Author: elcadmin

Education Law Center names Deborah Gordon Klehr Executive Director

The Board of Directors of the Education Law Center-PA is pleased to announce the appointment of Deborah Gordon Klehr as Executive Director.

With nearly a decade of legal experience at ELC, Deborah has shown a deep commitment to the Center’s mission and is well respected as an effective and strategic leader statewide on issues of public education. Deborah brings extensive expertise on education law and policy issues, including fairness in school discipline, equal access to education for at-risk students, and fair funding for public education. She has served as ELC’s Interim Executive Director since the end of 2014. Deborah has strong working relationships with the education policy and advocacy communities across Pennsylvania and nationally.

“We are thrilled that Deborah has accepted the role of Executive Director. We know that the Education Law Center will continue to thrive under her direction. Deborah will ably lead ELC in the tireless pursuit of quality public education for all children in Pennsylvania,” said ELC Board President Dr. Bruce Campbell, Jr. “I am looking forward to continuing to work with Deborah as we take ELC into the future,” said Nancy A. Hubley, Director of ELC’s Western PA office located in Pittsburgh.

Deborah joined ELC after clerking for U.S. District Court Judge Raymond J. Dearie in the Eastern District of New York. She was selected for and served on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania’s Juvenile Court Procedural Rules Committee and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Campaign for Fair Education Funding. Deborah has taught education law at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, and her article Addressing the Unintended Consequences of No Child Left Behind and Zero Tolerance: Better Strategies for Safe Schools and Successful Students was published in theGeorgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy. Deborah serves on several non-profit boards. She is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. Deborah previously taught kindergarten and first grade in Hoboken, N.J. She resides in Philadelphia with her husband and two children.

Since its founding in 1975, ELC’s mission is to ensure that all children in Pennsylvania have access to a quality public education. ELC pursues this mission by advocating on behalf of the most vulnerable students — children living in poverty, children of color, children in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, children with disabilities, English language learners, and children experiencing homelessness.

For more information, visit www.elc-pa.org or follow on Twitter @edlawcenterpa.

Ed Law Center Files Federal Court Complaint Asserting the Right of Homeless Student Placed in Shelter School to Attend Local Public School


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 4, 2015


ED LAW CENTER FILES FEDERAL COURT COMPLAINT ASSERTING THE RIGHT OF HOMELESS STUDENT PLACED IN SHELTER SCHOOL TO ATTEND LOCAL PUBLIC SCHOOL

PENNSYLVANIA – The Education Law Center (ELC) announced today that it has filed a federal complaint on behalf of C.T., an 8th-grade honor student who was placed in a shelter on an emergency basis while awaiting foster care placement and who qualifies as homeless under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

The complaint asserts that New Castle Area School District, where C.T. was placed in the Krause Youth Shelter, has a policy or practice of denying students placed in that shelter access to its local public schools, despite its clear duty to enroll these students under federal and state law. As a result, C.T., and other children similarly situated, are forced to languish in a shelter school program.

C.T., who has been in the shelter school since the beginning of April, has received homework assignments and tests from his prior school district but was unable to complete them without academic instruction. According to the complaint, the shelter program provides only three hours of education a day and is staffed by a teacher certified in grades K-6 only. ELC also notes that the shelter school is unlicensed and unmonitored by any state or local education agency.

“This is precisely what the McKinney-Vento Act was designed to prevent,” said Senior Staff Attorney Maura McInerney of the Education Law Center.

“That law requires districts to ensure immediate and equal access to local public schools and expressly prohibits the segregation of students based on their homelessness status. ELC is asking the court to direct the New Castle Area School District to implement its clear duty to treat these students in the same manner as children living in their district with permanent residences.”

In addition to the McKinney-Vento Act, which mandates school stability or immediate enrollment in the local public school for children experiencing homelessness, Pennsylvania state law also ensures that children living in residential settings, including shelters, are entitled to enroll in local public schools where the facilities are located.

“This is not an isolated case. Our offices in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have handled matters in other school districts where this is happening and we are working to eliminate this illegal practice across the Commonwealth so that students like C.T. do not lose ground and fall behind,” said McInerney.

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The Education Law Center-PA works to ensure that all children in Pennsylvania have access to a quality public education, including children living in poverty, children of color, children in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, children with disabilities, English language learners, and children experiencing homelessness. For more information, visit www.elc-pa.org or follow @edlawcenterpa on Twitter.

 

CONTACT:

Maura McInerney
Education Law Center – Philadelphia
1315 Walnut Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19107
[email protected]
215-346-6906

Nancy A. Hubley
Education Law Center – Pittsburgh
429 Fourth Ave, Suite 702
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
[email protected]
412-258-2120 ext. 350

Fellowship Opportunities

ELC seeks to sponsor applicants for postgraduate legal fellowships to start in the Fall of 2016. Applicants should be law students graduating in the Spring of 2016 or current law clerks and should have a demonstrated commitment to public interest law.

Read the full posting here.

School-funding suit headed for highest Pa. court

May 20, 2015 – Kristen A. Graham, The Philadelphia Inquirer – Contending that Pennsylvania’s method of school funding is broken, lawyers representing a group of parents, school districts, and statewide associations are taking their case to the state’s high court, they said in court papers filed Wednesday.

 

Continue reading →

School Districts, Parents Take School Funding Challenge to State’s Highest Court

Harrisburg, Pa. –Today school districts, parents and two statewide associations filed an appeal in Pennsylvania Supreme Court challenging last month’s Commonwealth Court decision, which dismissed a lawsuit contesting the state’s failure to adequately and equitably fund Pennsylvania’s public schools as required by the Pennsylvania Constitution. The state Supreme Court is obligated to hear the appeal. Continue reading →

Thursday, May 14, 2015: Call to Action for Public Education Day

This Thursday, May 14, Education Law Center will be participating in a statewide “Call to Action for Public Education Day!” The message is simple: Harrisburg’s top priority this year must be restoring the state funding cuts to school districts and enacting a new system that provides sufficient funding for public schools so every child has an opportunity to learn. In addition, state funding MUST be driven out to districts using a formula that is based on the real costs of delivering services to students.

WHAT: School Funding Call to Action Day

WHEN: Thursday, May 14

HOW TO PARTICIPATE: Download the resources below and call your state representative and state senator

It is incredibly important for legislators to hear that people are paying attention and that we are spreading the word about what is happening to our schools! Thank you for your participation. Let’s make our voices heard on May 14!

Resources

Questions? Give us a call.

Commonwealth Court dismisses school-funding lawsuit

April 21, 2015 – by Solomon Leach, Philadelphia Daily News – COMMONWEALTH Court yesterday dismissed a lawsuit accusing the state of failing to adequately and equitably fund Pennsylvania public schools.

The complaint was filed by six school districts, seven parents, the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools and the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference, who said they plan to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

“This is a question of paramount importance to all Pennsylvanians, and we always knew this would ultimately be decided by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court,” Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia executive director Jennifer Clarke, a member of the legal team representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement.

The suit, filed in November, argued that former Gov. Tom Corbett, state lawmakers and the state Department of Education violated their constitutional obligation to provide all students with the opportunity to pass state-mandated academic standards. Oral arguments were held last month.

The ruling is the latest in a long line of Pennsylvania state court decisions affirming that school funding is a function of the Legislature and executive branch, and therefore not a matter for the courts.
Since the previous rulings, Pennsylvania adopted the Keystone exams as a graduation requirement and completed a costing-out study setting levels for what each school district needs to provide an adequate education.

Nonetheless, the court’s opinion, written by President Judge Dan Pellegrini, said those changes “do not confer funding discretion upon this court nor provide us with judicially manageable standards for determining whether the General Assembly has discharged its duty under the Constitution.”

Meanwhile, a group of Pennsylvania lawmakers is working to propose a fair-funding formula that would likely provide poorer school districts with a higher percentage of state aid and reduce funding to wealthier districts.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150422_Commonwealth_Court_dismisses_school-funding_lawsuit.html#oLJoAGAH8KUEuRi3.99

Suit challenging school funding headed to top Pa. court

April 21, 2015 – by Kristen A. Graham and Martha Woodall, Philadelphia Inquirer – A lawsuit contending that Pennsylvania’s system of school funding is broken will move to the state’s top court, attorneys vowed Tuesday after a lower court dismissed the case brought by school districts, parents, and advocates. Continue reading →

School Funding Case One Step Closer to Hearing by Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Commonwealth Court Refuses to Review Whether School Funding Complies with State Constitution

Harrisburg, Pa. – The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania today issued an order in the lawsuit challenging the state’s failure to adequately and equitably fund Pennsylvania’s public schools.  The lower court interpreted prior state Supreme Court precedent as eliminating any role for the courts in overseeing whether the legislature complies with the state constitution on school funding questions. Continue reading →