In a first, the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce invited a local school administrator to speak at an informative luncheon Sept. 23.

As state and local officials stress that better educated citizens lead to a better workforce and an economy strengthened by such, Chamber members wished to hear a sort of State of the District account from public partner Bethlehem Area School District.

Superintendent Dr. Joseph Roy briefly explained to those assembled in the ArtsQuest Steelstacks Blast Furnace Room some of the recent successes and challenges the district has experienced, and how it’s adapting to uncertainty in Harrisburg.

To set the stage, Roy said one thing few who live in the district realize is its size and complexity.

Big district

“It’s the Bethlehem Area School District,” he said. “It’s not just a city; it’s not just a suburb. It’s a combination of both.”

BASD is comprised of 22 schools containing almost 14,000 total students and 1,850 employees. Its numerous cafeterias serve 9,000 meals each day, with half of district lunches being either free or reduced price.

Even its fleet of buses, responsible for kids far beyond the confines of the district proper, make round trips to about 70 schools, racking up a whopping 6,000 miles traveled each day.

It’s a big operation, he said, and doesn’t even account for the education portion.

“We graduate about 1,000 kids a year between the two high schools. Twenty percent of our grads have scored three or higher – that’s considered passing – on advanced placement exams. That’s a high number for a large district with a strong urban core.

Accomplishments

“We’re proud of the accomplishments of our students. [But] we can’t just focus on issues of poverty, and we can’t just focus – as a suburban district might – on AP courses and honors courses. We have to focus on educating everybody.”

Equity

With that in mind, the district is now placing emphasis on equity. Equity is a huge issue, he said, because there must be a balance of equal opportunity between students who benefit from support outside of school – home libraries, trips or museum visits, for example – and those who do not.

Citing performance gaps by race and financial status, Roy said, “We are not unlike the rest of the country. Not unique here. Our ceiling for improvement is not what small increment can the top kids improve. It’s how can we raise the bar for everybody.”

Roy said other successes include universal full-day kindergarten, the Community Schools partnership with the United Way, and the Leader in Me program, which teaches students engagement, skill development and self-advocacy. Leader in Me is now branching upward from the elementary school level through the district.

Pension challenge

But Roy also spoke about the challenges, namely the dual “backbreakers” of state pensions and charter schools.

The pension situation has been one of unending grief for years and continues to hamper expedient governance in the capitol. While Roy did not pursue the pension topic beyond describing it as “a killer,” he did lay out some numbers regarding charter schools that may be new to some.

Charter challenge

Every student sent from a district school to a charter school costs the district at least $10,000, because the onus of financial responsibility still lies with the district. And while districts could once rely on some compensation from the state, former Gov. Tom Corbett had eliminated charter reimbursements, which had amounted to about 25 to 30 percent per student.

Roy said current charter students are costing the district about $20 million a year, whereas if those students were to all come back to district schools, with new teachers and everything else they needed, they would cost only about $5.8 million. “Without arguing for or against charter schools, the cost of school choice is about $15 million to the district,” Roy said.

“We’ve done a good job by any measure of controlling our expenditures. Those two we can’t control are hurting us. But we’ve rebuilt our fund balance … from 5 to 8 percent of the budget [is available] like for now, when the state doesn’t have a budget, we have a fund balance to draw from if we need to make payroll. We’re not there yet, but if the state doesn’t come up with a budget in the next few months we could be.”

Partnerships

One area Roy said the district really excels in is community partnerships.

“I don’t think any district can touch us on the number and depth and quality of the partnerships that we have,” Roy said. “From the city to local colleges to many many nonprofits, [there is] a huge range of partners that we have. When you have 14,000 students and 50 percent of them are coming from challenging circumstances, we cannot overcome the challenges society throws at our kids in our schools by ourselves.

“It’s through the partnerships that we deliver the services, help the kids make up for what they may not be getting outside school so they can at least have an equal shot at being successful. That’s what our focus is.

“We can’t do it alone. We can’t do it without our community partners supporting us.”