ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE  SENATE EDUCATION STANDING COMMITTEE  April 25, 2019 9:02 a.m. MEMBERS PRESENT Senator Gary Stevens, Chair Senator Shelley Hughes, Vice Chair Senator Chris Birch Senator Mia Costello MEMBERS ABSENT  Senator Tom Begich COMMITTEE CALENDAR  SENATE BILL NO. 114 "An Act relating to course credit for students; relating to annual reports regarding school district performance and school district employees; relating to cooperative arrangements between school districts; relating to school operating fund reserves; relating to competency examinations for teacher certificates; relating to the duties and powers of the Department of Education and Early Development; relating to the Professional Teaching Practices Commission; relating to a virtual education consortium; establishing a reading intervention program for students in grades kindergarten through three; establishing the Alaska middle college program for public school students; relating to the powers of the University of Alaska; relating to reporting requirements of the Board of Regents of the University of Alaska; and providing for an effective date." - HEARD & HELD PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION  BILL: SB 114 SHORT TITLE: VIRTUAL ED; COLL CR FOR HS; MISC ED ADMIN SPONSOR(s): EDUCATION 04/15/19 (S) READ THE FIRST TIME - REFERRALS 04/15/19 (S) EDC, FIN 04/15/19 (S) EDC AT 9:00 AM BUTROVICH 205 04/15/19 (S) 04/25/19 (S) EDC AT 9:00 AM BUTROVICH 205 WITNESS REGISTER TIM LAMKIN, Staff Senator Gary Stevens Alaska State Legislature Juneau, Alaska POSITION STATEMENT: Introduced SB 114, Version A, and presented the sectional. PAUL LAYER, Ph.D., Vice President Academics, Students, and Research University of Alaska Fairbanks, Alaska POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on and offered to answer questions about SB 114. ACTION NARRATIVE 9:02:13 AM CHAIR GARY STEVENS called the Senate Education Standing Committee meeting to order at 9:02 a.m. Present at the call to order were Senators Hughes, Birch, Costello, and Chair Stevens. SB 114-VIRTUAL ED; COLL CR FOR HS; MISC ED ADMIN  9:02:29 AM CHAIR STEVENS announced the consideration of SB 114 and stated his intention to hold the bill in committee to work on during the interim and perhaps with the House Education Committee. 9:03:18 AM TIM LAMKIN, Staff, Senator Gary Stevens, Alaska State Legislature, Juneau, Alaska, said that SB 114, Version A, is literally a merger of SB 30, the middle college bill that was passed from committee earlier in the session, and SB 53, which is about the University of Alaska accreditation reporting and was also passed from committee. It also includes SB 79. Committee Substitute (CS), Version S, for SB 79 was published on April 12 but was not adopted by the committee. That CS is rolled into this bill. Per the request of the chair, they will focus on the changes in SB 79. He will briefly go over the SB 30 and SB 53 components as they go through the bill. MR. LAMKIN said that Section 1 strikes all intent language from SB 79. That was the recommendation from Legislative Legal. They can read the intent language into the record if anyone wants to look that up later, but it has no effect of law. They took out the intent language to make the bill shorter. Sec. 1-2: AS 14.03.073 (a-b) The first two sections are technical amendments to existing statute regarding challenging courses for core credit in math, sciences, language arts, etc., setting things up for section 3 below. MR. LAMKIN said Section 3 is the original from SB 79. Sec. 3: AS 14.03.073 (e) Recognizes credit for extra curricular activities of students, adding a new requirement for school districts to allow course credit for career and technical education, physical education, music, or art classes for an activity, including a cultural activity, outside of school hours. MR. LAMKIN said Sections 4 and 5 are about districts reporting on ratios. The phrase "classroom teacher" and a definition of that were added, which is consistent with existing regulations. Sec. 4: AS 14.03.078 (a) amends the existing Department of Education and Early Development (DEED) annual reporting requirements to include a categorized summary of administrative and teaching staff within each school district. The new requirements also include reporting the following ratios for each school district: a. Administrators : Students b. Administrators : Teachers c. Teachers : Students Sec. 5: AS 14.03.078 (c) Adds additional reporting requirements that school districts must post in prominent locations around the district, including on their websites, the ratios reported under subsection (a), described above in section 4. (d) provides definitions for: (1) An "administrative employee" as "an employee who does not provide direct classroom instruction for students as a regular part" of their job; and (2) "classroom teacher" as being certificated, instructing students, preparing course outlines, assigning work, administering and grading exams, maintaining classroom order, and communicating student progress with parents. Sec. 6: AS 14.07.168 Regarding an annual report submitted to the Legislature by the state Board of Education and Early Development, amended to include in that report a current summary of middle college activity and outcomes in the state. MR. LAMKIN said Section 7 has a change from SB 79 having to do with districts collaborating with other districts for administrative and other educational services cost savings. The current gap on the grant is $100,000. SB 79 increased that cap to $200,000. The increase was talked about, but it is a result of a miscommunication with Legal and was not outright intended. That is a negotiable with the committee, of course. Sec. 7: AS 14.14.115 (a) regards Cooperative Arrangement Grants (CAGs) issued by the department when districts find efficiencies by sharing administrative or educational services with other districts. This section is amended to expand CAGs to include not only district to district cooperations, but also between districts and businesses, nonprofits, and other state government agencies. It also increases the CAG cap from $100,000 to $200,000. CHAIR STEVENS clarified that it increases from $100,000 to $200,000. 9:07:29 AM SENATOR HUGHES said that was from two years ago in SB 96, which was essentially 79. They didn't want to trigger a higher fiscal note. This has not been funded recently, but it would give the option if the Finance Committee chose to fund it. The committee can decide on the amount. It would have to be funded. The intent is to provide for incentives for districts to cooperate, perhaps by sharing finance directors or superintendents. A cooperative arrangement would have to include at least one rural district. The idea is to streamline. There are a lot of school districts in the state. MR. LAMKIN said another important policy change in Section 7 is that historically and currently, cooperative grants are between school districts. The new language allows those to be between school districts and businesses, nonprofits, and other state agencies. MR. LAMKIN said Section 8 is about finding opportunities to pool health insurance policies, particularly giving school districts the option to pool their district employees with the state insurance pool. The cooperative arrangement grants could include that transition. The grants would be for making that transition for cost savings, but not to pay the health insurance premiums. Sec. 8: AS 14.14.115 (d) adds new requirements for CAG eligibility, including that if two school districts enter into a cooperative grant, at least one must be a rural district. (e) establishes that if a cooperative grant is used for health insurance pooling with the State, the grant can only be used to pay for the costs of transferring district employees to the State insurance plan, not for the cost of participating in the new insurance policy; (f) allows a school district to carry forward the savings realized by a CAG during the first three years after the grant is awarded. The savings will not be counted towards the fund balance limit established in AS 14.17.505(a) [Section 8 below]; (g) defines "rural school district" consistent with use of the term elsewhere in statute, and defined in AS 14.11.025(c). 9:09:54 AM SENATOR BIRCH asked, regarding insurance, what the disclosure requirements are, such as the number of claimants, the amount of claims, the solvency. MR. LAMKIN replied that he would investigate that. MR. LAMKIN said that Section 9 is about the unreserved fund balances for school districts. The original SB 79 increased the cap to 25 percent. The new bill increases that cap to 15 percent. This is a sophisticated subject matter. He has a white paper published April 1 by the Alaska Association of School Business Officials (ALASBO) that gives a good summary of the purpose of account balances. They represent a common accounting practice for flexibility in cash flow for school districts for paying vendors and receivables on time. The state revenue might be dispersed on a monthly basis. Federal dollars don't come in that regularly. Districts need the unreserved fund balances to make cash flow adjustments. It is also for contingency spending, such as a spike in energy costs or an earthquake. It is an emergency fund. It is his understanding that very few districts hit the ten percent cap in statute. These account fund balances are not transferable between districts. They are not a slush fund. The recommendation might be to keep the cap at ten percent, but it is an important policy consideration for the committee. Sec. 9: AS 14.17.505(a) is amended to increase the maximum cap of a district's unreserved ("emergency") fund balance from 10% to 15% of its operating budget, and allows an additional amount to be reserved related to CAGs described above in section 7. SENATOR BIRCH said he has heard the account balance is fully accessible during labor negotiations. He would like to know how accessible that fund balance is. He suggested doing research during the interim about arbitrators' decisions accessing what could be a significant account balance. CHAIR STEVENS said it would be good for the fiscal officers to talk to them during the interim. He asked if the white paper had a recommendation. MR. LAMKIN said there no outright recommendation that he gleaned from the paper. It suggested that the communication from the administration was not entirely accurate about how the fund balances are used and how available that money is to spend. His preliminary research is that they are not slush funds. There are stringent rules about their use. SENATOR BIRCH clarified that his question is can an arbitrator's decision during labor negotiations provide access to that account balance. 9:15:31 AM SENATOR COSTELLO said the fund balance topic needs to be examined. Her discussions with the districts indicate that they have requirements about having a certain balance on hand. Legislators are a little ignorant on this topic. Districts could present on why they keep these fund balances and what the requirements are to get at the truth about the amounts and their purpose. CHAIR STEVENS said they will make sure they will examine that during the interim. 9:16:57 AM SENATOR HUGHES said that in a conversation with Mark Foster, who had presented to the committee yesterday, he said that the national standard is above ten percent, but he wasn't sure what it was. They should find out what the national standard is for school districts. The private sector has best practices standards about how much payroll should be on hand. Whether the committee resolves this or not, their investigation will be useful if the bill moves to Senate Finance. MR. LAMKIN said that Section 10 is the Praxis section. This was largely rewritten from the original SB 79 at the request of and with substantial input from the Department of Education and Early Development (DEED). Sec. 10: AS 14.20.020 (i) is amended to describe a regimented process for the state board to evaluate and adjust minimum passing scores on required competency exams for persons to qualify for teacher certification. SENATOR COSTELLO said she had concerns about how this was addressed in the previous version because of an inherent assumption that higher passing scores on competency exams result in better results in the classroom. She would like to see standards for teachers with states that have good results with their students because they are making certain assumptions. She is all for increasing the competency of teachers, but she does not know if content knowledge results in better teachers. There is a lot more to it. The mentoring possibility is important for new teachers. She would like to see a comparison of student results with teacher requirements in other states and countries. SENATOR HUGHES said that she agrees that this is just a sliver and not an indicator of how effective a teacher is, but at the high school level, they want to make sure teachers have the content knowledge. Physics, for example, was one area where Alaska had a much lower passing score than other states. She had a good conversation with the commissioner and learned that DEED is talking about a more comprehensive approach because this is just a sliver. DEED may have something to help ensure that teachers are more effective that the committee could incorporate. It would not just be the content testing. MR. LAMKIN said anecdotally, and through research and other comments he has heard in the past, the Praxis exam is perhaps the most difficult, stressful, and intimidating process for a teacher to go through to receive certification. In the context of their hearing with Mark Foster yesterday, one of his points was that student success in life was not necessarily driven by high test scores. They could hypothesize that the same is true for teachers. Having a strong score on a Praxis exam does not automatically make them a great teacher. There may be instances where someone might score poorly but be a stellar teacher. SENATOR HUGHES said that when DEED brought this language forward, they explained that sometimes there can a fluke with the score. A test can be redone and not as many people will pass as normal because of a problem with the test. This gives the department flexibility to make adjustments. CHAIR STEVENS said they will work with the department on this issue. 9:23:36 AM MR. LAMKIN said Sections 11 and 12 are consistent with the original version of SB 79. Sec. 11: AS 14.20.380 (b) adds a requirement for DEED to provide administrative support services to the Professional Teaching Practices Commission (PTPC). Sec. 12: AS 14.20.460 (5) adds a duty for the PTPC to reduce its administrative costs by accepting support services from DEED. MR. LAMKIN said Section 13 is a new section. The virtual education consortium is a big component of SB 79. It was significantly rewritten and consolidated to maximize flexibility for DEED and school districts to develop the program. Significant changes include expanding it to include online resources for all grades, not just six through 12. It includes resources, including training for teachers on how to provide online courses, for both students and teachers. The third significant change is with the fee structure. The department "may" charge districts rather than "shall" charge. The original wording needed clarity that districts would not be charged exorbitantly for participating and that it would be prorated relative to the cost associated with maintaining that consortium database. Sec. 13: AS 14.30.760 - A new article 15 is created describing the Virtual Education Consortium. (a) DEED shall establish and maintain a database of virtual education courses available to all districts, students, and teachers. (b) Requires the consortium to provide training and professional development for teachers facilitating courses offered through the consortium. (c) DEED may require a fee paid by school districts making use of the consortium, determined in regulation and limited to a prorated consideration of the costs associated with maintaining the consortium. (d) Allows the consortium to require districts that provide courses or have students taking courses through the consortium to adopt a shared calendar and a shared bell schedule for at least a portion of the school day. (e) Provides a definition for "virtual education" or "virtual instruction" as that delivered through telecommunications or the internet. CHAIR STEVENS said Section 13 is an important section. He mentioned that his five-year-old granddaughter who is learning to read will be taking a summer online class to make sure her reading skills don't drop off. SENATOR HUGHES said she had a long conversation with Posie Boggs about reading. Regarding opening the consortium to all grade levels, she doesn't like the idea of a child being in front of a screen, but Ms. Boggs said that if a child was struggling with reading in a small school with limited resources, there are some excellent online resources that can really help a young child. The original SB 79 had a way for districts to charge for courses they were offering. Here the consortium may charge a fee for participating districts. She asked if this would prevent a district from charging. For example, if a school in Anchorage has open slots for students in another district, is there a way for the district to charge the other district. MR. LAMKIN responded that was not the intent of the current CS. If it is not made clear in the statute, it would be addressed through regulation as a result of the work of the task force that will develop the consortium as set up in the bill. SENATOR HUGHES said that is excellent. She clarified that he is confident that it could be done by regulation. MR. LAMKIN answered correct. The intent of the new language is to maximize flexibility between the department and school districts to make the program work. SENATOR COSTELLO said there would be concern about the section that allows the consortium to require districts to have a shared bell schedule. Districts have their hands full now with their own schedules. They will want to hear from districts about that. Not every school would be able to do that. CHAIR STEVENS said that is a very good point. Every district has a different schedule. 9:29:31 AM SENATOR HUGHES said that is an excellent point. The working group will probably discuss that. It says "may" require and nothing in the legislation forces districts to join the consortium. She spoke with [DEED Division Director] Van Wyhe who said that it does become a problem. It gets complicated with schedules, especially at the high school level. Since the bill says districts "may" participate and the consortium "may" require and the districts will be at the table to develop the consortium, they will craft what works for the districts. SENATOR COSTELLO said that oftentimes students pursue virtual opportunities because their current schedule does not facilitate them taking the course they want. It is a complex, integrated problem. It is happening already. They are talking about creating a structure for something that is already happening. MR. LAMKIN said Section 14 is commonly known as the Read by Nine section. This is comprehensive language that details ways to identify, intervene, and focus on students struggling with reading. The goal is to ensure that they are reading at or above grade level by the end of the third grade. The draft language went into detail and was from ExcelinEd, an organization in Florida led by Jed Bush. They tried to make the language fit Alaska. It is, of course, draft language. One significant component that is not in this bill is mandatory retention. That requires that students who are not at grade level in third grade be held back with two exceptions, physical or mental disability or English as a second language. Whether the committee wants that or not is a policy conversation that needs to take this place. Some would argue that students should be held in earlier grades. Some would argue that humans respond well to deadlines, so there would be more motivation to make sure students were ready by the end of third grade. He is not suggesting one way or another, just offering some points and counterpoints. Sec. 14: AS 14.30.775 is a new Article 16 describing the District Reading Intervention Program (RIP). (a) Each district shall establish a RIP for students in grade K-3 to ensure students struggling with reading can read at or above grade level by the end of grade 3. 1. Students will be screened once in the Fall, Winter, and Spring; 2. Establish a plan and procedures to intervene for students identified as struggling with reading; 3. Implement the plan during regular school hours through any available method. (b) Within 15 days notify, and then regularly update the parents of students identified as struggling with reading, and include a description and progress of the plan being developed to assist the student's improvement; (c) Details the manner in which districts must provide intensive reading services and monitor student progress toward grade level reading; (d) Districts must offer an intensive acceleration class that is of small size and accounts for most of a student's contact time each school day. (e) Each district must submit an annual report to DEED detailing the number of students who have needed to participate in a RIP and their progress toward reading proficiency. (f) DEED shall approve of a universal screening tool to assess student reading levels, and in turn report annually on statewide reading proficiency in grades K- 3. CHAIR STEVENS said that is an important issue. They need to hear from experts on that. He asked if it was only one year of retention and no more. MR. LAMKIN answered yes. 9:34:01 AM SENATOR HUGHES said that it is a big issue. If they want to put some teeth in it with some sort of retention, she would hope that they would also weave in the goal that students would catch up with their cohorts and if for example, they did not have a problem with math, they would be able to stay with their class for math. The readiness at kindergarten is fascinating. They have talked about that in the joint committee. That would solve some of the problem. This asks the department to have a universal assessment tool. She wonders if there ought to be something like that for kindergarten to show whether a child is ready to leave kindergarten or start kindergarten. SENATOR COSTELLO said she supports doing everything they can for students to be reading at grade level by age nine, but teachers are professionals and they can tell which kids are struggling with reading. She is concerned about imposing yet another assessment when they already do this. They have Individualized Education Plans and Response to Intervention. She wants to make sure that this is something that will work with educators and professionals who are already in the classrooms and know which students are struggling. She is open to looking at what other states have done. She knows that retaining a child from advancing in school is like a loss of a limb or a parent. She likes the idea of a SWAT team approach once a teacher says a child needs assistance. That could be an informal process to have a child receive assistance to catch up that is not necessarily report or assessment driven. It is difficult to catch children up, especially when they see that they are behind and they adopt strategies to hide that. If children don't read, their ability to take advantage of their education is seriously truncated. They adopt strategies to hide the fact that they are not a reader. It is a complex problem and she hopes that they involve experienced educators and reading specialists when they look at the legislation more closely during the interim. CHAIR STEVENS said they need to know what districts are doing in the summer between first and second grade with the kids who are a little behind to be brought up to speed. SENATOR HUGHES said the Anchorage Superintendent had said they were moving to a SWAT team approach. More recently, the Anchorage School Board adopted a policy along these lines. It might be interesting to get an update about the policy change. It was definitely geared toward this read by nine approach. That might be helpful in deciding what to do. MR. LAMKIN said they could have a lengthy hearing on each section of this bill. CHAIR STEVENS said he thought that they would. MR. LAMKIN said Sections 15 and 16 relate to SB 30, middle colleges, dual credit. Sections 17 and 18 relate to SB 53, the reporting requirement for the University of Alaska accreditation. Section 19 is about the virtual education task force/working group. That is set up to be led by the commissioner of DEED and comprised of leaders in education technology to develop the consortium described in Section 12. Sections 20 and 21 are the effective dates. Sec. 15: AS 14.30 is amended to add a new Article 15 regarding Dual Credit. AS 14.30.780 (a) Establishes a Middle College program for eligible students in high school to enroll in courses at the University of Alaska, and to earn credit toward a college degree as well as credit toward high school graduation. (b) Every school district shall enter into an agreement with the UA to participate in the AMC, giving access to any eligible student to participate in the program. (c) Eligibility: Establishes baseline student eligibility requirements to include being enrolled in a public school, be in high school (grades 9-12), to not have already received a high school diploma, and demonstrate to the satisfaction of both the school district and the UA as being academically competent to complete college level coursework. (d) Awareness: Requires school districts to establish and maintain awareness of AMC course offerings and eligibility requirements to students and parents, including the academic and social responsibilities of participating in the AMC. (e) Financing: A student ~may~ be required to pay fees associated with costs of participating in the program. Meanwhile districts and the UA shall include in their respective MOU a manner of sharing costs associated with providing the AMC program locally, including tuition waivers, scholarships, and other means of reducing program costs and finding efficiencies. (f) Course Quality: specifies that courses offered by the AMC must meet quality and content standards, including quality instruction, and regular course and instructor review. (g) Credit Cap: Under the AMC program, students may not enroll in more than 12 credit hours (full-time) per semester, nor earn more than a total of 60 credits (associates degree). (h) ADM: Holds harmless a school district's Average Daily Membership (ADM) calculation. Students participating in the AMC program are to still be counted toward the respective school district's ADM. (i) Transcripts: Allows the UA and school districts to exchange student transcript information for purposes of determining program eligibility or for graduation requirements. (j) Definitions: Provides definitions for use of the term "program" in this section as being the AMC program, and for "school district" as consistent with other uses of that term in statute, as defined on AS 14.30.350. Sec. 16: AS 14.40.040, relating to general powers and duties of the UA, is amended adding a new subsection as follows: (c) UA must implement the AMC and may not require an eligible student to meet any additional criteria to receive credit under the program than what was completed by the program itself. UA must further regularly review the AMC course content and quality of instruction to meet national standards for dual credit, enter into MOUs with school districts consistent with the AMC, and award student credit for course completion of AMC courses, which will be fully transferable within the UA system. Sec. 17: AS 14.40.190(b) Amends existing University of Alaska reporting requirements regarding teacher training and retention, to specify the report is required to be submitted to the Legislature (Senate Secretary / House Chief Clerk) biennially, by the 30th legislative day of the first regular session of each new Legislature. (a) It then clarifies that this report is to be presented in a formal hearing setting to the education committees. The scheduling of such a presentation is intended to be coordinated at the discretion of the chairs of the committees. Sec. 18: AS 14.40.190(c) is a new subsection establishing a requirement for the University of Alaska to issue a semiannual report on the status of all its accreditations within the UA system. The reports must be submitted to the Legislature (Senate Secretary / House Chief Clerk): (a) by the 30th legislative day of each regular session of the legislature; and (b) on or by July 1st of each year. The accreditation reports are subsequently to be presented in a formal hearing setting to the education committees of the legislature, the scheduling for which are intended to be at the discretion of the chairs of the committees. Sec. 19: Establishes a temporary Virtual Education Task Force, led by the Commissioner of DEED, and comprised of leaders in education technology, to assemble one year prior to the effective date of the bill, who are charged with developing the initial structure and functionality of the Virtual Education Consortium described in Section 12 of the bill. Sec. 20: Sections 4, 5, 712 and 19 have immediate effective dates. Sec. 21: Sections 1-3, 6, and 13-16 have an effective date of July 1, 2020. 9:40:16 AM MR. LAMKIN said that in conclusion, one thing missing from the bill that was talked about was calculating the average daily membership (ADM) for students. Now a snapshot of student population is taken during a 20-day window in October. That drives a school district's funding through the foundation formula. There was the notion of a second snapshot in, say February, for 20 days and then averaging those out or even a year-round average. That would put a crack in the foundation formula and bulk up the bill because that section in statute is referred to a lot. Because of that, they backed off because it may not be timely to crack open the foundation formula and it could easily lead to that. MR. LAMKIN said interest was expressed that the consortium would include a way for teachers to share and access lesson plans. That seems like a reasonable policy for the committee to consider. He informed the chair that that concludes the sectional and the overall summary of the bill. CHAIR STEVENS said the attendance issue has always been a problem and maybe there are some ways for them to look at that. He mentioned there was no public hearing scheduled, but some people were online and in the room. He asked if anyone cared to speak at this point. 9:42:58 AM PAUL LAYER, Ph.D., Vice President, Academics, Students, and Research, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska, said he testified previously on the parts of the bill that were SB 30 and SB 53. They offered small changes to the language in those. They still have some concerns about the reporting in Section 6, number 4. For the most part, the language is as they have discussed previously, so he did not have any other testimony to offer and offered to answer any questions. CHAIR STEVENS said he did not see any at this time, but they will spend more time on this during the interim and will appreciate his involvement at that point. SENATOR COSTELLO asked if the chair was able to share with the public and those there today his ideas for the interim work. She asked if they would be publicly noticed meetings, would they be open to anyone who wanted to participate, would there be named participants, and what is his sense of how it would work as they move forward. CHAIR STEVENS replied that they are just formulating that now. He suspected that they would have their meetings at the Anchorage Legislative Information Office and would meet with the House as well. The chair has indicated a great interest in working on this during the interim. There will be public hearings. They want to hear from lots of people. Just from today there are several areas they want more information on. They will formulate that over the next few weeks and try to establish a schedule to meet. [CHAIR STEVENS held SB 114 in committee.] 9:45:48 AM There being no further business to come before the committee, Chair Stevens adjourned the Senate Education Standing Committee at 9:45 a.m.