School for vets' kids could lose state funds

Coming from a city where too many schools are unsafe and battered by age and indifference, they believe their school to be a refuge.

It's a place where 288 third-through-12th graders live in cottages and attend classes on a 183-acre campus on rolling green hills.

This is why the students and their parents - mostly Philadelphians - simply love the Scotland School for Veterans' Children, in rural Franklin County, Pa.

Now, they are devastated, vowing to fight for the survival of the 114-year-old boarding school, which Gov. Rendell believes is too expensive to keep open in these tight economic times.

Rendell, during his budget address Wednesday, said that the school was among programs "whose goals may be laudable, but which fall outside the core functions of state government."

He noted that the school, operated by the state's Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, costs taxpayers $45,000 a year per student. By comparison, just under $10,000 per student is spent by the Philadelphia School District.

The decision to cut state funding is a death sentence for the Scotland School, which opened in 1895 to teach war orphans and has evolved into a residential school for children related to veterans and those on active duty.

Of the school's $13.5 million annual budget, $10.5 million comes from the state.

"There is no question that other viable options exist for the Scotland School students," Rendell said.

The most obvious option for the nearly 180 students from Philadelphia is to enroll in a city school if their school closes in June.

The district has scheduled a 10 a.m. meeting tomorrow at its 440 N. Broad St. headquarters to explain the transition to Scotland parents.

But the prospect of moving their children to city schools has roiled Scotland's tight-knit parents' association and Philadelphia alumni chapter.

"We have kids with both parents fighting in the war zone, some are stationed in other states," said Virginia James, president of the Scotland School Parent Association. "With all this foolishness going on in the city, they feel safer with their children at Scotland."

Though her grandson graduated from Scotland in 1992, James, of West Philadelphia, has stayed involved because, she said, "I like the students, I like the parents, I like the school. The children would be devastated if it closed."

Brenda Wingfield, of Logan, already has been disappointed after learning that her two grandchildren could not attend two of the city's highest-performing magnet schools.

Masterman High said that her 11th-grader granddaughter would be too old to transfer as a senior in the fall, Wingfield said, while Bodine High said that her 9th-grader grandson would have to be placed on a waiting list.

Wingfield, who has had custody of her grandkids since their mother died, now fears that the transition for many Scotland students may not be so smooth.

"Are we going to have kids who have been at the Scotland School since third grade coming back to a local school with big classes and becoming dropouts?" Wingfield wondered.

"We're mad," said James, 86. "We're not going to take this laying down. We're going to call representatives, senators, Governor Rendell, whatever we have to do."

Some lawmakers are already on board.

Rendell's proposal to eliminate the school's funding "is a slap in the face" to veterans and their families, said state Rep. Rob Kauffman, whose district includes the school.

State Rep. James Roebuck, chairman of the House Education Committee, said that he and a number of other legislators are looking into the governor's proposal.

He said that although the school's per-pupil spending is "fairly high," the school has merit.

"I would hope there's a way to maintain that school," said Roebuck, a Philadelphia Democrat. "I know they do a good job of educating the kids, and they [the kids] seem to like the environment." *