Matthew Splain, Otto-Eldred School District Superintendent, testified Tuesday in Commonwealth Court as part of the Pennsylvania School Funding trial, which began Nov. 12.
The case, William Penn School District et al. v. Pennsylvania Department of Education et al., includes six school districts as petitioners: William Penn SD; Panther Valley SD; School District of Lancaster; Greater Johnstown SD; Wilkes-Barre Area SD and Shenandoah Valley SD. There are also four parents and two statewide associations listed on the case; Parents Jamella and Bryant Miller, parents of K.M.; Sheila Armstrong, parent of S.A.; Tracey Hughes, parent of P.M.H. from petitioner districts and the School District of Philadelphia and the statewide associations of the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools (PARSS) and the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference.
Splain is president of the board of directors of PARSS. The association’s members are 178 small rural districts located across Pennsylvania, including the majority of those in The Era’s coverage area, which serve about 300,000 students between them.
Information from the Public Interest Law Center indicates the petitioners “seek a long-term solution to decades of inadequate, inequitable school funding in Pennsylvania. The state Constitution makes the General Assembly responsible for ensuring a thorough and efficient system of public education, and school districts and parents claim that the state is failing to meet this legal obligation. In addition, the petitioners claim that the state maintains a funding system that discriminates against students in districts with low property values and incomes, violating the Constitution’s equal protection provisions by depriving students in these communities of the educational resources they need to succeed.”
Splain’s time on the stand began shortly before 11 a.m. He testified through the day and will return to the stand today to conclude his testimony.
During the afternoon, Splain was questioned about statements he made earlier in the day.
One area of questioning focused on the challenges of staffing a small school district. Splain discussed the fact that the district is working to align the ELA curriculum with current state standards. The need to address this issue is a result of losing the district’s director for curriculum and assessment, who left in the fall of 2021. The position opening provided a chance to address an ongoing staffing situation.
“We have always had building level administrators. We tried to utilize the skills and expertise of the staff on hand, so we had the Special Ed supervisor acting as elementary building principal,” Splain explained. “For anyone that knows Special Education, that and being a principal is more than a full-time job. We had someone doing more than a full-time job for a couple of years.”
Splain explained that the district adjusted staffing when the Director of Curriculum and Assessment left to have a Director of Special Education and Pupil Services and hire an elementary school principal. This leaves the tasks related to curriculum and assessment to the building principals.
Questions focused on the summer school programs offered by the school district and the approximate number of students who take advantage of those opportunities, as well as the averages in ELA and math for state assessments and the fact that the district’s proficient/advanced percentages are higher than the state average.
It was also mentioned that it can be deceptive to look at percentage data for O-E, as the smaller size of the district means that each student is a greater part of the percentage.
Testimony also focused on career and technical program availability, both within the district and through the local Intermediate Unit. When asked about whether small rural districts could rely on an Intermediate Unit for services the district cannot provide for itself, Splain said, “That was the way the IU was originally designed, but how they operate now depends on the individual intermediate unit. They are more limited in what they can provide because of the access to resources they have.”
Splain also noted that the travel to the IU is a deterrent for some students who might otherwise benefit from services. Meanwhile, the plausibility of operating a center for the district itself is low.
“We can operate one program, but an entire center wouldn’t be feasible,” he said.
