembly fully funded education
4 back in May without any support from the other side of the
5 aisle who voted no on that funding.
6 Also, to talk about candor and transparency, this
7 Administration has had a real problem with that. And most
8 importantly also, I think, you know, districts were told no
9 new construction indefinitely but this General Assembly was
10 not going to fund new school construction. That would have
11 to be let up to the locals, simply because, as Mr. Bradford
12 point out, this General Assembly, nor Democrat or Republican
13 Administrations, have ever fully funded that line item.
14 Now there's a lot of blame to go around on that.
15 But I don't believe this General Assembly needs to get back
16 into that kind of business where we're borrowing money to
17 pay for things that we should have paid upfront, as the
18 gentleman pointed out. But that wasn't just the
19 responsibility of this Administration, previous, and also
20 previous General Assemblies, under both Republican and
21 Democratic control, by the way.
22 Second of all, when we talk about pupil
23 transportation, it was discovered last year in this
24 Appropriation Hearing with Secretary Rivera at that time, it
25 was us who reveled publicly that pupil transportation was
159 1 underfunded and that you were stealing dollars from the next
2 year's appropriations to pay last year's appropriations. It
3 wasn't the Department of Ed who came forward. It was us in
4 the General Assembly who discovered that. And then we did a
5 supplemental to fix that issue so that we were paying people
6 in a timely fashion and that the real dollars for
7 transportation were being paid out properly.
8 So since then we have implemented quarterly
9 meetings, by the way, with the Department of Education,
10 which I think has been helpful to this Department to make
11 sure that we know how dollars are going out and that those
12 dollars are appropriated and we're paying attention to those
13 kinds of situations so they don't happen again.
14 So I took notice in the Budget, this Governor
15 doesn't believe libraries are critical to education when
16 they're the ones providing the broadband to many students
17 and people across this Commonwealth at this time. No
18 additional funding for our trade schools, our vocational
19 schools, nothing.
20 But yet, this Administration likes to take credit
21 for everything the General Assembly does, including funding
22 of education. Now, Mr. Secretary, I could ask you and put
23 you on the spot but I'm not going to make you be on the spot
24 in this question but I'm going to tell you, this
25 Administration -- because they haven't signed any budget
160 1 until just recently when they were running for reelection.
2 They can't take credit for money that went to public
3 education pre-K-12th grade when you don't sign the Budget.
4 It's not your budget apparently. You disclaimed it.
5 So the Governor only signed $1 billion that went
6 to education while the General Assembly sent $2.67 billion
7 to pre-K-12 grade. So it's the General Assembly who's done
8 their job, not this Governor and his Administration, for
9 education.
10 Also, Mr. Secretary, you mentioned earlier about
11 the whole issue of cutting funds. You know, we are in a
12 pandemic. We've mentioned that many, many times. And
13 you're talking about cutting funding for charter schools. I
14 don't know that too many people would disagree there needs
15 to be reform, many charter schools. We've been trying to do
16 it here in the General Assembly for a long time but haven't
17 been able to get the School Board Associations, nor have we
18 been able to get the Governor's Office on board, to get a
19 bill that's been introduced -- I don't know -- 8 times in
20 the last 16 years to actually get charter school reform
21 done.
22 And I will say, Mr. Secretary, when you talk
23 about traditional schools only mattering, you want to tell
24 that to students in Philadelphia and across this state who
25 live in drug-infested neighborhoods or violent neighborhoods
161 1 or how about the school in Belmont in Philadelphia, the
2 elementary school, where the city of Philadelphia said to
3 the gentleman in that charter school, here, take this
4 school. We don't want it.
5 You know, we need to be more reasonable and
6 honest when we make statements about education. This idea
7 that only public schools can do the job -- I think we have a
8 great public school system in Pennsylvania. Don't get me
9 wrong. I'm very proud of my 14 school districts in York
10 County. But we have some real problems in this state and
11 you know it.
12 The Philadelphia school system, York City School
13 District, Chester School District, are absolutely the worse
14 and none of you, none of you, would send your children to
15 any of those three schools. And to ignore those problems is
16 absolutely horrendous. To sit here and act like those
17 children are getting the same education that they're getting
18 maybe in Lancaster City School District, which is a very
19 good school district considering it has probably about 70
20 percent of its students are Spanish-speaking, we need to be
21 more responsible when we talk about education. Because
22 guess what? There's so much misinformation out there.
23 There's never the ability to actually fix the system because
24 we're never coming together to do that.
25 Let me just show you a couple things that I know
162 1 you're aware of. You know, I was looking at Federal funds
2 that came in. I was looking at surplus balances of some of
3 our school districts. Let's look at Pittsburgh for
4 instance. Pittsburgh has a $155 million balance of
5 unassigned dollars, 64 million they got in Federal funds.
6 We can go to the Reading School District. They
7 got a $57 million balance and $65 million in Federal funds.
8 Move on to the Lancaster City School District.
9 They have a $30 million balance and got over $27 million in
10 Federal funds.
11 Then we can go to Bethlehem. Bethlehem got $38
12 million in their balance sheet and 21 million in Federal
13 dollars.
14 Easton got a $44 million balance and 11 million
15 in Federal dollars.
16 Or we can talk about Philadelphia that got over
17 $700 million in Federal dollars and has a $103 million
18 balance.
19 Mr. Secretary, I can go on and on. But when
20 you're telling the taxpayers of Pennsylvania they need to
21 pay more in taxes to get more funds, if you look over that
22 list that you guys have put out of your new funding ideas,
23 you'll see some of the wealthiest school districts in this
24 state get anywhere from a 100 to 300 percent increase. Now,
25 these are wealthy school districts.
163 1 So I think when we have this discussion about
2 education, there needs to be more candor and more
3 transparency about who is actually getting the dollars and
4 who's working and who's not working.
5 We have some outstanding charter schools here in
6 this Commonwealth. And we should brag about them as well.
7 When it comes to our Christian and our Catholic schools, I
8 don't know what we'd do without them because many of our
9 schools would be overrun.
10 And, you know, Mr. Secretary, in Philadelphia,
11 they keep complaining about their asbestos and their lead
12 problems. Well, you know the rest of the state, 95 percent,
13 if not 99 percent of every school district in this state
14 already fixed those problems. They fixed them ten years
15 ago. But when you have mismanagement in school districts,
16 this is what you get in Philadelphia, a failure to care
17 about the health of teachers, to care about the health of
18 the students that attend those schools. It doesn't even fix
19 the problem when everybody else was and now they want you
20 and I to bail them out.
21 Mr. Secretary, it is time for candor and honesty
22 and to hold people accountable when they fail students and
23 when they fail teachers. But we are not going to get it if
24 we're going to play silly political games. It's time for us
25 to understand that increasing taxes on the people of
164 1 Pennsylvania in the middle of a pandemic, even though we're
2 making great progress, is not the time to be raising
3 somebody's taxes by 46 percent to give a 300 percent or a
4 100 percent increase to some wealthy school district.
5 So, Mr. Secretary, I hope this Administration
6 will rethink what it's doing to the businesspeople of
7 Pennsylvania and to the students of Pennsylvania and to the
8 teachers of Pennsylvania.
9 With that, Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for
10 being here today. I appreciate you taking the time, you and
11 the Deputy Secretaries all being here.
12 Thank you very much.
13 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Mr. Chairman, let me
14 also reciprocate by thanking you and your fellow members as
15 well for the opportunity. And I look forward to the next
16 time we continue this conversation.
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Thank you, Mr.
18 Secretary.
19 Best to you.
20 ACTING SECRETARY ORTEGA: Thank you.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: We're going to take a
22 five-minute break and we will be back here with community
23 colleges.
24 Thank you.
25 (Whereupon, the hearing concluded.)
165 1 I hereby certify that the proceedings and
2 evidence are contained fully and accurately in the notes
3 taken by me on the within proceedings and that this is a
4 correct transcript of the same.
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