{"id":32854,"date":"2025-11-13T08:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T08:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/32854\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T08:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T08:19:07","slug":"pa-state-budget-heres-how-public-schools-are-impacted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/32854\/","title":{"rendered":"PA state budget: Here\u2019s how public schools are impacted"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                    How would public cyber schools fare under the current funding?<\/p>\n<p>Public cyber charter schools quickly reflected on the negative impact of the cuts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are nearly 10,000 teachers, staff, and contracted providers across the Commonwealth working to serve approximately 65,000 students in public cyber charter schools,\u201d said Debra Heath-Thornton, CEO of PA Virtual Charter School, in a written statement. \u201cThe 2025-2026 state budget will result in approximately 2,000 layoffs of cyber charter school teachers and staff due to significant funding cuts. I am devastated by the actions taken today by lawmakers in Harrisburg. We must work together to end the continued attacks on public education and on our most vulnerable children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Steinberg, on the other hand, was pleased with the reform for charter schools.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt cost the school district of Philadelphia over a billion dollars out of their budget,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is like a third of their budget. Just think of all the programs that we could fund if that money were in the traditional public schools where they belong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pa.gov\/governor\/newsroom\/2025-press-releases\/gov-shapiro-signs-2025-26-budget-into-law\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">press release<\/a>, the budget builds on last year\u2019s record education investments with more than $900 million in new funding for public schools. Since taking office, Shapiro has increased school funding by nearly $3 billion, marking one of the largest education commitments in state history.<\/p>\n<p>The budget also includes $100 million for mental health and school safety. It boosts the Student Teacher Stipend Program by $10 million, raising total support to $30 million to help attract and retain educators. It also adds $5 million for public libraries and $433,000 for library services for the visually impaired, expands Grow PA scholarships, increases funding for special education and higher education grants, and invests $7.5 million to improve pre-K rates and strengthen the child care workforce. Universal free breakfast for all K-12 students and free lunch for 22,000 additional children will continue, serving nearly 93 million breakfasts served statewide during the 2024-25 school year.<\/p>\n<p>Shapiro said the budget builds on \u201cthe progress we\u2019ve made together to deliver better schools and more opportunity for our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How would public cyber schools fare under the current funding? Public cyber charter schools quickly reflected on the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[10083,223,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-32854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-pennsylvania-budget","tag-pennsylvania-education","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}