Be wary of disinformation about York Suburban district renovation projects | opinion

Nine years ago, my husband and I became first time grandparents. I was excited to share my parental expertise with our oldest daughter and her husband. Sharing my expertise did not go over as well as I imagined. Consequently, I’ve learned to ask things like “what’s the current thinking on that?” I’ve found that best practices have evolved, same is true for the education of our students and our school buildings. So, what’s the current thinking on that? For York Suburban, it, along with FAQs, can be viewed at this link: https://www.yssd.org/renovation/

York Suburban School District has done major renovations and/or additions to every building since Valley View was first built in 1949. These endeavors followed best practices that allowed for improved programming to meet student needs and to better prepare students for their future workplace. It’s been 26 years since the high school’s last addition and 22 years for improvements at East York. There is a limit to how many times a building can be expanded, renovated, or reconfigured to address changing needs.

Historically speaking, it’s interesting to walk down memory lane to 2011 when a newly elected school board member advocated the closing of Indian Rock and further, advocated moving those students to East York. The notion being it would improve building utilization and staff utilization grades 3-5. And now here we are, with the former board member opposing the closure and leading a disinformation campaign, aligning himself with a local business owner who threatened the school district and board members.

The recent disinformation campaign is nothing short of fear mongering and scare tactics. Choosing select financial assumptions to reach a desired financial outcome do not make calculations valid. Also know that PA Act 1 of 2006, limits the amount of the tax increase that a school district can adopt. It is the law. If people believe that school administrators, who have to work with students and parents for years to come, are lying to them, it would be interesting to know what they believe the motive to be.

Children are the future of our community and schools have an obligation to stay up to date. I applaud the YS administration, staff, past and present boards for their methodical 10-year journey of researching best practices and investigating countless options to improve aging facilities. They, along with community members, have engaged in a transparent extensive process throughout. Postcards were mailed district wide to all residents in January of 2022 and ads were in both township newsletters in 2021 and 2022 to inform community members of the planning. The cost benefit analysis for renovations to both East York and Indian Rock vs. one new intermediate school speaks for itself. The $ 19.2M East York renovations and the Indian Rock $ 23.7M renovations cannot address unknown existing infrastructure issues within the estimated total of $ 42.9M. The new intermediate building estimate is $ 43.56M, not including future cost savings, i.e. efficiency of staff and resources, enhanced safety/security to name a few.

Previously: Town hall planned for anticipated tax hikes for York Suburban building improvements

At the August 2023 board meeting, a vote to move forward with 2 projects, one intermediate building and high school renovation, was 7-2. This progressive action will strengthen our school district and in turn, our community, for decades to come.

During my 20-year tenure as a director of the York Suburban School Board, the erosion of PA funding for public education created significant operational challenges for school districts. Unfunded mandates, increases in special education costs, schools becoming the de facto front-line provider of mental health services, charter/cyber costs, elimination of state reimbursements for building projects (PlanCon D), and Act 1 of 2006 (mentioned above), all contribute to the today’s current state of affairs in public education.

Property owners who support our schools but ponder the funding of public education as it relates to taxes should know this: most states provide 47% of the funding for public education. PA averages about 38% of public basic education funding. York Suburban receives less than 19%. In fact, YS not only receives the lowest amount of basic education funding in York County but of the 500 school districts in PA, there were only 10 school districts that received less state revenue than York Suburban last year.We should all be outraged!

Legislators need to hear from you.

#1) Last February, the PA Commonwealth Court mandated the legislature to provide “fair and equitable” funding reform to replace the 1991 archaic funding formula currently in use. A perfect example – York Suburban had 2,062 students in 1991, compared to 3,347 today. Since the enrollment number is frozen at 2,062, the other 1,285students “don’t exist” with respect to today’s funding of basic education. Sen. Kristin Philips-Hill was charged with co-chairing this process, but it is moving glacially at best.  Contact Senator Kristin Philips-Hill and your PA House representative about the shameful state funding formula. Tell them you want to see positive legislative action move forward for York Suburban and all the other growing school districts.

#2) The PA Senate is sitting on a bipartisan bill, HB#1422, that would significantly change cyber charter school funding. York County Schools alone would save about $22M per year. It’s already passed the House and the governor has indicated his support. This legislation addresses the disparities in the funding of public and cyber-charter schools. It restores badly needed funds to public schools and a greater measure of fairness to the manner in which cyber-charter schools are held to account. With Senate passage, more of our public tax dollars would stay in our public schools instead of the absurd arrangement that has allowed the cyber charter schools to amass huge reserves: over $250 million across 14 organizations, and that was in 2022.  Contact State Senator Kristin Philips-Hill about the antiquated cyber charter school funding. Tell her to support #HB1422.

Contact State Senator Kristin Phillips-Hill and your other state legislators to advocate for equitable and fair funding, not only for York Suburban, but for all PA public schools.

Cathy Shaffer of Spring Garden Township was a York Suburban School Board Director from 1997 to 2017.

This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Be wary of disinformation about York PA Suburban renovation projects