budgets

A swelling crowd of thousands of Philadelphia public school students left their classes at noon and marched outside the district headquarters on North Broad Street to protest proposed education cuts.

Educators want to give Minneapolis Public Schools more autonomy on budgets, hiring and schedules.

The talk of closing schools in Richmond is back on — and there’s a third school on the list.

The proposed budget would increase the school's portion of property taxes by 3 percent, from $9.57 to $9.86 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, while cutting dozens of positions.

The $85 billion in federal budget cuts known as sequestration are beginning to be felt far from the nation’s capital. Facing the task of cutting 142 children from the Head Start program in Colorado Springs this fall, the teachers and administrators came up with a creative response: Have the children decorate empty chairs, then sell them for $500 apiece to stave off the worst of the across-the-board federal cuts heading their way.

Pinellas County Schools officials hope to shave about $6.5 million off their budget by retooling special education programs. Closing the K12 Hamilton Disston School in Gulfport and moving the students to other schools is expected to save $1.8 million, while other special education staffing changes are expected to save an additional $4.7 million.

Watchung Hills (N.J.) Regional Board of Education members have been working on a new three-year plan to guide technology development and systems at the school, and the primary goal of a new plan set for a board vote next week is to expand the school network to a 1GB wireless system.

Speaking at the monthly Board of Education meeting, Asean Johnson, 9, pointed out that schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett and board President David Vitale both visited the school last week and remarked on how quiet it was, how it had a "well-stocked library" and how "really exceptional" it was. "Why then are you closing Marcus Garvey when it has everything you say it should have?" Asean asked district leaders.

Three of Philadelphia's most innovative traditional public schools are set to expand, thanks to $6 million in grants from the nonprofit Philadelphia School Partnership. All told, Center City's Science Leadership Academy, Germantown's Hill-Freedman Middle School, and the Navy Yard's Sustainability Workshop are expected to add 1,600 new students over the next three years.

The Orleans Parish School Board is not properly accounting for the money it shares with the Recovery School District, resulting in $2.1 million misspent in fiscal year 2011, according to a report released yesterday by the Bureau of Governmental Research.