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Guard troops miss monthly pay

AMANDA PALLESCHI AND MONICA VON DOBENECK
Of the Patriot-News

Pennsylvania National Guard members eligible for a monthly stipend for their service are being denied the payments because of the state's budget impasse. 

National Guard troops who are state employees but are on active duty -- many of whom are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan – are owed $520 a month.

But those payments have been suspended because the state has not enacted a budget for the fiscal year that started July 1, said Kevin Cramsey, a spokesman for the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

They will be paid in full once a budget is passed. There are 1,782 Pennsylvania National Guard members employed by state agencies, Cramsey said. Of that number, 568 are eligible for the monthly payments because of their active-duty status. So far, 77 service members were denied the $520 owed to them for June that was to have been paid Friday. And the 568 service members might not get their stipends for their service in July and August. 

"If things stay the way they are right now, they may not see their August payment," said Chris Cleaver, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania National Guard.   State employees deployed overseas might, in some cases, be better off financially there, while being paid by the federal government, than they would be as state employees at home, Cramsey said.

On Friday, 33,384 state workers didn't receive paychecks. An additional 44,234 won't receive them next Friday. After a budget is passed, they will get back pay. The same goes for the stipends for those on active duty.  The Department of Military and Veterans Affairs said the $520 monthly stipends might or might not have financial significance for soldiers receiving biweekly payments from the federal government.

But the payments carry a more symbolic significance, Cramsey said.

"If you boil it down, it's just the employer saying, 'thank you' for whatever their mission is," Cramsey said.  Cramsey said he couldn't say how Guard families would be affected by the delay of their stipends.  

Scott Detrow, a WITF radio reporter embedded with the Pennsylvania National Guard's 56th Stryker Brigade, first reported on his Twitter feed Thursday morning that members of that unit were dissatisfied with the impasse. His posts are at www.twitter.com/witfimpactofwar.  

He said, "A lot of state workers in 56th, and everyone I've talked to is miffed about ongoing impasse. Many blame Governor Rendell for the delay."  

Cramsey said his office hasn't heard the complaints Detrow reported. But he said he understands there may be a sense of frustration and indignation.  

"As they see it, this is part of their compensation, and they feel they should be paid appropriately," he said.

Spin cycle: OGO makes its gravity defying debut at Ski Roundtop

AMANDA PALLESCHI
Of the Patriot-News

The ball is waiting for you. 

All 6 feet of plastic -- carefully wrapped inside 11 feet more of plastic with 1,000 plastic anchors and 600 multicolored nylon strings -- is sitting atop a hill, waiting for you.  

That hill will seem much steeper once they open the steel gate keeping the OGO ball -- and you -- from rolling and spinning and flying down.  

Ski Roundtop employees haul the ball up the hill with a large crate, tugged by a man on a four-wheeler. They spray it with water to give it traction and roll it into place on top of the hill.   Now it's yours. 

All you have to do is crawl inside the ball's small, zippered hole and plunk down into five gallons of icy water inside. Get comfy in that water: You're about to go for a ride, and it won't stay beneath your seat for long.  Like cattle ranchers letting out a herd, they open the gate and give the ball a hard push.

You're off. Your bones are a pile of laundry on spin cycle. Your sight is a blur of dewy plastic. Your senses are in overdrive, a mix of plasticy friction, a jumbled adrenaline rush.  

Hersheypark's sooperdooperLooper it isn't. But as you slosh and spin and soak yourself, you just might let out a high-pitched shriek. 

 "Agggghhhhhhh!"  

At the bottom of the hill, they unzip the zipper that keeps you inside the OGO ball, and you crawl out of the hole as they slowly drain the water.   "This is the part commonly referred to as 'The birth,' " says Chris Roberts, OGO ball CEO.  

First, it was the 'zorb'  

Roberts, 31, is the OGO master.   Six years ago, the Maryland native took a month's vacation in New Zealand "because it was the outdoor adventure capital of the world" and got so hooked on the OGO ball concept there that he quit his full-time job to use his mechanical engineering experience helping OGO's inventors, New Zealand natives Andrew and David Akers, perfect it. 

The ball made its U.S. debut as the "zorb" in Tennessee. The "new, improved" and trademarked OGO debuted in Amesbury, Mass., last summer. 

Roberts is methodical about the OGOs. While the company is looking to expand to other outlets in the U.S., he won't leave town "until Ski Roundtop knows exactly what I do" and until he gets the final go-ahead from the state's amusement division on the second type of OGO ride – where riders are harnessed inside the ball. 

"We are soaked"  

It's difficult to describe exactly what being inside the OGO is like, but 10-year-old Payton Koontz, who visited Ski Roundtop on Wednesday with a Bible day camp, gave it a shot.

"It's, like, really cold because of all the water, and you get dizzy and the water is actually, like, going over your head and it's all spinny and stuff," Payton said.

Jacob Legg, 8, had a simpler thought as he wiggled a drenched gym sock into his sneakers after his OGO run: 

"We are soaked!"

Here’s the dope: It’s open season on pot

AMANDA PALLESCHI
Of the Patriot-News

The Army helicopter Boise 83 hovers 500 feet above Adams County farm country, making circles and loops.

Boise is military code for a helicopter aiding in a drug-enforcement operation; 83 is the number of the helicopter that would help eradicate 300 marijuana plants -- an estimated $600,000 in street value -- on Wednesday alone.

The crew, Capt. Ernie Carlson of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard and state police Cpl. Kenny Hassinger of the Troop H vice unit, scan the fields below for bright-green stalks of marijuana, sometimes up to 7 feet high.

At first, it seems impossible to tell pot from sumac weeds, but Hassinger promises, "Once you see the first one, it's gonna stand out like a neon sign."

After about an hour in the air, Boise 83 makes a sudden, sharp right turn.

"There's the dope," Carlson says.

Minutes later, he adds: "Holy crap. There's a lot more."

Targeting two plants

It's high season for eradicating marijuana, and the Pennsylvania National Guard Counterdrug Program, based at Fort Indiantown Gap, predicts it will surpass last season's haul -- more than 8,000 marijuana plants seized between June and October.

While there is a medical marijuana industry in California and a grass-roots push to decriminalize possession there, similar efforts are stalled in Pennsylvania.

For Carlson, who spends six hours in the air, five days a week, scouring for pot, and National Guard Lt. Col. Robert Hepner, the head of the counterdrug program, marijuana is not up for debate.

"It's an illegal narcotic. It is a gateway drug," Hepner says. "I always get asked why the National Guard does this. ... We bring unique military skills to bear in supporting eradication."

The counterdrug operation typically targets two types of plants: "corn dope," or plants grown in corn fields, and "scrub dope," or plants grown in the woods, typically marked off by barbed wire.

The plants sport bulbs at the bottom, similar to potted tomato plants. That's because most of the marijuana grown in Pennsylvania starts as potted, indoor plants. Seeds are typically purchased online, Hassinger says.

The National Guard's counterdrug operation spends about two weeks with each state police post. Local and state police get tips about where marijuana is being grown, but the state troopers and Guard members often know from years of experience that pot likely is being grown in a particular area.

It's eradication time

That's the case Wednesday.

Once the men in the helicopter spot the stalks, neon green dots in a cornfield, they signal to six state troopers in cars.

"Boise 83. We have a specific on one of these residences around here," Hassinger signals.

The troopers pull up to a large, rural residence, letting the homeowners know they'll be going through their cornfields with machetes. Property owners often are unaware that marijuana is being grown on their land, Hassinger says.

Then it's eradication time. Hovering 500 feet above, Carlson directs the action on the ground: "In the middle of the field there ... go one row up. Now skip 10."

Sometimes the troopers will spot someone on a nearby ATV, and follow them for questioning. Today, there is no such suspect. The troopers take their haul to a nearby airport, where Carlson and Hassinger land just before an evening thunderstorm begins. At the end of the day, the 300-plant haul is logged into evidence at the state police barracks in Gettysburg.

Eventually, they'll take a torch and diesel fuel to the plants.

"Not a bad haul for today," Carlson says.

Graduate clears haze, thanks to caring friends

AMANDA PALLESCHI
Of the Patriot-News

Nic Tibbens' journey to high school graduation began when he met a girl named Jessica.

On a weekend evening in summer 2007, he'd run out of money for his usual activities: No funds left for smoking pot or drinking or dropping acid.

So he decided to stay home, where he found fellow Mechanicsburg Area Senior High School student Jessica Easterbrook's MySpace page.

Saddened by a recent breakup with an abusive boyfriend, she posted a plea on the social networking Web site for help. She didn't want to bother her friends or family, and she wanted someone to talk to.

"If I see somebody who needs help, I try to help them," Nic said. In turn, Jessica, 16, helped Nic. After their first date, at a high school football game, they clicked. But Jessica knew he was involved with drugs. She couldn't keep seeing him. She remembers their conversation back then.

"I can't be with someone who does that stuff," she said at the time.

"OK, I'm done with it then," Nic remembers saying.

"Why?" Jessica asked him.

"Because I like you."

And so Nic Tibbens, 18, stopped attending classes in a sleepy, drug-addled haze. He started looking his teachers in the eye when he spoke to them.

It wasn't easy at first, he said. Sometimes he wanted to go smoke pot in downtown Mechanicsburg. It was his routine.

"But I just felt differently about her than I normally did about girls," he said of Jessica.

He got better grades, sometimes just barely passing classes. He studied carpentry through the vo-tech program offered through Mechanicsburg Area Senior High School and Cumberland Perry Area Vocational Technical School.

He pays rent to live in a crowded apartment with Jessica's family with money from his job at an auto body shop, and will join the Army Reserve as a carpenter this summer.

Some day, he'd like to open his own cabinetry and furniture business.

Once a child who knew abuse and drug addiction, Tibbens received his diploma Monday knowing accomplishment.

"You would not bet a million dollars he was going to graduate a year and a half ago," said Gail Heistand, a guidance counselor at the high school.

"He's even gone around to every teacher and apologized for 'being a bad ass' in their class," Heistand said.

All because he met a girl named Jessica.

Church’s fair connects employers with nervous, hopeful job seekers

AMANDA PALLESCHI
Of the Patriot-News

Brian Radabaugh's tired hands clutched a fine-tipped pen, the hands that for years worked binding books at Fry Communications in Mechanicsburg, the hands that push his 10-year-old son on the park swings, the hands that robbed homes and sold pot back in the 1990s.

On Monday, those hands filled out applications for any work the 43-year-old Mechanicsburg resident could find at the Why? at the Well's first job fair. Along with more than 120 job seekers, they scribbled down name, age, Social Security number and last employer over and over again.

Radabaugh was fired from Fry -- too many late starts after too many nights partying, he said. He's been looking for work and trying to turn his life around for his son, who lives with Radabaugh and Radabaugh's parents.

But the local restaurants he's walked to for the last six months -- he no longer has a driver's license -- aren't hiring, and that's before Radabaugh gets a chance to explain his criminal record.

"It really sucks," he said. "They need to have more job fairs like these."

The Rev. Brian Rosenbaum is promising to hold more fairs like the one held Monday at his Why? at the Well, a youth community center affiliated with Landmark Baptist Church on Simpson Street in Mechanicsburg. He began calling all the employers he found in local classifieds hiring more than one or two people. It was part of Rosenbaum's larger efforts to get local high school youths off the streets and out of trouble during the summer, he said.

But most of the people who showed up looking for jobs at Rosenbaum's fair weren't kids. They were adults, many of whom were thankful not just for the job leads from vendors such as McDonald's, KFC, Mary Kay cosmetics and Aflac Insurance, but for the free lunch the church provided.

"It's been eye-opening to me," Rosenbaum said.

 Jeff Robinson's hands shook as they clutched a job application.

The 44-year-old Mechanicsburg man had just finished his free hamburger provided by the church, and he said he was stressed and nervous. He hasn't been eating much since the bar he tends cut his hours.

Now, he gets in about 10 hours a week at $5 an hour plus tips. He found the job fair after picking up cigarettes at the CVS on Simpson Street and decided to stop in. His eyeglasses are missing a lens on the left side, and he's been kicked out of his apartment complex. He needs a second gig to pay the bills.

He thought some of the jobs up for grabs at Rosenbaum's fair didn't sound half bad.

Still sitting on a fold-out chair in the church's gymnasium clutching his pen, Radabaugh filled out the last blank on his application to mop up spilled beer and serve hot dogs at Harrisburg Senators baseball games.

He listed his criminal record: burglary, forgery, delivery of marijuana. Then he filled out the last blank in the application with a single sentence: "This is not the life I want to live, need to be given a chance."

No ‘boring days’ for bomb squad: Whether scares turn out to be real or funny, every suspicious package is a serious matter

AMANDA PALLESCHI
Of the Patriot-News

Sgt. Joe Davidson was doing chores around his Cumberland County home on Sunday when the phone rang sometime before noon. It was the Mechanicsburg police.

"Suspicious package," they told him.

So Davidson called the three officers on Sunday duty at the Pennsylvania State Police Bomb Squad, put on his big green, puffy bomb suit (not to be confused with a haz-mat suit) and headed to Citizens Bank at Main and Market streets in Mechanicsburg.

"Every police officer in this country is told that it's not your job to open the suspicious package," said Davidson, the squad's commander. "It's ours."

About half of bomb scares turn out to be the real thing, statistics provided by state police showed.

In the end, the suspicious package found in the alcove of the bank that closed the intersection for three hours Sunday was filled with packing peanuts.

Davidson knows most people think: Packing peanuts? Was all that fanfare really necessary?

He said he saw the packing peanuts and thought: "OK, hey, it's not a bomb. Let's get the street open. Let's get back to our lives."

It's an attitude cultivated over the five years since the agency's inception in 2004. Since that time, the calls it has received have proved that it is in fact a serious business -- one that does, on occasion, take a turn for the humorous, Davidson said.

There was the call about the guy who found a dead possum on his porch.

"A neighborhood dispute of some sort," Davidson said. "The guy wasn't expecting a package. If it's suspicious for any reason, we have to treat everything the same way."

There was the guy in suit and tie who walked into a cafeteria in the state Capitol and threw an empty briefcase into a trash can.

"You had a cafeteria full of people who are conditioned to look for things out of place, who are suspicious," Davidson said of the Capitol incident. "It's often a string of harmless events put together that start to become suspicious."

Except when it isn't harmless. For every dead possum and empty briefcase, there's a pipe bomb or a hand grenade, Davidson said.

"It can be a little bit irritating sometimes when people think we blew things out of proportion, and it must have been a boring day," Davidson said. "Every month, we are dealing with real explosive devices."

Three weeks ago, Davidson's squad took helicopters to Altoona, where they assisted in a police chase of a man whom the squad found to have six pipe bombs strapped to the front of his vehicle, ready to go.

That, Davidson said, was not a boring day.

Male coaches walk fine line in girls’ sports: The debate grows over what coaches can and can’t do in interacting with players. Accusations by athletes and parents have three in this area under fire.

AMANDA PALLESCHI
Of the Patriot-News

The scene could have leapt off the pages of any high school sports screenplay. Think "Remember the Titans" or "Bring it On" or "Friday Night Lights."

Except it was a Thursday night, May 21, at the Northern York County School Board meeting. The debate about Northern High School girls field hockey coach Edwin Graham was heating up.

Graham, of Dillsburg, a retired school district employee and father of two and grandfather of three, sat at the back of the room and listened.

Greg Urey, a parent of a field hockey player, turned to face Graham. "I need to address you, sir," he said. "My daughter wants you to pay for this. Don't let it happen again."

Urey, along with field hockey parent Donna Ruth, alleged that Graham, 63, has a history of "manhandling" certain players on the team, snapping drawstrings on athletic shorts, pushing his thumbs into collarbones and pushing players into correct positions on the field.

But a cohort of athletic and indignant teenage girls showed up that Thursday night to tell a different story.

"He's been a fatherly figure who always offers encouragement and support," team member Lucinda Kauffman said into the microphone.

Graham has said he spends sleepless nights during field hockey season worrying about the girls' well-being. He isn't the only male coach of a girls' team in the midstate under fire recently.

On that same May night, Bret Sparks, the Lower Dauphin High School girls' softball coach and a physical-education teacher, was suspended from teaching without pay and resigned as coach after one current and two former students alleged that he made inappropriate sexual comments about a female student's appearance. Sparks did not return calls to his home for comment.

On Monday, Cumberland Valley High School softball coach Gregg Williams found himself under criticism from 40 parents and girls' softball players who packed a school board meeting, complaining that the coach intimidates players into staying silent on concerns about his coaching. Williams did not attend the meeting, and a review by the Cumberland Valley school board is pending.

Parents concerned about the way coaches interact with players isn't confined to girls' sports. Last year, a Northern High wrestling coach was acquitted of harassment following allegations that he had smacked a wrestler. In Derry Twp. last year, coaches were to undergo additional training after parents complained about how players were being treated.

As for girls' sports, participation at the high school level has been soaring. More money is available, with partial and full college scholarships in the offing for those who excel. Graham estimated he's had about seven girls go on to play Division I field hockey in his seven years at Northern.

Women's athletics can create different sets of expectations, values and conversations, Graham said.

"It's hard to be a male coach of a female sport," he said. "What I consider to be a problem may not be a problem. What I consider not to be a problem may be a problem because of the different perspective and age level."

The players who supported Graham -- and they were in the majority -- insisted that he has been a dedicated coach and mentor. The allegations made by a few parents are politically motivated exaggerations by busybody parents, former team captain Natalie Slugg said.

Slugg, 19, a 2008 Northern graduate, credited Graham with helping her secure a small scholarship to play Division II field hockey at Kutztown University. When Graham got gruff, it was meant to motivate, she said.

"We goofed off. I can see how it was hard for him to get our attention," Slugg said. "I have seen him touch the goalies' helmets. I have never seen him yank them forcefully. He would hold the goalies' helmets when he would talk to people on the team. He would hold our stick so we weren't goofing off. He'd put his hand on your shoulder and say, 'You need to pay attention to me.'"

The district said it has fully investigated the allegations against Graham, and issued him a "prescription for improvement"—the contents of which the school board considers a private, personnel matter.

When Ruth filed a request with the state Office of Open Records to receive a copy, the office ruled in favor of the district. Ruth's appeal of that decision is pending.

Neither the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association, the governing body of scholastic sports, nor the state Department of Education makes policies with regard to coach conduct, hiring and firing of coaches.

Instead, the PIAA's bylaws state that "upon satisfactory compliance with applicable laws relating to completion of required background checks, schools may hire as coaches any persons who meet their local criteria."

In other words, it's up to the school district to decide what's appropriate.

"We don't have any hard-and-fast details of what a coach must do," said Robert A. Lombardi, the PIAA's associate executive director. "They are under direct supervision and hiring provisions of the local schools."

Terry Fromson, a managing attorney with the Women's Law Project, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that takes cases relating to women's issues such as Title IX and athletic equity, said sexual- and physical-harassment allegations are one aspect of athletic inequity that still persist.

Because local school boards come with their own sets of internal politics, open dialogue among girls and their school is all the more important, Fromson said.

"Many young women aren't aware of what's unlawful and inappropriate," she said.

Unwanted sexual comments and verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature is included in the legal definition of sexual harassment, Fromson said. In a coach-student situation, any unwanted touching of a girl is not appropriate, Fromson said.

Gerald Schwille, athletic director at Northern High, said he is concerned that complaints about coaches will keep some qualified coaches from joining teams.

"It's already extremely hard for all athletic directors to find coaches and keep them," Schwille said. "Things like this will certainly only make it more difficult. It's not healthy to keep talking about it. They just want to move on."

Schools form plan B for budgets

AMANDA PALLESCHI AND JAN MURPHY
Of the Patriot-News

As the clock ticks on Gov. Ed Rendell and the Legislature to finalize a state budget, midstate school districts -- with their own budgets just wrapped up or nearing that point -- are watching the politicking in the state Capitol with caution and anxiety.

While district officials have grown accustomed to passing their budgets for the coming fiscal year before they know what they'll be getting from the state, officials in many districts report more uncertainty surrounding the budgets, with many considering plan A, plan B and worst-case scenarios.

The injection of federal stimulus dollars into the school district budgeting equation and disputes within the Capitol over the use of that money have many district officials nervous.

Throw in the recession, and it has made for what one official called the worst set of circumstances to figure out a school budget that he ever remembers.

"There is no good course of action. They are all equally bad," said Jay Himes, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials.

Most of the federal education stimulus dollars to be spent over two to three years are lumped into three categories: $1.6 billion for basic education funding, $399 million for Title I -- aid provided to help raise low-income children's achievement -- and $446 million for special education.

The latter two groups, as the state Department of Education and local school district officials describe it, are targeted, meaning the federal government restricts their use to specific purposes.

Further complicating matters is that Title I money is limited to school buildings in a district that have a concentration of low-income studentsIn Carlisle, five of 10 schools are eligible for Title I money. Superintendent Mary Kay Durham said the district wanted to use that money to hire literacy coaches for a new reading program. But those coaches can only be used at the schools that serve Title I students, leaving the district to bear the cost of hiring coaches at the other three elementary schools to balance that out.

"The frustrations are always there with having our budget passed before the state, but this year we're in more of a quandary than ever before because of the debate going on with the Senate and the governor's office trying to understand where stimulus money is going to fall," Durham said.

Rendell had proposed using $418 million of the stimulus money to boost basic education funding for next year to nearly $6 billion to keep schools on track to meet the second-year goal of a school funding formula put in place.

Senate Bill 850, which proposes rolling back state money for basic education and using $728.8 million of the stimulus dollars to bring funding to the 2008-09 level of $5.3 billion, was struck down by the House Appropriations Committee. Officials including Rendell, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan have spoken out against that plan.

Though the Senate education funding plan's passage into law seems unlikely, school districts are making tough decisions should anything close to the Senate Bill 850 be enacted.

"The amount of money in terms of the difference in the proposals is not insignificant," Himes said. "You usually don't have a zero to $418 million spread in terms of what the basic education line item will be between the different education budget proposals. ... For my members, it's made it a guessing game and that's something they simply abhor."

There is also disagreement between some senators and local school officials when it comes to what districts can do with the targeted stimulus money, said Diane Castelbuono, the deputy secretary of elementary and secondary education for the state Department of Education.

Hearing elected officials say they can use those targeted dollars to replace basic education funding is "inaccurate and misleading at best," she said.

But a spokesman for Senate Republicans said his caucus' members have never advocated doing that, nor does Senate Bill 850 require it. It relies on the stimulus aid for basic education, along with state dollars, to fund districts' basic education needs at the current year's level, and the targeted money is in addition to that, said spokesman Erik Arneson.

"That means overall schools are going to have in many cases, double-digit percentage increases," he said.

In Mechanicsburg, one of the smaller midstate districts with a primarily residential property tax base, officials settled on an estimate between the governor's budget and the Senate Republicans' figure when calculating state aid for basic education.

But they've also made a worst-case scenario that includes eliminating three teacher positions in two or three years, assuming stimulus money expires and the basic education subsidy stays at current levels.

If the state passes a budget that looks more like Senate Bill 850, the board will have to reopen its budget and look at that option for next year, said Mechanicsburg school board president Dawn Merris.

"We think we have a good plan, and a plan B set in place, but until the state comes in with good numbers, we can't get much further. We have no more control," Merris said.

Other districts are opening up teacher contracts in an effort to drive down personnel costs. Carlisle might cut textbook purchases if its best guess on state funding doesn't pan out.

Central Dauphin School District will re-evaluate all purchases, maintenance and repairs, and consider using some of its $10 million fund balance if the $700,000 increase in state aid for basic education that was budgeted falls through, district spokeswoman Shannon Kuntz said.

In the Northern York School District, the school board passed a budget with a state estimate closer to Rendell's February figures, with the understanding they might have to reopen and consider eliminating expenses for some construction projects.

"I don't know whether the Senate is posturing or not," said outgoing Northern York Superintendent Brian Small. "It's a crystal ball at this point."

Harrisburg School District took the same approach as Northern York. Superintendent Gerald Kohn said his district is used to this kind of state funding upheaval since its budget relies heavily on state and federal aid.

In Harrisburg, 32 percent of its budget is funded by local taxes, while the average local share is 68 percent.

"Of course, we are hopeful that the state funding will be at the level we are budgeting, but if it is less than that, we will, as we have in each of the past three years, adjust our budget and reduce programs accordingly," Kohn said.

Duncan, the U.S. education secretary, stated in a letter to Rendell that the state "has an obligation to play its part in spurring today's economy and protecting our children's education." Duncan indicated he was disappointed that Senate Bill 850 chose to cut state spending on education, instead of tapping the state's $750 million Rainy Day Fund, to boost it. He called it a "disservice to our children" and said it threatened the state's ability to compete for stimulus-funded discretionary grants.

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware County, wrote to Casey and U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., last week, urging them to try to get Duncan to back off his threat.

"The commonwealth cannot spend what it does not have, and we should not increase taxes at a time when so many hard-working families are struggling to make ends meet," Pileggi wrote.  He added it appeared Duncan was trying to pressure the General Assembly into going along with Rendell's proposed half percentage point increase in the state's 3.07 personal income tax needed to support his $29 billion budget proposal.

Sen. Lloyd Smucker, R-Lancaster County, issued a statement Tuesday arguing that Pennsylvania taxpayers already invest a lot of money every year to bolster classroom instruction.

"The effort to control state spending and balance the state budget without a tax increase is not anti-education. Rather, it is respectful of the wishes of the majority of Pennsylvania taxpayers," Smucker said.

But Rendell and other Democrats, who support his budget proposal, argue that without increased state funding for schools, districts will be forced to increase taxes at the local level, and as Rendell said, "eliminate the extraordinary progress that our schools have made in increasing student achievement."

Staff writer Mary Klaus contributed to this report.

New special ed rule raises questions: Policy lets parents withdraw children without challenge

AMANDA PALLESCHI
Of the Patriot-News

A new federal regulation that limits a school's ability to advocate for students has midstate governments, parents and schools scratching their heads. Parents can opt to withdraw their child from receiving special-education services -- and school districts cannot challenge their decision.

The change in the federal Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act went into effect Dec. 31, the day the state Department of Education sent a notice of the change to the state's districts.

School boards and special-education directors are worried about the policy's potential to increase the caseload of disciplinary issues that must be reported to the state. Parents and special education advocates said the policy change also brings old problems -- particularly communication between parents and schools -- into the limelight.

"I think it's short-sighted," Sharyn Denham said.  The New Cumberland woman has served on the board of the Learning Disabilities Association of Pennsylvania for over 20 years.  She became involved with the group after advocating for her son David, now 31.

The Drexel University civil engineering graduate had trouble with reading while in school and was diagnosed with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder in second grade. Denham had to get an outside evaluation for David to obtain an individualized education plan.

Parents such as Denham, who want more -- not less – special education for their children, are far more common, said Amy Slody, a Lancaster-based lawyer who specializes in special-education law.

But Slody sees other parents who want to remove the "special education"  label from their children's academic profiles. Most often, these are students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, high-functioning autism or behavioral problems. They can function in mainstream classrooms with help or guidelines.

Slody and other advocates said the fear of stigma can paralyze parents with good intentions from seeking special-education services for their children.

"I have parents come to me and say, 'They want to label my child' and want to take the label away," Slody said.

The fear resonates with even those parents who have had to push for more help in classrooms.

"When I had my son identified, my mother thought I was horrible. She envisioned it as saying he was inferior," Denham said.

Sue Deremer's eighth-grade daughter reads at a third-grade level. To obtain an individualized education plan, the girl has been labeled "mentally retarded" -- a label Deremer finds so damaging she doesn't share it with her daughter.

"They told me they had to label her with something to give her the services," the Lower Allen Twp. woman said. "I needed her to have those services. ... It's a fight every year to get what you need as it is."

The policy change was made to acknowledge that parents know their children's needs best and should be able to fight those fights with schools on their behalf.

Alicia McDonald of the Capital Area Intermediate Unit said a "handful" of its 24-member school districts have heard from parents who may remove their children from special education services under the new policy.

While parents have long had the upper hand under federal and state law in special-education issues, a school district could challenge a parent's decision regarding special-education services in front of a hearing officer before the policy change.

Now, if parents revoke consent for their children to receive special-education services the school cannot hold a hearing when it disagrees. Joel Dixon, the supervisor of student services, explained the new regulation to the Mechanicsburg school board at a recent meeting, saying:  "This means our hands are pretty much tied."

"The government, parents and teachers just haven't gotten together on what's really best for kids," Mechanicsburg Superintendent Joseph Hood said. "Parents should have the ultimate say, but lawmakers need to understand there are instances where the school needs to advocate in the interests of a child, too."

Some school districts fear the federal change could have consequences for disciplinary issues in mainstream classrooms. If a parent withdraws his child from special education, the student becomes subject to mainstream disciplinary guidelines. If the student is later expelled, the action must be reported to the state Department of Education. Students with special-education classifications are not subject to the same disciplinary guidelines.

Slody often sees school districts present parents with limited options, wary of spending too much money and resources on a particular student. She sees the flip side, too -- an accommodating school district frustrated with a student struggling in a mainstream classroom, unable to do anything.

Denham and Deremer don't deny the emotional impact of special-education labels -- or that finding the best education takes hard work. Denham encourages parents to let go of the labeling issue and arm themselves with information.

"There is no reason to associate stigma with an identification," Denham said. "The stigma of not learning how to read was more of a stigma than having an identification that would protect him."

Hill Top’s 1st year: 40 calls to police: Officials say problems at alternative school, which serves students with severe emotional, physical and social needs, are just growing pains.

AMANDA PALLESCHI
Of the Patriot-News

The school on Winding Hill Road in Upper Allen Twp. hasn't completed its flagship year, but its rap sheet reads like that of a blighted city avenue: drug violations, disorderly conduct, institutional vandalism, weapon possession, aggravated assault.  

Since Hill Top Academy opened last fall as part of the Capital Area Intermediate Unit, Upper Allen Twp. police have received 40 calls from the school's staff, 19 of which have resulted in criminal charges.  

The school has 100 students with severe emotional, physical and social needs in grades K-12, from the intermediate unit's 24-member school districts.  The intermediate unit provides a range of educational services to midstate school districts, including alternative education.  

This week, police charged a 16-year-old Hill Top student with aggravated assault, simple assault, harassment and disorderly conduct after he was accused of assaulting two Hill Top teachers, who suffered minor injuries in the April 22 incident.  Administrators and intermediate unit officials said the alleged incidents were part of the natural growing pains for the first year of an alternative-education institution. 

They also said the setup is preferable to prior years, when the population Hill Top serves was scattered in classrooms throughout the midstate.  Upper Allen police said the consolidation of the students in one space brings a consolidation of the problems and crime that a more high-maintenance student population can cause.  

"We have a disproportionate amount of call volume to this school, more than any other school," said Upper Allen police chief James Adams.  

For example, in the 2006-07 school year, nearby Mechanicsburg Area High School reported 39 arrests among its 1,229 students, according to the state Department of Education Web site.  

"But the staff at Hill Top is not just calling us to settle their minor problems," Adams said. "When they call us, it has escalated to the point where one of our staff needs to be called.  They truly exhaust all their internal measures to try to solve the problem."  

Prior to Hill Top, the intermediate unit used the West Shore School District's Cedar Run Elementary in Lower Allen Twp. as well as other classrooms throughout the midstate to educate students who needed alternative options, said Todd Kehler, Hill Top's head administrator and building supervisor.  

Hill Top's Upper Allen location gives midstate districts a centralized location to use a regular classroom setting in hopes it will help students avoid run-ins with juvenile courts and more permanent, residential-treatment-type facilities in the future.  "Our charge is to try to get these kids back to their home school district," Kehler said.  

Kehler said his staff of 80 includes social workers, educational aides and occupational therapists who are trained in crisis management. Kehler said he does not view the school's bouts with criminal incidents as a failure.  

"I see it as we did everything we could, and we work hard with the families to try to make progress," he said.  The intermediate unit leases the Hill Top building from developer Winding Hill III Ltd. for $650,000 a year.  

Theresa Kinsinger, director of human resources and communications for the intermediate unit, said that, unlike the Cornell Abraxas facility in Harrisburg or the South Mountain Secure Treatment Unit in Franklin County, Hill Top is not intended for students who have been through the juvenile court system.  Like Shiremanstown's River Rock Academy, where the Big Spring school district educates alternative-education students, all students at Hill Top are referred there by public school districts.  

But there are students at Hill Top who have gone through the Cumberland County juvenile courts system.  

"And we have an obligation to serve these students well," Kinsinger said.