To Ron Melleby, the convoluted process school districts must follow to adopt their annual budgets is "the theater of the absurd." Melleby, a Donegal school board member, said it makes no sense to force districts to approve budgets and set tax rates in January, long before they know how mu......

More than 400 children attending four Lancaster elementary schools will be able to participate in after-school tutoring and enrichment programs thanks to a new $1.5 million federal grant. School District of Lancaster officials learned Thursday that the district is among the 57 districts, ......

Does it come as a surprise that the Congressional "Supercommittee," assigned the task of reducing the deficit by $1.5 trillion, was an abject failure? Unfortunately, in these times of gridlock, it was anything but. Republicans and Democrats are currently more divided by partisanship and h......

  There's a reason Johnny visits fewer local farms and museums these days. Society has been underwriting fewer class trips. Educators say Johnny stands to lose out on personal enrichment, especially in the wake of deep public education funding cuts this year in Harrisburg....

  Most Lancaster County public school districts boosted their Pennsylvania System of School Assessment scores in 2011, but the gains were not enough for many of them to meet increasingly tougher state academic standards. And next year, the bar will be raised even higher. Ac......

Two years ago, Manheim Township High School adjusted its schedule so students who failed algebra wouldn't have to wait an entire year to retake the course. The subject was broken into two parts, enabling pupils to repeat each section, if needed, the following semester. The school ......

Students in the Octorara Area School District earned strong SAT scores compared with other students statewide, but three of the district's five schools did not make adequate yearly progress on 2011 PSSA tests, Assistant Superintendent Nancy Bishop told the school board Monday night. ...

When the doors open at Penn Manor High School on Monday morning, Emily Lyons will be just as excited as the students. "I'm excited to work with incoming freshmen because I'm new, too," said Lyons, who will be teaching special education at the school. Penn Manor offers a new start ......

Three local schools have landed nearly $5 million in federal grants to help them revamp their curricula, retool their staffs and hold students and teachers to higher standards in an effort to boost academic achievement. La Academia Partnership Charter School was awarded $423,234, Wheatlan......

A 2009 review of state standardized test scores turned up irregularities at three School District of Lancaster schools and one school in Ephrata Area School District. The report, prepared for the state Department of Education, found abnormalities in the results for students at SDL's Hamilton......

Nine students from Lancaster County were among the 156 graduates from the Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School Class in 2011, officials announced Monday. County graduates were Amanda Brettman, Lauren Gantz, Madelyn Gantz, Barry Graver, Lauren Haas, Katie King, Janelle Martin, Keith Meshey ......

At 8 on a Friday evening, Fred Eberly found his 22-year-old daughter, Katie, sacked out on the couch. He had to chuckle. Katie, a student teacher, had spent the week with a class of 21 first-graders, and she was worn out. Eberly, 57, is a teacher himself. After 33 years at a high ......

  Beth Rosenberg has taught roomfuls of elementary students for more than 30 years, and nothing seems to take the shine off of her enthusiasm for her chosen profession. Not even the criticisms of those who assail teachers as overpaid and under-worked. Teachers "know what we......

  Much of the swirling rancor toward teachers has to do with the dislike some people have for teachers' unions. Nathan Benefield, director of policy research at the conservative Commonwealth Foundation in Harrisburg, contends that teachers' unions "are detrimental to taxpayers, ......

About 100 students attending McCaskey and McCaskey East high schools are on track to graduate, but not in the traditional four-year time frame. Ephrata High has 23 pupils in the same situation and Hempfield High has 28 — students who, for a variety of reasons, lacked the academic cr......

More Lancaster County public schools are being honored this year for meeting state academic standards, and more school districts achieved those honors at all their schools in 2010. But next year could be another story, as the state begins raising the benchmarks schools must meet to comply......

Five years ago, Octorara Middle School decided to take a new approach to getting students to read more books. The school piloted a curriculum that teaches pupils reading comprehension skills and allows them to read books they like — not just books the whole class is reading. ...

For the second year in a row, Lancaster County students have improved their average scores on the PSSA. The percentage of pupils scoring "proficient" or "advanced" on the 2010 tests of math, reading, science and writing rose by an average of 2.5 percentage points from 2009, following a 2.......

More Lancaster County public schools made the grade in 2010 than in the previous year, according to PSSA test results released this week. Overall, 101 of 119 schools, or about 85 percent, in 2010 made "adequate yearly progress," the standard that determines if schools are meeting the requ......

Sandy Garman has heard the promising rhetoric many times before. A reading teacher at Hand Middle School, Garman has worked under 14 principals in her long teaching career. Whenever a new leader takes over, she said, there's usually talk of boosting academic achievement, providing......

For Kyle Slaymaker, attending Lancaster County Academy was a "life-changing" experience.Slaymaker, 23, enrolled in the alternative school at Park City Center in 2004 after falling in with the wrong crowd at Conestoga Valley High School."I did a lot of partying and a l......

Most Lancaster County school districts will be standing on the sidelines when the Race to the Top begins.The new federal program is designed to pump $4.3 billion in stimulus funds into schools that implement reforms over the next four years.Grants from Race to the Top, the largest p......

More Lancaster County students met state academic standards in 2008-09 than in the previous year, according to the state Department of Education, which this week released schools' PSSA scores.About 84 percent of the 130 public schools that enrolled Lancaster County students last year m......

At their meeting Aug. 10, Penn Manor school board members debated the benefits and the costs of joining Solanco's virtual cyber school after the board voted to end Penn Manor's virtual cyber school.James Hoke, of 337 Barbara St., son of Penn Manor Board member Franklin Hoke, is a r......

The strings music program is no longer a core academic subject in Eastern Lancaster County School District.The Elanco school board voted unanimously Monday to follow Superintendent Robert Hollister's recommendation to shift the orchestra program to a co-curriculum, after-school program......

Sitting in a circle, 15 kindergartners crane their necks and listen to a story. Centerville Elementary School teacher Colleen Whiteside stops reading, "Harry the Dirty Dog," looks at her pupils, and asks, "What is Harry looking for?" The kids shoot their arms into the a......

After searching for more than a year, Manheim Township school board is expected to appoint an educator at a rural Maine high school as the new principal of Manheim Township High School.The school board tonight is scheduled to vote on hiring Debby Mitchell, principal of Massabesic High Scho......

Darlene Taylor said she looked at her calendar recently, saw that March 16 was approaching, and, "It was like, oh, here we go ..." March madness — of the academic kind — is on its way. Beginning this week, Pennsylvania students in grades three through eight, as well a......

President Barack Obama has assailed the notion of teachers devoting so much of the school year to prepping students for standardized tests. In a major speech last week to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the president signaled his intent to reform No Child Left Behind, the nation's predomi......

Sam Rohrer senses average Americans have grave concerns about rapid and aggressive changes coming from the federal government.The state representative from Berks County said that, as a result of that concern, a growing number of his constituents are calling on legislators to re-examine the......

Conestoga Valley School Board seems poised to approve a proposal to extend the district's elementary school day by a half-hour — though logistics regarding such issues as transportation, athletics and clubs have not yet been worked out.Monday night, board members spent nearly two......

Construction debt, special education costs and salaries are driving up expenses in many of the county's 16 public school districts. Combined, the districts raised their  estimated per-student spending by a median 7 percent from last year. In dollars, the median county per-pupil ex......

Local educators believe President Obama will return education to its position as a top national priority."I think we will return to the day where we as a nation are invested in a quality education," Millersville University President Francine McNairy said. "For people that wa......

As English and social studies teachers go, we are a land of plenty. Science and math teachers? Not so much. And special-education teachers, who are qualified to teach science and math, are especially rare. Over the next six years, the nation will need tens of thousands of high......

If you follow politics, you've undoubtedly heard of unfunded mandates. That's what happens when a legislative body approves a law but fails to provide the funding necessary to fully implement it.One of the more notable unfunded mandates at the federal level involves President Bush&......

Pennsylvania high school seniors are falling behind in their knowledge of science, state testing indicates, with slightly more than a third of them scoring proficient in the subject last year.According to science scores released Tuesday as part of the 2008 Pennsylvania System of School Ass......

Educational issues took center stage Tuesday night at McCaskey High School in a debate between candidates for the 13th District state Senate seat.Lancaster Foundation for Educational Enrichment and Good Schools Pennsylvania hosted the forum with the three candidates seeking incumbent Sen. ......

Suzanne Yoder can rattle off a term paper's worth of reasons why Sen. Barack Obama should be the next president of the United States.Not only does Obama have new and inspiring ideas, but more importantly, he also has a plan to see them through, the Franklin & Marshall College sopho......

Complying with state academic standards isn't getting any easier. Just ask Warwick School District officials.This spring, students at Warwick High School posted the highest reading and math PSSA scores in the school's history, but in the state's eyes, the school isn't a suc......

Hundreds of 3- and 4-year-olds in Pennsylvania sit on a waiting list to attend free preschool. Despite a 15 percent funding increase, the governor's free program, Pre-K Counts, does not have enough money this year to meet the skyrocketing demand for early childhood education, educators say.......

Columbia Borough School District is taking action to improve student performance and increase PSSA test scores — including offering a free trip to Hersheypark for high school juniors who scored well last year.In fall 2007 Columbia Junior/Senior High School was placed in Correcti......

Whether he's stopped at a traffic light, shopping at a grocery store or speaking before a community group, Pedro Rivera often hears the same thing.People "warn me that I better do a good job," the new superintendent of School District of Lancaster said. "It doesn't m......

More School District of Lancaster schools met or exceeded state academic standards on the PSSA this year than in 2007, despite those standards becoming more stringent in 2008.Eight SDL elementary schools — two more than in 2007 — made "adequate yearly progress," the k......

State officials have ruled that School District of Lancaster responded appropriately to allegations of improprieties in PSSA testing at a district elementary school earlier this year.The state Department of Education notified SDL this week that it was satisfied with how the district invest......

The Lancaster School District has investigated allegations that educators at an elementary school broke the rules when they gave students a state assessment test this spring. School officials are not saying what the district found in its probe. But the district has turned over its findings to t......

Unlike generals who get scouting reports on the size of enemy forces, educators battling dismal dropout rates often don't know what they're up against.The nation's graduation rate is said to be as low as 70 percent and as high as 83 percent, The Center for Public Education repo......

The 23 kids in Todd Davis's fifth-grade class at Fairview Elementary School, in the Elizabethtown Area School District, have a seemingly simple assignment: Build a chair that can hold their weight. Every Monday since September, the kids have spent an hour and a half working on their Si......

Pedro Rivera will not sit in his office and wait for parents to see him. He will go to them. If it means holding early-morning or late-night meetings, "we'll do that." If it means providing food and child care, so parents don't have to cook, "we will break bread together." "By no......

On Saturday, Lloyd Smucker received the endorsement of the man he's vying to replace as state senator for the 13th Legislative District — Gibson E. Armstrong.Today, Smucker, a West Lampeter Township supervisor, expects to add some more endorsements from local political figures....

The differences between the four Republican candidates for the 13th state Senate District lie in the details. All the candidates — West Lampeter Supervisor Lloyd Smucker, former County Commissioner Paul Thibault, county Recorder of Deeds Steve McDonald and businessman Bill Neff — de......

It didn't take long for Sen. Barack Obama to invoke the same "fierce urgency of now" that drove the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to fight for change in his time.For Obama, the "urgency of now" refers to an immediate need for change in the way America does business....

People expecting to hear major differences in the views of the three candidates vying for the School District of Lancaster superintendent's job were likely disappointed Thursday night.Pedro Rivera, Leon "Buddy" Glover and Drue Miles aired their opinions on the district's ......

On the campaign trail in her bid for the presidency, Sen. Hillary Clinton has appealed to women, minorities, union members, senior citizens and working families. But on Tuesday night at Millersville University, she turned her focus to the under-30 crowd.College students are typically missi......

Hillary Clinton stirred a crowd at Millersville University into a near-frenzy Tuesday night when she promised to scrap the federal No Child Left Behind Act if she's elected president this November."I know we can do better than that," she said. "I know we can have a bette......

School District of Lancaster has narrowed its search for a new superintendent to six candidates, including at least one person with ties to the district.Three other school districts in Lancaster County — Elizabethtown, Manheim Township and Eastern Lancaster County — will be see......

It's 8:45 a.m. on a warm Wednesday morning, and the 200 block of South Prince Street is alive. Two men stand patiently outside the chapel of the Water Street Rescue Mission, biding their time until the new community homeless outreach center housed there opens. Off Conestoga Street, eight pe......

Kevin Singer is leaving the superintendent's post in Manheim Township School District and is expected to accept the top job in the Topeka, Kan., school system.Manheim Township school board Wednesday night approved his resignation, effective June 30.In a news release, the distric......

The state House last week approved a resolution that would establish a bipartisan legislative commission to study the state's public school funding system and recommend changes.House Resolution 460 was approved Jan. 15 by a vote of 192-2.If the Senate supports the measure, a 41-......

Some local educators are worried about the state's plan to create one set of graduation standards for every public high school in Pennsylvania. The most troubling aspect of the proposed graduation criteria, they say, is the plan to require statewide graduation exams. Students already e......

Conestoga Valley School Board on Monday rejected a revised charter school application by a vote of 8-0.Board members said the application contained budget shortfalls and an underdeveloped curriculum, issues that have been trouble spots since the initial application was submitted in July....

Several local legislators are questioning the validity of a study that concludes public school education is underfunded by nearly $5 billion a year in Pennsylvania.Four Lancaster County state representatives and one state senator have expressed concerns about the study's accuracy or me......

Conestoga Valley School Board will decide Monday whether to support a proposed charter school application.The school board in July rejected an initial application that would have turned the former Penn Johns School into a charter school.In August, the district sold the Penn Johns pr......

Cynthia Burkhart, a former Ephrata School District administrator and teacher, has been named executive director of Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit 13.Burkhart, assistant executive director of IU 13 since 2004, will take the top job when Jay Scott retires in early 2008.She has te......

School District of Lancaster has its work cut out for it on next year's PSSAs.Not only will a bigger pool of students take the standardized tests for the second year in a row, the state is raising the minimum scores needed to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress, the standard by which scho......

The number of School District of Lancaster students transferring to other SDL schools because their home school failed to meet academic standards has doubled since last year.Thirty-eight students have transferred so far this year under the school choice option, compared with 19 transfers i......

Jane Johnson of Strasburg arrived at Bush's town hall-style meeting Wednesday in full Bush-Cheney regalia in a Honda Accord flying a trio of American flags.Johnson was one of the few people lucky enough to obtain a ticket to see the president at The Jay Group offices in West Hempfield ......

Cocalico students got a mixed, but mostly favorable, report card on recent standardized tests scores.At its Sept. 17 meeting, Cocalico school board got a brief rundown on results from high school students' SAT tests and middle school students' Pennsylvania System of Statewide Asses......

Splashed across a wall in Stephen Iovino's office is a colorful collage of photos of children — School District of Lancaster students at work and play.Iovino had the pictures put up after he took over as SDL interim superintendent in July."I have to admit that when I ......

Cybercharter schools tout themselves as a high-quality alternative to public schools for students who struggle in a conventional school setting.The online schools offer the convenience of Web-based instruction and the ability to tailor courses to the academic strengths and needs of their s......

In 12 of the county's 16 public school districts, at least one school failed to meet academic standards last school year, according to a state Department of Education report released Wednesday. Twenty-five of 118 public schools in Lancaster County missed at least one academic benchmark....

Seventeen schools in Lancaster County that met state academic standards last year failed to make the grade this year, according to PSSA figures released Wednesday.Nine districts — more than half the public school systems in the county — that had a perfect record for all their s......

Cocalico High School Principal Andrew Terry is pleased. In fact, he's downright happy. The percentage of Cocalico 11th-graders scoring proficient or advanced in reading jumped nine points from 2005-06 to 2006-07 on the state assessment test. The state Department of Education today r......

The Conestoga Valley school board voted Monday night to sell the Penn Johns school building to Ressler Mill Foundation.The board agreed to the foundation's offer of $254,600 — the average of two appraisals of the property — payable over five years.The deal requires ratif......

The proposed sale of the former Penn Johns School to the Ressler Mill Foundation was put on hold Monday when the Conestoga Valley school board learned that the person who appraised the property is on the foundation's board of directors.During a special board meeting, the board learned that......

Conestoga Valley school board unanimously rejected a charter-school application for the former Penn Johns School Monday night because it said the petition lacked details and was missing pertinent information.However, proponents of the charter school said they are already revising the appli......

Though the federal No Child Left Behind act aspires to bring struggling students to proficiency, some worry the act is having the opposite effect on gifted students.Barbara Marinak, a Millersville University professor of elementary education, said No Child Left Behind is leaving gifted chi......

By signing into law the No Child Left Behind Act in January 2002, President Bush helped usher in an era of unprecedented federal involvement in public education policy, backed up with unprecedented growth in federal education spending. From the outset, NCLB had a noble goal: more accountability......

Amy Martin plans to buy a new bass xylophone and a set of timpani so more of her students at Lititz Elementary School can participate in music programs.Adonica Spolum will pay for much-needed instrument repairs for her fourth- and fifth-graders at Ross Elementary School.And Hollie M......

Longtime local educator Brenda Becker was appointed as the new superintendent for the Hempfield School District at a school board meeting Tuesday night.Becker, 54, will replace Superintendent David Poore, who is retiring after 37 years as an educator. Poore has been Hempfield's superin......

What a student learns in math in 11th grade in Pennsylvania probably isn't the same as what a junior learns in New Jersey. To create more uniform learning, Pennsylvania is one of nine states to develop a common high school math test. The shared test would be for Algebra II, normally taken ......

The Conestoga Valley school board will review a resolution to close Penn Johns School when it meets tonight. However, the board will not vote on the matter until April 23. Board president Idette Groff said closing the school is unfortunate, but necessary. "I don't think any of us is h......

Though the Conestoga Valley school board isn't scheduled to vote on the fate of Penn Johns Elementary School until later this month, it will review the possibility of closing it at its meeting tonight.•••The Conestoga Valley school board will r......

On the fifth and final day of testing, fourth-grader Christian Medina looked restless.He absently tapped a pencil against his shoulder. He rocked back in his chair. He looked around the hushed classroom. Christian's eyes finally returned to the test booklet and its 1,000-word story about t......

U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts has entered the growing fray between Congress and the White House over the No Child Left Behind Act, which is up for renewal this year.Pitts, a Chester County Republican who represents Lancaster County, co-sponsored a resolution Thursday that would allow individual stat......

U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts is co-sponsoring a bill introduced in Congress today that would give states a choice not to participate in the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Signed into law in 2002, No Child Left Behind is up for renewal in Congress this year. The goal of the law is to ensure that ......

Conestoga Valley school board is overwhelmingly in support of closing Penn Johns School.In an informal poll at a school board work session held Monday night at Conestoga Valley Middle School, six board members said they were in favor of closing the school, one voted to keep it open and one......

Local educators told U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts this morning that federally-mandated testing of schoolchildren has its benefits, but often doesn't account for student differences and focuses too much energy on test-taking. "The one-standard-fits-all of No Child Left Behind probably is the maj......

Elmer Burkholder was a first-grader at Penn Johns Elementary School when it opened in the early 1950s.

Later, his eight children also attended the school, and he has six grandchildren there now.

Tuesday night, Burkholder, of Lancaster, asked Conestoga Valley school board to fin...