SB 250-SCHOOL PERFORMANCE REPORTS  MR. MARK LEAL, Director of Assessment at DOEED, informed committee members that the school report card has been a dynamic document over the years. In the late '80s and early '90s, the report card focused on providing information about each school district in a fairly detailed format. In the mid to late '90s, the focus shifted to reporting statewide information; district information was included in a table in an appendix. Beginning with the 99-00 report card, the focus was on reporting school-by- school information. District information was provided in a table in the back of the report card. When DOEED started to look at reporting information on a school- by-school basis, a few unique challenges arose. First, the small size of many of Alaska's schools made it difficult to report information without violating a requirement to not release personally identifiable information under the federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Second, when DOEED looked at publishing the report in a paper format, as it had in the past, the document had grown from 25 pages to 520 pages. Because of high printing costs, DOEED decided to post the report cards on its website and publish the last two years' report cards on CDs at the end of March. DOEED is also changing the web version of the school report card to be more user-friendly by organizing the schools into districts rather than alphabetically. In addition, the format will have a district-by-district file. MR. LEAL said he is currently reviewing the school report card to identify areas that need to be improved to meet the intent of statute and provide the public with useful information. Alaska statute requires that district goal reports be collected and summarized by DOEED. That information fell by the wayside when DOEED moved to district spreadsheet profiles. In addition, the new federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) contains a variety of public reporting requirements. MR. LEAL distributed a document he prepared for the committee entitled "Report Card to the Public," which contains current Alaska law, items currently reported by DOEED, and additional reporting requirements that must be incorporated into the existing report card. He noted that DOEED is figuring out how to manage this data at the department level because it is required to compile and warehouse data and verify its accuracy. CHAIRWOMAN GREEN asked Senator Wilken if his concerns have been satisfied by the information provided. 1:43 p.m. SENATOR WILKEN said he had a few more questions, the first being where DOEED is headed regarding comparability and whether the new report will contain a chart that compares districts, similar to one on the web last year. MR. LEAL said it will contain a similar chart. DOEED is in the process of formatting it to put on the web. SENATOR WILKEN indicated that DOEED used to publish the dollar expenditure per student each year. He said he would like to amend SB 250 to require that amount be reported and categorized by "total, federal, state, local and other" per student. CHAIRWOMAN GREEN asked Senator Wilken about a start date for that requirement. SENATOR WILKEN replied: I would say next year but our office is certainly capable of publishing that for the '01 audited information and we could probably do '02 now that it's all set up. I guess I'll defer to the department whenever they'd be comfortable to do it. I don't think it's a big project. SENATOR WILKEN then moved to insert on page 2, line 4, a new paragraph (4) that reads, conceptually, that dollars per student expenditures be reported and categorized by total, federal, state, local, and other (Amendment 1). SENATOR WILKEN then moved to amend Amendment 1 to change the word "expenditures" to "revenues." CHAIRWOMAN GREEN announced that with no objection, the amended amendment was adopted. SENATOR WILKEN said his concern last week was that over the years, the report has changed from a detailed one to a very rudimentary one. He said he now feels comfortable that DOEED is creating a usable report that allows comparability and that it is something an interested parent can understand. SENATOR WILKEN said he had a good discussion with Mr. Leal about federal reporting requirements for schools with fewer than 10 students. It is his understanding that the number 10 was passed on to DOEED through the federal government, but that the state may eventually decide that 5 or 15 students should be the limit. DOEED is trying to avoid problems with FERPA but is looking at reducing that number to 5. MR. LEAL said that number came from guidance from the federal government, DOEED's testing contractor, and from information based on what other states are doing. 2:50 p.m. SENATOR DAVIS said she has no problem with the request of information from DOEED, but she does not understand why it should be included in this bill as it is about school designators, not school report cards. She asked if Amendment 1 will require a title change. SENATOR WILKEN said the way he reads it, it all falls under AS 14.03.120, which this bill addresses. Language in .120(f) says, "The report must include" and the bill lists items that must be included. Amendment 1 adds another item that is not in statute today. SENATOR DAVIS stated that all items required to be in the school report card are not listed in the statute. SENATOR WILKEN said the intent of the motion was to make sure that dollars per student are in the report card. Today they are not. With no further questions or testimony, SENATOR WILKEN moved CSSB 250(HES) from committee with individual recommendations and its attached fiscal note. SENATOR DAVIS asked if Amendment 1 will change the fiscal note. CHAIRWOMAN GREEN said the bill has a zero fiscal note and that it has a referral to the Senate Finance Committee, where the fiscal note can be addressed. She then announced that without objection, CSSB 250(HES) will move to the next committee of referral.