The Reading School District will receive $41 million in state funding for the 2024-25 school year, thanks to a bipartisan state budget passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Josh Shapiro in July.
The amount represents an increase of just over $10 million over the state grants the district received last school year.
The Governor and Secretary of Education Dr. Khalid N. Mumin joined state legislators, students, teachers and others at Amanda E. Stout Elementary School in Reading on Friday for a bill signing ceremony and program highlighting the budget’s investments in public education, including the creation of a new adequacy formula to direct money to schools that need it most.
“The Reading School District is set to receive $41 million in new funding, right?” Shapiro said. “But listen, $25.6 million is coming to this district because we changed the formula to make sure the money goes where it’s needed most. And that’s going to have a huge impact for years to come. That’s a huge win.”
The new budget includes an additional $285 million for basic education and a $100 million increase in funding for special education. It also includes a $526 million increase in funding through the Ready to Learn Block Grants program, which is designed to improve learning opportunities and provide schools with resources for local innovation.
This year’s Ready to Learn grants also serve as a conduit for what the Governor has called adequate funding to help level the playing field for historically underfunded districts.
Pennsylvania’s budget calls for huge investments in public education
“I remember standing before you and saying that the Reading School District was the most poorly funded and underserved district in the Commonwealth,” said Mumin, the district’s former superintendent. “We just wanted the opportunity to level the playing field.”
Mumin thanked Shapiro for driving historic investments in education in two consecutive fiscal years.
“And I tell you, with these investments, our schools are ready for generations of greatness,” said Mumin.
The funding builds on the state’s investment in education in 2023-24 and will enable Reading to continue, expand and build on initiatives begun last school year, said district Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Murray.
The funds would provide better access to resources such as mental health support, more teachers to improve teacher-student ratios and more literacy courses to give younger students a good start, she said.
One of the many initiatives funded with state money last year, Murray said, is a program called Beyond the Classroom, which allows students to take three educational field trips a year. The children were able to visit the Reading Public Museum and many other places, she said.
In addition, funds were used for professional development for teachers, security measures in schools, the renovation of older buildings and facilities, and increased staff, including hiring additional teachers, social workers, counselors and school security officers, and increasing salaries for staff.
The district was able to offer paid internships that gave high school students hands-on experience in the career fields of their choice, Murray said.
“It was a different kind of learning for the students that doesn’t happen in the classroom,” she said.
Some of the interns worked as teaching assistants in elementary and middle schools and supervised younger students in afterschool and summer programs. For some, the experience sparked a desire to become teachers, Murray said.
“Remember, our students are 90% Latino; they are bilingual and bicultural,” she said. “We now have a pool of potential teacher candidates that will help support our diversity and build a diverse teacher workforce in the Reading School District in four years.”
One of those interns is Jose Martinez, who worked with third graders in the Ready.Set.Read! program funded by the United Way of Berks County.
The internship not only allowed him to gain teaching experience, but also to earn a small income and receive instruction in budgeting and investing.
Martinez, who is now beginning his penultimate year at Reading High School, said he knows firsthand how much the district’s students would benefit from the increase in state education funding.
Other speakers at the event included Senator Judy Schwank, Representative Manny Guzman Jr. and Brian Benkert, president of the Reading Education Association.
Shapiro invited the audience of teachers, school board members, parents and students to join him at the table and participate in the ceremonial signing, which was followed by a brief question-and-answer session.
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