B-W Schools to Get $228,000 in State Funding Back, Rep. Kortz Says

started off Wednesday night’s Baldwin-Whitehall School Board meeting with a special presentation to announce that the will receive approximately $228,000 more than it expected from Pennsylvania for the 2011-12 school year. (B-W was originally scheduled to lose approximately $1.5 million in state funding but will now lose $228,000 less than that.)

While Kortz acknowledged that as good news, he said that B-W is still being significantly hurt by education cuts in the state budget proposed by Gov. Tom Corbett and eventually passed by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

Kortz pointed out that, while B-W has been able to handle its budget issues, other school districts have not been and have resorted to layoffs and program cancellations as a result.

Also, Kortz said that a school district like Duquesne City is losing approximately $38,000 per average classroom (25 students), but a school district like , by comparison, is losing approximately $1,975 per average classroom.

“That is inequity,” he said. “That’s discrimination.

“We are not giving those (less-funded) children a good shot at a good education when you take hits like this.”

Kortz said that B-W will lose approximately $299 per student, or $7,475 per average classroom.

He told the B-W School Board that it should consider partnering with other school districts to pursue a class-action lawsuit against Corbett on the basis of discrimination. He mentioned a similar case in New Jersey, where that state’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.

“Our (legal) language in Pennsylvania, as far as education (goes), is almost identical to New Jersey,” he said. “I’m going to all of the school boards (and saying), ‘It’s time to think about a class-action lawsuit to do the same thing that New Jersey did.’

“New Jersey won … I could see our Supreme Court stepping up and helping us down the road.”

The B-W School Board did not motion to take any action on Wednesday regarding a class-action suit, but a packet of information was given to each board member by Kortz regarding that idea.

After the meeting, B-W School Board President George L. Pry spoke with the Baldwin-Whitehall Patch about what the district will most likely do with the savings that Kortz announced at the start of his presentation.

"I think most of us (school board members) want it to go back into the fund balance," Pry said, "because we know that next year's going to be extremely tough. But that hasn't been decided on. We will have an opportunity to make that decision.

Check back with the Baldwin-Whitehall Patch later on Thursday for more odds and ends from Wednesday night's school board meeting.