On today’s episode of The Confluence: The ACLU of Pennsylvania found some Allegheny County school districts have disproportionately arrested students of color, while significantly underreporting the number of school-related arrests to the U.S. Department of Education; families eligible for Pandemic-EBT money are struggling to access the funds amid a new wave of COVID-19 related school closures; and ornithologist Scott Weidensaul explains where it may be possible to catch sight of snowy owls migrating through Pennsylvania this season.
Black children disproportionately experience school-related arrests
(0:00 - 9:42)
A new report published by the ACLU of Pennsylvania finds that student arrests or referrals to police occur more often than are documented by schools in Allegheny County. During the 2017-2018 academic year, Pittsburgh Public Schools reported zero students had been arrested in school, but county court data and Right-to-Know requests found nearly 500 school-related arrests occurred that year.
The report largely examines data from the 2018-2019 school year, finding that in Allegheny County there were 726 school-related arrests of 658 students.
“We’re about twice the rate of Pennsylvania in total, and about three and a half times the rate of Philadelphia County,” says Ghadah Makoshi, a community advocate with the ACLU of Pennsylvania, and co-author of this report. “We found that schools underreported [arrests] by about 83%.”
Makoshi says many of the arrests were for minor offenses like possession of a small amount of marijuana, or offenses classified as “simple assault,” meaning no injury took place.
The report also pointed out how much more often students of color and students with disabilities were arrested than their white or abled peers.
“With the disparities in Black students being arrested, I think one of the eye-opening things was, the school districts that had the smallest enrollment of Black students often had the highest disparity in arrests between Black students and white students,” says Makoshi.
The report calls for greater transparency and more reporting of the incidents, in addition to strategies to reduce school-related arrests, such as limiting summary citations given to students.
Families are struggling to access Pandemic-EBT money to pay for lunches amid school closures
(9:43 - 14:00)
The Pandemic-EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) program was meant to send money to low-income families during school closures, when students who qualified for free or reduced-priced lunches couldn’t access those meals. But as schools toggle between in-person and remote learning due to a rise in COVID-19 cases, families have faced difficulties in accessing those funds.
“[For] the 2020 and 2021 school year, most families in Pennsylvania did not get money for the program until after the school year was basically over, if they got the money at all,” says Kate Giammarise, a WESA reporter who’s been covering the ongoing distribution of these benefits.
Giammarise says distributing new funds has been complicated by the fact that every school and district situation is different: some schools are operating remotely, others are in a hybrid model, some are closing at COVID-19 cases tick upward.
The state is supposed to calculate benefits based on how many days students are missing in-person class and meals due to COVID-19, but schools are not required to collect and track that information.
“One of the advocates I spoke to last week said, obviously the delay in getting benefits out is bad, but her fear is that the program is going to be so complicated to administer, that schools will opt out,” says Giammarise.
Giammarise says the state has told her it is working to mitigate the current issues.
An alternative to the benefits are grab-and-go meals available at schools during closures, but that creates a burden for some families who may not be able to leave home or work midday to pick up the meals.
“Also, as we’re sitting here recording this, there's no grab-and-go at any Pittsburgh Public School sites, due to staffing shortages,” says Giammarise.
Snowy owls may be sighted in Pennsylvania as they migrate south
(14:02 - 22:30)
Some Pennsylvania birders might have gotten the opportunity to catch sight of a migrating snowy owl. In December at least one was spotted in Presque Isle State Park in Erie.
“Snowy owls are spectacular, they’re one of the largest owls in the world, they’re very heavy, they weigh almost, in some cases, six pounds,” says Scott Weidensaul, an ornithologist and co-founder of Project SNOWstorm, a snowy owl research and conservation organization based at the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art in Dauphin County.
Weidensaul says snowy owls sightings vary based on their cyclical breeding season, but there are typically three or four sightings in Pennsylvania. Snowy owls aren’t fond of woodlands, explains Weidensaul, so they’ll gravitate towards more open areas like farmland, and they’re sometimes even attracted to airports.
“One of the things that we’ve been doing with Project Snowstorm from the beginning is working with airport authorities to try to figure out better ways to trap and move snowy owls away from airports so they stay moved from airports,” says Weidensaul.
He recommends novice birdwatchers start with open areas, and also monitor eBird, a website for birders to note where they’ve seen birds. But he also cautions against getting too close and harassing the birds, even by accident.
“If the snowy owl is paying attention to you, … you’re too close,” says Weidensaul. “The best thing to do is watch from a vehicle.”
The Confluence, where the news comes together, is 90.5 WESA’s daily news program. Tune in Monday to Thursday at 9 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. to hear newsmakers and innovators take an in-depth look at stories important to the Pittsburgh region. Find more episodes of The Confluence here or wherever you get your podcasts.
