Legislature(2003 - 2004)
02/04/2004 01:32 PM Senate HES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SB 239-LENGTH OF SCHOOL TERM
The committee took up SB 239.
MR. WES KELLER, Staff to Chair Dyson, presented SB 239,
explaining that the bill redefines the school year,
traditionally defined to be 180 days. If the local school
district agrees to something less than the 180-day school year,
with the approval of the commissioner of the Department of
Education [and Early Development], then a shorter number of days
could be used and this would be consistent with the state's
standards. This maintains accountability by requiring the
commissioner's approval. Included in the committee packet is a
memo from Anchorage School District Superintendent Carol Comeau
to the School Board, requesting that a resolution be passed in
support of this, and also a copy of the Anchorage School Board's
Resolution in support of this. He said that members should have
version A [23-LS1269], and pointed out that page 2, line 3
reflects the change of "different" rather than "of not less than
170 days" and also that the last sentence on page 2 is not
proactive, but rather intends to avoid problems with labor
issues and contracts.
CHAIR DYSON said the bill was submitted at the request of the
Anchorage School District but in subsequent conversations, the
commissioner of the Department of Education wanted this bill as
well.
MR. KEVIN SWEENEY, Legislative liaison, Department of Education
and Early Development, (DEED), said the commissioner and the
department support the overall intent of the bill. With No
Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the monitoring of state
assessments, the department is better able to look at the
performance of education programs. With that, a case can be
made for flexibility and inputs that school programs have. The
department believes the legislation strikes a good balance of
allowing for creativity while maintaining state and local
oversight. The department would like to reserve judgment on
page 2, lines 8 - 10 in order to hear from local school
districts on how contract negotiations will be impacted. Also,
the commissioner would like to have a clear definition of
implementation. He said the department would follow this in the
legislative process and talk about it later.
MR. SWEENEY referred to page 2, lines 3 and 4, and said the
commissioner would like to have some definition of a minimum
amount of school days. In current statute, page 1, when schools
go to a term of less than 180 days, there is still a minimum of
150 days. The commissioner wants to ensure that some sort of
oversight can be agreed on, that school boards will have to
follow. The commissioner's concern is that one school board's
idea of an equivalent of 180 days could vary significantly from
another's, and there's really no way to prove exactly what 180
days means. The most popular idea is to go to a 4-day week
rather than a 5-day week, and when you do the math, four-fifths
of 180 days is 144 days. He reiterated that it would be good to
include a minimum, and this would be discussed with the sponsor.
He said the commissioner's office had some difficulty with the
statute, and apologized for not bringing this up earlier, but
the department had thought that the 150-day minimum was still
included.
CHAIR DYSON asked how long it would take for [Mr. Sweeney] and
the commissioner to become comfortable with the bargaining
units.
MR. SWEENEY replied that what was needed was to hear if there
were any concerns from the local districts; the department
hadn't as yet heard any concerns. He said they would just
monitor the bill as it goes forward, that there were no
individual concerns but the department was just reserving
judgment.
CHAIR DYSON pointed out that there were no further referrals in
the process, so perhaps the bill would be held in committee
until the department had the information that was needed.
MR. SWEENEY said, "Right now we don't have a concern but we
haven't heard anything, and maybe today we will." As it's
written right now, this could be tough for the department to
implement, he added.
SENATOR GREEN referred to lines [page 2], 8 - 9, and said, "I
would really like to have a good review and really what that
means, in every possible version of who might be interpreting
it." She said this doesn't specify if a school employee is
full-time, permanent, or not. She stated that said some fences
should be built around this, adding that this needs to be
"dissected and diagramed pretty well."
2:52 p.m.
MR. TIM STEELE, Anchorage School District, (ASD) testified via
teleconference and referred to the superintendent's
recommendation and the school board's resolution on this issue
from last year, which he said is still relevant today. He said
the ASD is mainly looking for flexibility, and is interested in
time-banking as a way to comply with NCLB's necessary training
and mentoring pertaining to "highly qualified teachers." ASD
wants to ensure that there is the equivalent of 180 days, and
was looking at this in terms of flexibility, greater planning
time, and having more contact between teacher and student by
moving some of the training and professional development
necessary for NCLB through bank time. Although ASD supports the
concept and hopes it goes through the process, it hasn't been
run by the bargaining unit and he doesn't know what "their take
is on it." He said that from ASD's point of view, the
flexibility is certainly a good idea, adding that the
superintendent is fully in support of increased flexibility.
SENATOR WILKEN voiced that the bill reflects the notion of
"benefit of students, perhaps" whereas the memo [ASD Memorandum
188(2002-2003)] prepared by Jan Christensen, approved by Carol
Comeau, refers to bank time, restructuring of school days to
provide for professional development, and collaboration time for
all staff; this sounds like giving teachers more time away from
students rather than spending time with students. He said the
intent was to streamline government and this concept injects the
idea of keeping track of 15-minute pieces of time that go into a
bank which sounds like the creation of a bureaucratic nightmare.
He asked what was motivating the ASD to ask for this change.
MR. STEELE responded that alternative programs with different
schedules have gotten waiver approval for different schedules
and there are also a number of charter schools that would like
flexible schedules. One student benefit, proven by the middle
school model, is that teachers working together allow for
ensuring alignment of the curriculum. For example, a history
lesson with some English or math tied to it is a reflection of
teachers working together; bank time allows for that
collaborative time. NCLB requires that there be highly
qualified teachers and support staff - paraprofessionals.
Currently substitute teachers are hired during professional
development trainings. Bank time could ensure that the
student's own teacher is there with that contact, which can be
argued as a better option than substitute teachers. Bank time
could be used for professional development, he said.
SENATOR WILKEN asked if professional development was the same as
in-service training.
MR. STEELE said yes, adding that NCLB has certain requirements,
and "highly qualified" is currently being defined.
SENATOR WILKEN asked for comment about banking and keeping track
of 15-minute segments of time and cashing those in for shortened
or alternative days of education.
MR. STEELE said this would be school-by-school, not teacher-by
teacher. The schedule would be set up and the number of minutes
would be extended for classes so that there would be an
additional day per month or so, for in-service
training/collaboration. This would not be a huge record-keeping
issue, he said.
SENATOR WILKEN noted that Superintendent Comeau's letter
indicates that this would be kept track of on a student-by-
student basis in 10 or 15-minute segments.
MR. STEELE responded that his understanding was that this was
not student-by-student, but that a period or a day would be
extended by 10 minutes and then once a month there would be an
in-service day when teachers could collaborate.
SENATOR WILKEN asked if a class would be extended 'x' amount of
time so that when that amount of time reached the equivalent of
one day off, there wouldn't be instruction that day because of
the in-service/professional development day.
MR. STEELE said this was correct, adding that it may be
something like one half a day; it would be built into the
schedule and figured ahead of time.
SENATOR GREEN asked if this was the intention of this
legislation, and if this wasn't a different view of what was to
be addressed.
CHAIR DYSON said no, that his intention was to allow local
districts to craft what would fit a specific group of students
or a school. He wanted to accommodate boarding schools,
regional schools, and the significant interest by rural schools
that kids not be gone a long time away from home. It might be
that kids go to school for 10 days straight or perhaps there
would be longer days, followed by a week off, resulting in kids
not losing contact with their families. He told members that
his children did a time and motion study at their school and out
of the 7 hours at school, the most that was logged was 89
minutes of contact in a day with the teacher, once the time for
announcements, going back and forth to classes, and other
administrative details were discounted. He said he was
interested in schools being flexible, and this has the safeguard
of the commissioner having to agree with what a district does.
CHAIR DYSON said he had not anticipated this banking of time for
professional development, although he does not have a problem
with that, as long as it meets the school board's criteria and
is producing results. He emphasized getting out of the business
of managing inputs and using the approach of managing for
results instead. Managing for the wanted results is managing
for well-educated kids. He said he wouldn't pass SB 239 out of
committee today. He told the committee that he bears some of
the responsibility for not making sure that the bargaining units
had a chance to be active in the discussion at this point and he
apologized. He said he shared Senator Green's concern regarding
the last 3 lines on page 2.
SENATOR WILKEN referred to page 2, line 6 and asked whether
removing the word "approximate" from that sentence would be
detrimental.
MR. SWEENEY said he didn't see a problem with eliminating that
word.
3:05 p.m.
SENATOR WILKEN commented on the school districts' creativity,
noting that in some cases you "give them an inch and they take a
mile" and he cited examples as the kindergarten fiasco of last
year, being embroiled in the correspondence issue in which
schools are skirting the edges of the law and need to be reigned
back in, and [1998] SB 36, in which school districts were on the
very edges of manipulating the instructional unit formula. He
said he was worried that this was like handing someone an
opportunity to manipulate to his/her own benefit rather than for
the benefit of the system; this was something that over time
could get out of hand, "because we trusted somebody." What he's
seen is that some, or all school districts can't be trusted. He
suggested that if someone had a specific plan, such as desiring
"3 - 12's or a 4 - 10", then that plan should be brought to the
Legislature so it could go through the process to either pass or
not; this would also make sure that "this doesn't get out of
control." At the same time, he suggested including a sunset to
allow for returning to it for a "gut check" to see if it's
working or not. He said to open this up scares him and is "bad
law"; he hopes the bill gets worked to avoid getting to some
place that would be better avoided, ten years from now.
CHAIR DYSON asked Mr. Steele to relay the substance of today's
discussions to Superintendent Comeau and to the [Anchorage]
School Board.
MR. KELLER pointed out that the use of the word "approximate" on
line 6 was also on line 1 and was part of the original language.
CHAIR DYSON said the hearing on SB 239 would be suspended and
would be taken up [at a later date].
ANNOUNCEMENTS
CHAIR DYSON told members that possibly next week he was
interested in scheduling a departmental overview on the
accommodations being made on high stakes tests for kids with
IEPs and whether or not this was consistent with the laws.
CHAIR DYSON announced there was another quick item to be
discussed by the HESS committee. [This took place after
adjournment.]
CHAIR DYSON adjourned the meeting at 3:09 p.m.
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