Court heard Wednesday from the leader of the final petitioner school district to testify in the school funding trial: Brian Costello, superintendent of the Wilkes-Barre Area School District.
Costello said his students want to succeed to the best of their ability, but that his district lacks many of the necessary resources needed to support them: intervention specialists, staff for small group learning, enough teachers, guidance counselors, and more.
“We just have to give them the opportunity, and to do that, we need additional funding,” he said.
His district serves 7,300 students in Wilkes-Barre and other nearby Luzerne County communities in Northeastern Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Susquehanna River; 80% of students are economically disadvantaged, ranking it 16th out of 499 school districts in Pennsylvania. Its current spending, adjusted for student need, ranks 488th.
Costello described how in 2016 the district had to undergo measures he called “completely draconian” to lower its expenses and reduce its deficit. The district had been grappling with a large operating deficit – around $8 million a year – in the years following the Great Recession.
The district was forced to cut all K-8 art classes and eliminate all librarian positions. In all, the district furloughed 37 teachers and approximately two dozen paraprofessionals. These cuts to art and librarians have not been restored, he said. (Michael Horvath, a recent graduate of the district and a petitioner, testified on Monday about difficulties he faced in college because he lacked experience in library research.)
Costello grew emotional during this testimony and said that it’s hard for him to talk about these cuts.
“Cutting programs that you know are going to affect children is extremely difficult,” he said, “and it makes you question … ‘What are we doing?’” For his daughter, he said, the opportunity to take art classes provides more motivation for her in her other courses, as it does for many other students, and so eliminating the K-8 art program was “heartbreaking.”
Last fall, the district welcomed 2,200 students to a brand-new high school. Costello is proud of the facility, which has many modern features: facilities for a specialized STEM academy with up-to-date labs and equipment like 3D printers, an auditorium that can hold more than 1,000 students, and an eight-lane swimming pool.
Although the new building is an asset to the district, he says, it was created out of necessity.
Before opening the new high school, the district had three high school buildings. The three schools were anchors within his community, he said, but all three were in need of significant repair.
Costello testified that the foundation of Meyers Jr./Sr. High School had shifted about a foot, causing structural damage that needed to be fixed.
A large portion of the Coughlin High School was closed prior to the construction of the new high school due to structural damage, with 9th and 10th graders sent to an elementary school, and older students crowded into an annex of the building that lacked many facilities, such as science labs. All three schools together would have required $240 million in renovations, he said.
The district and the school board decided instead to move forward with one consolidated high school with a smaller staff. The cost of the new high school was financed by a $120 million bond, with loan repayments of around $8.5 million per year.
When the three schools were consolidated, an additional 37 teaching positions were eliminated to save costs, Costello said.
“Those teachers are clearly needed in our district,” he said. The district used federal pandemic emergency aid to temporarily bring back 13 of these teachers to lower class sizes, but those positions will be eliminated when this one-time funding expires, Costello said.
Though the district’s high school has “beautiful” facilities, the district is still unable to provide the number of educators its students need, Costello said. The number of teachers in the district has decreased since 2014, and the district is not able to respond to increased student demand for particular classes by hiring additional teachers.
During cross-examination, he noted that the district’s STEM Academy is not able to admit every qualified student who applies because only three teachers staff it.
Costello testified that a lack of instructional resources affects student performance.
“Some [students] we do a great job with, and they become leaders within the community, and they go on to college, they become lawyers, teachers, doctors, they work in a union, they're in the military,” he said. “But there are just too many other students that we just don't have the necessary resources to accommodate their needs.”
In the class of 2013, just 18% of the district’s economically disadvantaged high school graduate earned a college degree within six years.
Many district buildings are still in need of significant repairs, Costello said. For example, Kistler Elementary School, like the neighboring former Meyers High School, has issues with a shifting foundation that the district is continually monitoring.
A classroom in Kistler elementary school, divided in two to serve two classes.
Some classrooms at Kistler are split in half with makeshift dividers to accommodate more students. Students who need occupational therapy receive that service in a closet. Kistler requires $25 million in repairs, according to a facilities study commissioned by the district.
Students at Kistler elementary school who need occupational therapy services receive them in a closet
Costello was shown calculations made by the state legislature in the 2010-11 school year showing that Wilkes-Barre Area School District was short $21.8 million annually from a state benchmark for adequate funding.
“This would have been a game-changer for our district and would have allowed us to truly meet the needs of our students in our community,” Costello said.
If the state had funded the district at that benchmark level, the district would not have furloughed teachers in 2015-16, he said. It would not have “cut programs for students that come to school because of art or because they want to take a book out in the library.” The district could have maintained its facilities, avoiding “band-aid” solutions – like protective sheds to keep debris from crumbling facades from falling on students, put in place at Meyers and Coughlin High Schools before they were closed.
Costello is the petitioners’ final witness in the case. The case will continue for several weeks starting next Monday, as legislative leaders call witnesses in support of their case defending Pennsylvania’s current system for funding public schools.