Pocono Record: Brodheadsville preschool to close due to state budget impasse
By Lynn Ondrusek
Pocono Record Writer
Posted Oct. 22, 2015
Friday marks 115 days that Pennsylvania has been without a budget, and one local preschool is feeling the pinch.
It’s more than a pinch, actually.
The Growing Place’s Pre-K Counts program in Brodheadsville will be shutting its doors at the end of next week if a budget isn’t in place, said Executive Director Lisa Eick.
The state-funded program has not been getting the money it needs because of the budget impasse in Harrisburg. Eick said The Growing Place has been funding the program on its own — $40,000 in staff salary alone, so far, plus expenses for the program and nutrition service — since it opened for the school year in August.
“We can only fund it for so long on the backs of ourselves,” she said Thursday afternoon, adding that 68 students and seven employees will be affected by the closing.
Parents were sent home with letters Thursday explaining the situation. Eick said they will send the students home with a lot of activities to do during the break. They are telling the students the closing is a fall break.
“We really don’t want the kids to become pawns in the game,” she said. “We told the children that this is an adult issue.”
Eick said the budget impasse went 100 days in 2007. She thought there was “no way” it would go as long this year.
Read the full article here.
Huntingdon County Head Start and Pre-k Advocates Urge Lawmakers to Resolve Budget Impasse as Classrooms Face Uncertain Future
Education Officials, Human Services Providers, Parents & pre-k advocates gather to urge Gov. and Legislature to Act Swiftly on Budget with Increased Investment in Pre-k
HUNTINGDON COUNTY (October 15, 2015)– As the budget impasse continues in Harrisburg, the Huntingdon County Child and Adult Development Corporation, which currently enrolls 120 pre-k kids in seven classrooms across the county, says it ability to keep the doors open depends on the approval of yet another bridge loan. If approved, the loan will keep HCCADC’s 7 state funded Pre-K Counts and Head Start classrooms open until roughly Thanksgiving.
“It is extremely difficult to operate ‘state-funded’ early learning classrooms with no state funding,” said Louise Ketner, Executive Director of Huntingdon County Child and Adult Development Corporation. “Due to the impasse, we have already had to close our adult education and family literacy programs. Now we are trying to secure our third loan to keep our pre-k kids enrolled and our 17 teachers employed.”
As the budget impasse stretches on to its 106th day, Pre-K Counts and Head Start Supplemental grants have not gone out to pre-k providers across the Commonwealth – forcing them to operate off of reserves, lines of credit, bridge loans, or ultimately consider closures and layoffs.
“We had actually hoped to open an additional classroom this school year to help off-set the high demand for pre-k in Huntingdon County,” continued Ketner. “This all speaks to the fact that our state legislators and Governor Wolf must get to work and pass a budget that keeps pre-k kids in class and takes a step towards reducing the unmet need for these services in our community.”
Stephanie Mock of the Pre-K for PA Campaign stressed the importance of pre-k. “High-quality pre-k is a critical investment in the future of our children. Higher graduation rates, lower criminal activity, greater lifetime earnings, lower rates of special education are all connected by research to quality pre-k programs,” said Mock.
“As a parent, you see the important progress that your child makes in that year of Head Start,” said Danica Coulter, a parent of an enrolled student. “I would really hate to have my child miss out on a full year of pre-k because of this state budget impasse.”
The Pre-K for PA Campaign continues to encourage Governor Wolf and legislative leaders to return to the negotiating table and pass a budget with a significant investment in pre-k that gets us on the path to serving more of the 200,000 thee and four-year olds without access in the Commonwealth.
According to data from the campaign, each year (under FY 2014-15 funding levels) more than 70% of three- and four-year-olds in Huntingdon County do not have access to high quality pre-k.
“These 200,000 kids don’t get a “do-over” if they miss out on high-quality pre- k,” continued Mock. “For them, this budget negotiation must include $120 million of new state funding so that programs like this one can expand to serve more of the kids without access right here in Huntingdon County.”
The Pre-K for PA campaign believes that high-quality pre-k should be available to all children – beginning with those most in need. Advocates say that to accomplish this Pennsylvania needs to aggressively ramp up its investments over the next four years.
“This will take about $400 million in additional state investments over the coming years,” said Mock. “The greater the funding increase for Pre-K in this budget – the closer we get to that goal.”
Pre-K for PA was launched in 2014 with the vision that every 3- and 4-year-old in Pennsylvania will have access to high-quality pre-k. This statewide coalition includes: Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children; Economy League of Greater Philadelphia; Fight Crime: Invest in Kids; Mission: Readiness; Pennsylvania Association for the Education of Young Children; Pennsylvania Head Start Association; Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children; Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children; Public Citizens for Children and Youth; and United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. www.prekforpa.org
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WTAJ TV: Pre-K programs threaten to close
By Christian Heilman
Huntingdon, Huntingdon County, Pa.
Last week, the house voted down Governor Tom Wolf’s latest proposal mostly on party lines.
This is the longest the state has ever gone without a budget being passed. Thursday, a group of educators are asking lawmakers to come to an agreement
State funded Pre-k programs in Huntingdon County say they’ve borrowed enough money until Thanksgiving. If the budget doesn’t pass, they want Harrisburg to know Pre-K classrooms could close.
You could say Pre-K teacher Kelly Corliss is a lot of things… Including a mediator.
Kelly Corliss, Head Start Teacher, said, “Everybody has different personalities so whenever they come here you have kind of a melting pot.”
She’s been teaching these kids how to share — and excel — before they get to kindergarten.
“Head start is extremely important,” she said. “This is their first school experience for every one of them.”
The time spent in the classroom — and on the playground — could be in jeopardy if a budget doesn’t pass soon. Corliss says it could set her kids back.
Corliss said, “Depending on how long it takes to pass this budget, I”m going to have to start from day one all over again.”
Louise Ketner, Executive Director, said, “We would not take lightly needing to close our doors and we really hope we don’t have to but we can’t continue on.”
About 120 kids could be out of class if there’s no state budget by Thanksgiving. It’s scaring parents whose children rely on these programs.
Danica Coulter, Pre-K Parent, said, “Now what are we supposed to tell them? You can’t go anymore because there’s no money?”
Read the full article here.
PA HomePage: Budget Impasse Could Close Carbondale Pre-K Counts Program
With every passing day, social service agencies say the lack of a Pennsylvania budget is hurting thousands of people statewide.
The owner of a pre-school program in Lackawanna County say she will have to shut down one of her classrooms in the next few weeks if an agreement isn’t reached.
The owner of ABC Academy on North Main Street in Carbondale says she’s been able to keep the doors open for her Pre-K Counts classroom for the last three months with no money from the state.
The state of Pennsylvania funds the entire program so she doesn’t think she’ll be able to go forward for another 30 days without a solution.
The smiling faces of the children in the classroom may show them as some of the youngest victims in this state budget showdown.
The students are only three and four years old.
There are 19 kids total in the class.
The kids could all be forced to stay home if their Pre-K Counts classroom doesn’t get some funding.
With no money coming in, the owner of the facility says there will be no other choice.
“We need money to pay our bills and certainly teacher salaries and things like that so we’re hoping our legislators will make a move on this,” owner/director Doreen Damskov said.
Melissa Biedenkapp has worked at the ABC Academy for 18 years.
She dreads having to explain why the closure may be needed to this group of kids that is already naturally curious.
“They have a hard time understanding things like: you’re not here today because the budget didn’t pass. It’s very difficult for them to understand,” Biedenkapp said.
Read the full article here.
Lancaster Online: Letter to the Editor: Wolf pre-K funding would serve Pa. well
Reducing crime and limiting its future costs are some of the key reasons Gov. Tom Wolf and Republican lawmakers included increased funding for high-quality pre-K in their respective budget plans.
There is good reason for making this increased investment. High school dropouts are three and a half times more likely than high school graduates to be arrested, and more than eight times as likely to be incarcerated. Pennsylvania houses nearly 50,000 state prison inmates costing the commonwealth about $2 billion each year. Half of these inmates failed to earn a high school diploma.
Research is clear that front-end education investments in high-quality pre-K improve graduation rates and help prepare kids for more successful lives.
The Republican budget plan would provide access to an additional 3,500 of the more than 200,000 3- and 4-year olds in our state who lack access to high-quality pre-K each year. That includes 79 percent, or about 11,000 of Lancaster County’s 14,000 3- and 4-year-olds who do not have access to high-quality pre-K because it doesn’t exist nearby or their families cannot afford it.
While we certainly commend the Legislature for this added investment, the 175 district attorneys, police chiefs and sheriffs throughout Pennsylvania who are members of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids are hopeful that a final state budget will allocate additional resources as Gov. Wolf has proposed to serve an additional 14,000 at-risk children who lack access to high-quality pre-K. For law enforcement, this would be filling a crime-prevention gap.
Bruce R. Clash
Pennsylvania State Director
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids
Harrisburg
Read the Letter to the Editor here.
Patriot News: Those hardest hit by latest Pa. state budget veto says there’s enough blame for everybody
By Charles Thompson
The next best chance to ease the squeeze from Pennsylvania’s protracted state budget stalemate fizzled Tuesday when Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed an emergency stopgap funding bill.
It sets up a situation, statewide, where a budget stalemate that’s been invisible for most Pennsylvanians to date could soon start hitting a lot more of us in ways large and small.
Consider:
* In Carbondale, the school board has authorized the superintendent to explore a temporary closure of schools.
* In Harrisburg, some pre-kindergarten classes are being cancelled.
* In Scranton, mid-day meals at senior centers may be suspended.
* In various counties across the state, supports to families with adult children with intellectual disabilities are being eroded, and key learning opportunities for children from birth to age five with development delays are threatened.
There’s a rising tide of anger and frustration, to be sure.
But most human service providers who will be among the first to feel the effects of Tuesday’s veto seemed inclined to blame both Wolf, the veto-maker, and the state legislators he’s negotiating with for their troubles.
“I understand the fight for more money,” Gina Barkley, administrator of Bright Futures Learning Center of Harrisburg, said of Wolf’s veto Tuesday afternoon.
“But it feels like nobody considered that we would be the carnage in the meantime. It (the veto) is like a slap in the face, and I’m also offended that the senators and representatives are still getting paid while we work and we don’t get paid.”
The stopgap, if signed into law, was designed to get state funding flowing into schools and many human service programs through October, allowing maintenance of services while Wolf and Republican legislative leaders resolve their differences over taxes and spending.
Bright Futures, Barkley said, has already cancelled two pre-k classes because of a lack of funds and may have to close three others serving 86 kids within days unless its staff members agree to work without pay.
In Scranton, Kristen Kosin, executive director of Meals On Wheels of Northeastern Pennsylvania, voiced similar frustrations.
“I’m incredibly frustrated right now,” Kosin said, as she pondered the possibility of closing down the group meal service her agency provides at a number of senior centers around Lackawanna County by mid-October.
Read the full article here.
