Last spring, just after schools pivoted to virtual learning, dozens of parents from the School District of Lancaster signed an op-ed calling attention to the plight of our district in light of the pandemic (âPublic school funding at risk during pandemic,â April 25 LNP | LancasterOnline).
In February 2020, School District of Lancaster Superintendent Damaris Rau announced that our district was facing a $10 million deficit. Knowing that communities of color would bear the brunt of the pandemic, we feared the impending wreckage. Accordingly, we asked our lawmakers to fund our public schools fairly and adequately.
A year later, our call is more pressing than ever.
Tommy Henley, who was hired in 2019 to right the ship at a struggling Lancaster city charter school, is leaving his post to take an administrative role in the School District of Lancaster.
Henley, principal and CEO of La Academia Partnership Charter School, will join Abie Benitez as the 11,000-student school districtâs second director of schools, the Lancaster school board confirmed in a vote Tuesday night. Together, Henley and Benitez will supervise and evaluate principals throughout the district. The job opened up after former director of schools Josh Keene became assistant superintendent of the Annville-Cleona School District.
Henley, 27, takes the job two years after moving to Lancaster as a self-proclaimed âturnaroundâ principal and taking over La Academia, perennially one of the countyâs lowest-performing schools.
Iris MacRae, bilingual educator and Carter & MacRae namesake, dies at 101 lancasteronline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from lancasteronline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Lancaster Countyâs two poorest school districts were left out of a combined $1.5 million in the latest batch of federal coronavirus relief, expanding funding inequities at a time when school districts with high percentages of low-income students needed it most, according to a new report.
Because the latest batch of federal coronavirus aid was distributed based on enrollment, not poverty, school districts with the most need received less than they should have compared to their more affluent peers, the report states.
The report, published Monday by the Keystone Research Center, a left-leaning think tank based in Harrisburg, suggests the funding should have flowed through Pennsylvaniaâs basic education funding formula, which the state uses to fund new money to school districts each year and considers poverty and other factors.