With the state budget still being finalized, and thousands of dollars in federal funds frozen, Northwest Area Superintendent Joseph Long said it was still unclear how the school district would be affected financially.

“So, there’s still just many questions that are facing our district financially over the next year that are not issues that we’ve addressed with our budget,” Long told the school during its monthly meeting this past Thursday in the high school library.

“We’re ready to go,” he added. “It’s just that we don’t know where all these other things are gonna fall over the year.”

Northwest Area previously passed its 2025-2026 school year budget with a 5% tax increase resulting in a new millage rate of 14.7984.

Mills are used for real estate taxation. A mill is $1 tax on every $1,000 in assessed value of real estate. For instance, a homeowner with a property assessed at $100,000 would have a $73.57 increase in taxes.

However, the budget does not take into account any state funding since the 2025-2026 state budget has not yet been finalized.

The Pennsylvania State House passed a proposed spending plan last week, and it will now move to the Senate for further discussion.

Long said the state previously projected that Northwest Area would receive roughly $30,000 in funding, but since nothing has been finalized, it’s hard to say exactly how much that amount will come to once the budget is approved.

Since the budget was lower than the amount initially proposed by Gov. Josh Shapiro, Long said it’s possible they might end up getting less than that projected amount.

Then, there’s the issue of federal funding freeze that occurred on June 30, with U.S Department of Education withholding millions of dollars owed to public schools.

Long said that includes funding from Title II and Title IV grants, which the school uses to provide training and professional development for teachers and to supplement supplies for the STEM program, music program, art program and various after school programs, as well as tutoring.

Long said about $60,000 is owed to the district from those grants.

Shapiro this week joined a lawsuit made up of 20 other schools that have sued the Trump Administration for freezing those funds.

Long also said that cyber school reform is needed, as legislation is currently being debated in state congress that would put a cap on cyber charter school tuition.

Northwest Area currently spends about $1.7 million on cyber school tuition per year. With 54 kids in the district enrolled in cyber school, that comes out to about $31,000 per student.

“As I’ve said a million times, I’m not against cyber schools,” Long said. “I think they serve a purpose for our kids and things like that. There are kids that really thrive in it. I’m just against the way it’s funded. I think that, you know, they’re not being fair to us. They don’t have the expenses we have.”

Long also expressed concern over possible Medicaid cuts and how that would affect students and the schools’ finances when they got into effect in 2026.

“If you’re a child on Medicaid and you receive speech, physical therapy, occupational therapy, any nursing services here, it’s what we call billable hours to their Medicaid health care,” Long explained. “So, there are some things that we can bill for and that’s a plus for us. Again, with that, no one really knows where those cuts are and who’s gonna get cut. So, until we find out, we could get in here and all our kids could still be on Medicaid and we could be fine, but we don’t know yet.”

CRESTWOOD

Crestwood does not have any committee or school board meetings scheduled for July. Their next meeting is a committee meeting scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 14, at the secondary campus, unless otherwise noted.

DALLAS

The Dallas School Board met on Monday, July 14, at 7 p.m.

The District announced that Lyndsey Dalton has been appointed Business Manager. Mrs. Dalton will transition into the District in July and work alongside current Business Manager Grant Palfey, until his retirement in January.

Dalton resides in Dallas with her husband, Shane, and two children, Lily and Noah. She graduated with a degree in Accounting from King’s College and MBA from Wilkes University.

Dalton joins Dallas with 13 years of professional experience in financial analysis, budget management, and strategic planning. Most recently in her role as a Senior Financial Analyst at Benco Dental, she worked closely with cross-functional teams to manage large budgets, provide sales forecasts and support initiatives for growth with in-depth financial analysis.

Back to School Meet the Teacher dates are as follows:

• Wycallis Primary Center

— Kindergarten Blue: Monday, Aug. 18, 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

— Kindergarten White: Monday, Aug. 18, 5:15 p.m. to 6:15 p.m.

— 1st Grade Blue: Tuesday, Aug. 19, 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

— 1st Grade White: Tuesday, Aug. 19, 5:15 p.m. to 6:15 p.m.

— 2nd Grade Blue: Wednesday, Aug. 20, 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

— 2nd Grade White: Wednesday, Aug. 20, 5:15 p.m. to 6:15 p.m.

• Dallas Intermediate School

— Monday, Aug. 18 – meet the case managers and related services providers, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. – This event is for students who hold IEPS, GIEPS and 504s, as well as their parents.

— 3A Meet the Teacher Night: Tuesday, Aug. 19, 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

— 3B Meet the Teacher Night: Tuesday, Aug. 19, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

— 4A Meet the Teacher Night: Wednesday, Aug. 20, 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

— 4B Meet the Teacher Night: Wednesday, Aug. 20, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

— 5A Meet the Teacher Night: Thursday, Aug. 21, 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

— 5B Meet the Teacher Night: Thursday, Aug. 21, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

— DIS Tours with the Principal: Friday, Aug. 22, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.

• Dallas Middle School

— New students (transfers of any grade) and 6th grade orientation: Thursday, Aug. 21, 5:30 p.m.

— Back to School Night: Tuesday, Sept. 9, 6 p.m.

• Dallas High School

— Incoming Freshmen and New Upper-Class Students – Thursday, Aug. 19, 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

— Back to School Night – Monday, Sept. 8, 6 p.m.

— First Day of School for Students – Tuesday, Aug. 26.

GREATER NANTICOKE

The next meeting of the Greater Nanticoke Area school board is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 14.

HANOVER AREA

The Hanover Area school board does not have a meeting scheduled in July. Their next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 12, at the high school.

HAZLETON AREA

The next meeting of the Hazleton Area School Board is scheduled for 5 p.m. Thursday, July 24.

All school board meetings will be held in the Hazleton Area Career Center, Large Group Instruction Room, Administration Building Entrance, 1515 W. 23rd Street, Hazle Township, unless otherwise stated.

For all meetings, in the event of inclement weather or any other situation that would prevent the Board from physically attending the meeting(s) on a scheduled Board and/or Committee meeting date, the Hazleton Area School District Board of Education may hold scheduled meetings virtually.

The meeting link and agenda(s) will be made available at https://www.hasdk12.org/sbagenda.

LAKE-LEHMAN

According to the district’s website, the next school board meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday in the auditorium of the junior-senior high school, at 1128 Old Rte 115, Lehman.

PITTSTON AREA

Personnel made up the bulk of Pittston Area’s school board meeting agenda on Tuesday. Though the meeting lasted fewer than 10 minutes in total, a number of open positions were filled.

The following were unanimously approved by the board to fill positions: Kara Anthony, high school art teacher; Paul Russick, high school biology teacher; Shelby Ranelli, primary center autistic support; Kathleen Kugler, primary center speech therapist; and Jeff Kelly, maintenance mechanic team leader.

In addition, the resignations of Kaitlyn Connors as head field hockey coach and Nathan Doveman as assistant band director were unanimously approved by the board.

The next meeting of the Pittston Area school board meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 19.

WILKES-BARRE AREA

The board will not meet in July. The next meeting will be held in August at a date to be announced.

WYOMING VALLEY WEST

The Wyoming Valley West school board will not meet in July.

The next work session will take place at 7 p.m. on Aug. 6, followed by a regular meeting at 7 p.m. on Aug. 13. Both will take place at 201 Chester St., Kingston, in the middle school auditorium.

WYOMING AREA

The school board will meet next in a combined work session/regular meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the high school auditorium, 252 Memorial St., Exeter.

The meeting will also be available to view live on the district’s YouTube channel.

An agenda for that meeting has not yet been posted.

EDUCATION ROUNDUP is a weekly column by Times Leader staff writers. Reach Bill O’Boyle at [email protected]. Reach Margaret Roarty at [email protected]. Reach Sam Zavada at [email protected].

EDUCATION ROUNDUP is a weekly column by Times Leader staff writers. Reach Bill O’Boyle at [email protected]. Reach Margaret Roarty at [email protected]. Reach Sam Zavada at [email protected].