Throughout the case, the court has heard testimony from superintendents of petitioner school districts who described the effects of insufficient state funding on their schools in low-wealth communities.
On Tuesday, court heard a different perspective from Dr. Nancy Hacker, a retired educator who served as superintendent of the School District of Springfield Township from 2012 to 2020.
Springfield Township is a small suburban district of 2,500 students in Montgomery County, bordering Philadelphia. Unlike many other districts in Pennsylvania, Springfield Township has the resources it needs to allow students to meet state standards, according to a state benchmark for adequate funding. Its current revenue, adjusted for student need, of $21,674 per student ranks 45th out of 499 school districts.
Hacker’s testimony about her experience repeatedly contrasted with that of superintendents from the petitioner districts.
Importantly, the district was able to raise most of its revenue locally and has a strong tax base. Its local taxpayers pay 19.5 equalized mills–just above the state median rate of 18.7 equalized mills.
Hacker testified that Springfield Township has always had sufficient financial resources to fill all its principal positions. Petitioner William Penn School District, a less wealthy suburban district only a few miles away, currently has seven principals for eight elementary schools because it cannot afford to pay another principal salary. Its tax rate is 35 equalized mills.
During Hacker’s time at the district, the proportion of students who were economically disadvantaged grew substantially, more than doubling in eight years to 19% today. As that number increased, the district had the available funds to increase the support provided to its students, hiring additional classroom teachers, English language teachers, counselors, and social workers, she said.
Other districts also face increases in student needs. Since 2008, the number of English learners in petitioner Shenandoah Valley School District has doubled. But Shenandoah Valley has not been able to afford to hire any additional English language teachers, and its current staff has a caseload of about 35 students each.
Hacker discussed multi-tiered systems of support, a widely used practice categorizing the level of learning support that students need in particular subjects. Students in tier 1 can learn effectively in classroom settings, students in tier 2 need some remedial support in smaller groups, and students in tier 3 need more intensive individualized support. Hacker testified that, in Springfield Township, about 10-15% of students need tier 2 support, and 5-10% need tier 3 support, with the large majority learning effectively in classroom settings.
Springfield has two reading specialists for about 400 total elementary school students, Hacker said.
Other districts also attempt to use multi-tiered systems of support. Amy Arcurio, the superintendent of petitioner Greater Johnstown School District, testified that the majority – around 80% in first grade – of her district’s elementary school students need tier 2 or tier 3 support. The district is currently able to employ two reading specialists for 1,200 students in elementary school.
Springfield Township aims to keep kindergarten class sizes at around 20, Hacker said, with a maximum during her tenure of 22. Class sizes in other early grades, she said, were similar. The district would seek to hire additional teachers when incoming class sizes were projected to be too large. Teacher retention was high. “It was rare that we lost teachers in Springfield Township,” she said.
Even an increase in class size of four or five students would make a difference in early grades because individual attention is so important. “To the extent that the specialist, or the classroom teacher, can really, specifically identify where is it that the child seems to be struggling is really critical to helping plan for how are we [are] going to overcome that,” she said. In contrast, class sizes for K-3rd in the School District of Philadelphia are as high as 30 students per class.
When Springfield Township had a leaking roof, the district was typically able to find the resources for the needed repairs “immediately,” Hacker said. The district began providing every middle and high school student with a laptop in 2014 and was able to begin virtual instruction for all students within a few days after the pandemic closed schools in March 2020.
The district has strong academic outcomes. Its graduation rate is 93%, and the district’s students achieve proficiency at rates that exceed statewide averages on PSSA and Keystone assessments.
Springfield Township’s economically disadvantaged students, while typically scoring lower than students in the district as a whole, score above the statewide all-student averages on Keystone Algebra and English language arts exams. Hacker testified that the gap between economically disadvantaged students and their peers in the district shrinks as they move from middle school to high school. She described the extensive support – both staff and instructional tools – that the district provides to help these students reach state standards.
She testified that the district’s levels of resources are “probably the most significant factor” in its strong academic outcomes, in addition to the commitment of its teaching staff.
All school districts have students who face barriers to learning, she said, yet “we’re fortunate in that we have the resources that we need to able to deploy to pinpoint exactly where those issues are,” address them, and “put our students on a path towards future success.”
The Court then heard from the petitioner’s final witness: Brian Costello, superintendent of Wilkes-Barre Area School District, a petitioner in the case. We will have more to share when his testimony concludes tomorrow. The Court heard from a recent district graduate and petitioner, Michael Horvath, yesterday.
You can read more about Wilkes-Barre Area School District, which serves communities surrounding the small city of Wilkes-Barre on the banks of the Susquehanna River in northeastern Pennsylvania, in our district profiles.