Legislature(2003 - 2004)
04/30/2004 01:35 PM Senate HES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
CSHB 425(EDU)-SCHOOL FUNDS RELATED TO BOARDING SCHOOLS (EDU)
CHAIR DYSON asked Ms. Lindster to present CSHB 425(EDU).
KAREN LINDSTER, staff to Representative John Coghill, introduced
herself and advised that she would read the sponsor statement
and some additional information into the record.
HB 425 puts into statute Department of Education's
current practice. This legislation supports existing
programs that are successful. Under this bill a
student wouldn't have to pass the current entrance
standards. The bill would give students a choice of
going to a school that offers something different than
may be available in their hometown.
This legislation by statute reimburses to full school
year secondary boarding schools costs incurred by the
district operating the program.
The legislation limits the program to schools already
operating boarding schools on January 1, 2004.
There are five boarding schools that would qualify for
reimbursement for a per-pupil stipend and one round
trip between the student's community of residence and
the school during the school year if the district
expends money for the trip.
These schools will participate in a five-year pilot
project that the Department of Education will evaluate
for the legislature.
The hold harmless section of this bill allows a
student's district of residence to count a student for
the ADM count even though the student is attending a
secondary boarding school. This avoids the possibility
of paying the base allocation twice for the same
student.
MS. LINDSTER explained the sectional for the committee
substitute:
Section 1
(a) Provides that a school district that was operating
a secondary boarding school prior to January 1, 2004
could be reimbursed for the cost of operating the
boarding school providing they have a suitable student
dormitory and provide daily access to a public school
offering the grades 9-12 classes.
(b) The district may be reimbursed for a per-pupil
stipend determined by the Department of Education and
for one round trip per student that travels from their
community.
(c) Defines district as "a city or borough school
district or a regional educational attendance area.
Also defines district secondary school boarding
program as "a public school operated for a full school
year by a district in which the domiciliary services
are provided for students in grades 9 through 12. The
full school year was added to the language in the
Special Committee on Education and this resulted in a
reduction in the fiscal note of $227,000.
Section 2.
Provides a hold harmless clause for school districts
that have children move out of the district to attend
a secondary boarding school. The students moving from
the district would be counted in the average daily
membership of the home district.
Section 3.
This is a sunset clause that repeals the substance of
this bill on July 1, 2009.
Section 4.
Puts into place an effective date of July 1, 2004.
CHAIR DYSON asked Eddy Jeans to join Ms. Lindster at the table.
EDDY JEANS, finance manager for the Department of Education &
Early Development, introduced himself.
SENATOR GRETCHEN GUESS asked what the stipends are used for and
whether Mount Edgecombe gives a stipend and round trip ticket to
its students.
MR. JEANS said the stipend is to pay for the students' monthly
residential care, which includes meals and supervision 24/7.
Mount Edgecombe does provide a stipend and one round-trip
airfare from home for each student so this provision is
consistent with the way that program is operated. Mount
Edgecombe is not included in this bill because it's a state
operated boarding school that's included in the Department of
Education and Early Development budget.
SENATOR BETTYE DAVIS asked whether the round trip is to and from
a student's home community or did they receive one more trip
than that.
MR. JEANS said it's just one trip.
SENATOR LYDA GREEN stated that she wouldn't define stipend in
the same way. She then asked whether the parents of students
with an IEP would be given transportation to and from the
school.
MR. JEANS replied it would be up to the parents to make
arrangements and pay for their own trip to the school for an IEP
meeting.
SENATOR GREEN asked what happens at Mount Edgecombe.
MR. JEANS said he wasn't sure. He thought that parents
participated via teleconference, but the State didn't provide
them with round trip airfare.
SENATOR GREEN disagreed saying that was an issue that came up
when she was on the governor's council and she recalls that
those parents were provided transportation to the site for IEP
meetings.
MR. JEANS said he'd be happy to clarify that.
SENATOR GARY WILKEN referred to page 2, line 4 and said that if
the Legislature accepts "a per-pupil stipend determined by the
department on a regional basis" then they are giving up their
appropriation power and placing it in the hands of the
department. He said he didn't know that he could be talked into
that. He asked Mr. Jeans whether he was reading that correctly.
MR. JEANS replied the reading is correct, but he wanted the
committee to know that the legislation intentionally mirrors an
existing program the Department of Education has for students
that don't have daily access to a secondary program in their
district or near their residence. Using St. George as an
example, he pointed out that the school there is K through 10 so
the students leave for grads 11 and 12. Then they go into
another community and the state pays a stipend to help pay for
the residential costs. The program has been in place for a
number of years and the department has always set the stipends.
He said he has a list of the stipends by region if that was
helpful.
CHAIR DYSON asked him to distribute copies right then if he
could.
MR. JEANS said he'd be happy to do so.
SENATOR WILKEN said, "That may well be, but the passage of this
legislation is a seat change in the way we look at funding
schools so we may do it that way today. If we allow this with
boarding schools, I'd like to have the Legislature involved."
Referring to page 2, line 12 he said that agreeing to that would
make it possible to have a school of one.
MR. JEANS agreed the example is correct, but it's extreme and
they don't currently have any schools that have fallen into that
category. The intent of the provision is to provide a safety net
for the communities that have a very low student population and
are right on the threshold of ten. Representative Coghill didn't
want the community to be penalized if a secondary school student
elected to take advantage of this program. "We do understand
your concern in having a minimum number and that was discussed
on the House side although they never put a minimum number in
this section."
SENATOR WILKEN asked if this wouldn't result in double counting
the student this way.
MR. JEANS said the foundation formula has a base number of ten
and from 10 to 20 students the funding level for the school
remains the same. "So if you had, for example, 11 kids in a
community and two of them elected to go to one of these boarding
schools, that community would get the same funding that it would
have gotten with 11 students. The school receiving the children
is going to generate additional foundation funds, but they're
generating these funds in these communities now. At Nenana and
at Galena both of these programs are up and running and we're
currently paying for these students in those regions."
SENATOR WILKEN read the last sentence of the sponsor statement
then used the example of a student moving from a 200-student
school to one with 400 and asked if that wouldn't result in a
double count.
MR. JEANS said that example wouldn't work because if a student
attended a school with 200 students and then moved to Nenana,
the first school would no longer receive money for the child.
Funding at the first school would be reduced by one child and
Nenana would receive funding for an additional child. "It's only
for those schools that are very small that may fall under that
threshold of 10 students." Typically in those small schools
there would only be one or two secondary students because the
majority are elementary. He repeated it's just a safety net for
the communities during this pilot program.
SENATOR WILKEN referred to the last sentence of Section 2 of the
analysis and asked if the statement that "students moving from
the district would be counted in the ADM of the home district"
applies only to those schools that would be ten or less.
MR. JEANS said the last sentence of the sponsor statement is not
correct when the school falls below ten students. The base is
the same for 10 to 20 students. That community would continue to
generate the base and Nenana would generate additional
foundation funds for those students that fall into that
category.
SENATOR WILKEN pressed, "So we're paying twice."
MR. JEANS said in that particular case you would, but once you
exceed 20 students you wouldn't pay for the same student twice
because the funding is then based on an individual student
basis. "If you exceed 20 then you will no longer receive funding
for that child if they move."
CHAIR DYSON asked if he was saying that the school with 19 kids
gets the same total amount as the school with 11 kids.
MR. JEANS said that's correct, it's an economy of scale. You
need a certain minimum to operate a school and when SB 36 was
written it was decided that the minimum level would apply to
schools with 10 to 20 students. Beyond 20 students, the per-
student costs begin to decline.
SENATOR WILKEN asked if the fiscal note includes just airfare or
airfare and the stipend.
MR. JEANS said it also includes the monthly stipend for the 180-
day school year.
SENATOR WILKEN asked for the amount of the stipend.
MR. JEANS pointed out the information on page two of the fiscal
note. The spreadsheet lists the school district, the community,
capacity of the program, monthly stipend, yearly cost, estimated
round trip, annual airfare and the estimated grant amount for
the 180-day program. At the bottom of the spreadsheet they
listed other communities that have boarding capacity but aren't
currently operating for 180 days. He pointed that out because
when they started with the bill they included all programs, but
Representative Coghill only wanted to include the communities
that operate a full 180-day program.
CHAIR DYSON asked about the asterisk.
MR. JEANS said that Galena has the capacity for 100 students,
but eight of those students are currently being reimbursed under
the Boarding Home program. The remaining 92 are the number for
which they do not currently pay any stipend.
SENATOR WILKEN said he needed a little more time to evaluate the
data, but:
To answer the question of what we save by doing this,
he said they seem to indicate that we save
$358,939.000. I think they're comparing that to the
$3,958.00 that's a bricks and mortar ADM and I think
the number they should be comparing is $9,667.00 so
Eddy, if you could help me with taking this sheet and
taking a different look at it to make sure we're
comparing apples and apples. When we look at this, two
things we should remember. When this was put in by the
Department of Agriculture it was a grant from the
Department of Agriculture to put in a boarding school
and that's been funding this thing and we've been
trying to help it along with offset grants and I
remember the discussion well what if this doesn't work
or what if it can't pay its own way. They're going to
come to the general fund and we've now arrived at that
day and we're now saying we want to fund boarding
schools across the state and I'm not sure that's the
best application of our education money. This amounts
to a test case. The other thing is that back in 02
they had 1,567 correspondence students and we know
correspondence students are, in my mind, a cash cow.
In 04 they have half of that - 724. So they've lost a
funding source just because their correspondence
program has gone from zero to 1,900 and now it's
dropped down on the other side to 700 so they may just
be having a program problem - trying to attract the
proper number of students to both their correspondence
program and to the boarding school. I appreciate your
patience and although I think this bill is well
intentioned, it's much more expensive than what it
shows and if this Legislature chooses to start funding
boarding schools okay, but I would suggest that that
money becomes competition for all the other schools
that we have in the state and we want to make sure
that investment is well spent.
SENATOR GUESS remarked that she heard that this is a pilot
program yet she also heard that "this is what we do now." If
it's a pilot program, she questioned what would they be
evaluating and what outcome measures were they looking for.
MR. JEANS assured her it is a pilot program, but in terms of
"what we do now" it models the current practice for those
students that don't have daily access to a secondary program.
"These are students that have elected to participate in these
programs, maybe because they come from a small community, maybe
because they have problems with things at home, ... but these
students have elected to go to this program because of the
consistency that's made available to them."
SENATOR GUESS asked for an explanation of the outcome measures
they were looking for in the evaluation.
MR. JEANS said they'd be looking at achievement rates. He
pointed out that this expands program offerings for all the
kids, but particularly for the ones in Nenana because there are
more kids there so more state funding is generated and expanded
programs may be offered.
SENATOR GUESS noted that the military youth academy wasn't
included and asked if there was discussion about including them
in the pilot program.
MR. JEANS reminded her that they have their own separate funding
mechanism, which is why they weren't considered for
participation.
SENATOR GUESS commented that the stipend language was
worrisomely open and initially she assumed that stipend meant
pocket money for the students. She asked whether there was a
reason that they weren't specific.
MR. JEANS replied they didn't have that discussion, but the
monthly stipend comes from regulation. School districts often
are contracting with parents for the residential care so it's a
stipend to the parents that house and feed the students.
CHAIR DYSON clarified the stipend would go to whatever home
that's housing the student.
SENATOR GUESS asked whether there were regulations ensuring the
safety of these kids that go into other people's homes.
MR. JEANS assured her there are regulations under the Department
of Health & Social Services and they're also referenced under
the Department of Education & Early Development boarding home
program and he would provide her a copy of that.
SENATOR GREEN held up a piece of paper and asked if this was the
Department of Education & Early Development regulation on
boarding schools.
MR. JEANS said, "That's our current program that's limited to
students that do not have daily access to a secondary program.
SENATOR GREEN held up a piece of paper and asked it this was a
list of the students who qualified.
MR. JEANS told her that the students on that list have daily
access to a secondary program so they would not qualify under
existing regulations, which is the reason for the proposed
legislation. It would expand the current program to provide
funding for the kids on that list.
SENATOR GREEN said," So these would be rewritten."
MR. JEANS said they'd be modified.
SENATOR GREEN questioned whether the language does that because
the language talks about secondary students who do not have
daily access to a school. She added, "I recognize many school
districts and sites that we clearly pay a lot of money to for
schools, which, to me, is inconsistent."
MR. JEANS said they modeled the language after the existing
program just to keep it simple. "All we're trying to do is
expand an existing program to the kids that do have daily access
that are electing, by choice, to go to these boarding programs.
To provide those boarding programs with some kind of state
support to offset the residential cost."
CHAIR DYSON referred to line three of the sponsor statement and
asked for an explanation of the statement, "...a student would
not have to pass the current entrance standards."
MR. JEANS reiterated that under current regulations, for a
student to qualify for the program, they cannot have daily
access to a secondary program.
CHAIR DYSON turned to Ms. Lindster and said that with this
significant expansion of the program, he would have expected
that she and the sponsor would have limited qualification to
just those students that come from communities that don't have a
secondary school and/or where there was a school that was
failing under the No Child Left Behind Act and an alternative
was required. "Did you consider that?" he asked.
MR. JEANS pointed to Mountain Village to provide an explanation.
The community does offer a K-12 program so, under current
regulations, DEED can't provide Nenana with any state support to
help with the residential costs for the Mountain Village kids
that are attending school in Nenana. That's what this
legislation is trying to do, he said. The Mountain Village kids
that have elected to attend secondary school in Nenana have done
so because they believe the program in Nenana has something to
offer them that they can't get in Mountain Village.
CHAIR DYSON commented that he covered that previously.
MR. JEANS continued saying that if they limited eligibility to
those students that don't have daily access to a secondary
program then there would be no need for this legislation because
current regulation already covers that.
CHAIR DYSON asked if, under this bill or current legislation,
the state is required to offer a boarding school alternative to
students that attend a school that is failing to make progress
under the No Child Left Behind Act.
MR. JEANS replied that within the capacity of the boarding
school to accept the students, if the parents elected to go
there during the pilot program, this legislation allows for the
state to reimburse monthly boarding costs and one roundtrip
airfare.
CHAIR DYSON questioned whether current legislation allowed that
or not.
MR. JEANS replied, "Under our current regulations we cannot."
CHAIR DYSON encouraged the sponsor and Mr. Jeans to tighten the
requirements to those schools that aren't making adequate yearly
progress before the Finance Committee hearing. Another
alternative would be to establish some criteria for schools that
can't offer students very much because they're too small.
He questioned what happens when students decide to move to a
boarding school after the school year begins and the ADM has
been counted because the receiving school typically wouldn't be
reimbursed for the additional student(s).
MR. JEANS agreed that would be the case under this program as
well, but the programs are already operating at capacity so
there probably wouldn't be room for a student that wasn't
enrolled at the beginning of the year.
CHAIR DYSON called a brief at ease then reconvened the meeting.
SENATOR GREEN asked how the parents participate.
MR. JEANS said it varies with the program, but in Nenana some
parents move to help with the student(s). He wasn't sure about
parent participation in Galena.
SENATOR GREEN asked how much each parent is expected to pay.
MR. JEANS told her it varies by community and they don't track
that information.
SENATOR GUESS suggested amending the stipend language to make it
more clear because it really is specific in the regulations. She
then pointed out that it doesn't say this is a pilot project and
the program will be assessed in five years to look for certain
broad outcomes.
CHAIR DYSON announced that the bill would likely move from the
committee that day and he suspected that anyone that was
interested in testifying would have an opportunity to do so in
the Finance Committee. He asked whether there was anyone who
specifically wanted or needed to testify that day.
FLOYD BROOKS testified via teleconference to say he is a single
parent of three students that have the opportunity to attend
school in Nenana. He spoke in strong support of the program. "In
supporting HB 425 everyone wins," he said.
LOTTIE YATES testified via teleconference to say that small
schools are limited in terms of what they are able to offer
students. She said the quality of education in Nenana is high
and she urged support for HB 425.
TAPE 04-25, SIDE B
AGNES DAVIS testified via teleconference to express support for
HB 425.
SENATOR WILKEN asked Mr. Jeans if it is correct that a student
from Mountain Village that is attending the school in Nenana is
counted "in Nenana as just a normal student that is run through
the formula."
MR. JEANS said that's correct.
SENATOR WILKEN then said, "We would be able to go to the ADM
funding for the school district for Nenana to see what that
child costs us in school - in the learning center in Nenana."
MR. JEANS started to reply.
SENATOR WILKEN added, "It's transparent as to whether it's a
boarding school or not."
MR. JEANS said yes.
There were no further questions.
CHAIR DYSON asked for the will of the committee.
SENATOR WILKEN motioned to report CSHB 425(EDU) from committee
with individual recommendations and the attached fiscal note.
There being no objection, it was so ordered.
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