Public school districts across Allegheny County are facing substantial challenges in continuing to maintain our high academic standards while addressing the many needs of our diverse student population.

For example, in the South Park School District, special education costs have grown $7.1 million, while the district has only received $1.2 million from the state. In the Moon Area School District, the English language learner population has increased by approximately 100 students over the past two years, and the district now has over 300 English language learners speaking 34 different languages.

As our expenditures in staff numbers, special education, mental health services and English language learner services have grown, funding from Harrisburg has not kept pace to meet the needs of our students. We, the elected school directors, are responsible to ensure our schools have the resources for them to learn, grow and mature into young adults — specifically, young adults who graduate prepared for college or careers. To do this, we must have talented teachers, counselors, coaches and support staff, which requires funds to hire and retain them.

All our districts are facing plans for facility expenses, whether it is construction of new buildings in growing districts or maintaining and renovating buildings to support learning standards that are aligned with modern college and workplace expectations. Our facilities directors emphasize that kicking the can down the road on these needs means that we will face ballooning costs in the future.

While our state’s current funding system has been declared unconstitutional by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal — based largely on the recommendations of the bipartisan Basic Education Funding Commission — is a beacon of hope for communities across the state.

The proposal calls for a substantial investment of $1.8 billion toward public schools this year to begin to close the funding gap and equip our students with the tools they need to succeed. Here in Senate District 37, the proposal would result in a $13.7 million influx of additional funding for school districts in 2024-25, including just over half a million to close adequacy gaps, $3.7 million in cyber charter school savings and $2.6 million in annual basic education funding. Because many of our districts only achieve adequate funding due to local property taxes, next year would bring more than $6.6 million (just in Senate District 37) in tax equity money to stabilize budgets and provide some cushion to rising tax burdens.

Most significantly, approaching education funding with a seven-year plan would not only offer much-needed investments and saving from capping cyber-charter tuition, but also allow us the ability to plan budgets based on accurate numbers of state funding, finally in advance of our own budget deadlines.

We all are tired of going back to local property owners year after year as the only way to ensure we uphold our responsibility to our community’s children. It is time that our elected leaders in Harrisburg address their court-ordered responsibility to fully and fairly fund school districts.

With a historic $14 billion surplus, the state is in a financial position to fund this education proposal. There is no valid excuse for not doing so. Our students cannot wait any longer. They deserve better. Our legislators must do their job and fund our public schools.

Patrick Sable is a school director for the South Park School District. Corinna Skorpenske is a school director for the Quaker Valley School District. Amy Stuart is a school director for the Moon Area School District.

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