The Pennsylvania Department of Education has secured private funding to support each of the state's three existing governor's schools next summer, spokesman Tim Eller said Friday, suggesting that the recently revived programming will survive at least another year.
Each of the three summer residential programs for talented high school students — held at Carnegie Mellon, Lehigh, and Penn State universities — will receive $150,000 through a partnership between the state Department of Education and a private funding source or sources, Mr. Eller said.
The confirmation that the governor's schools will receive outside funding for another year comes after a period of uncertainty surrounding their futures. The schools had been slated to receive $350,000 collectively in state funding under Gov. Tom Corbett's originally proposed budget for the 2014-15 fiscal year, but that line item was not included in the version he signed on Thursday.
The Department of Education has told all three schools that they will receive the funding next year, Mr. Eller said. The $150,000, which will be provided directly by private funding, will come with the expectation that the schools match it through their own fundraising efforts, he said.
The Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Sciences at CMU, which opened in late June, was brought back last summer for the first time since budget cuts temporarily halted the programs in 2009. The governor‘s school for the agricultural sciences opens Sunday at Penn State. The governor‘s school for engineering and technology opens July 20 at Lehigh.
First Published: July 11, 2014, 4:00 a.m.
Updated: July 11, 2014, 9:52 p.m.