Volume 35, No. 8
April 3 , 2009
All Dollars, No Sense Stealth Senate Vote Approves School Start Date
Senate and House committees Wednesday each approved a bill to prohibit public K-12 schools from starting the school year before Aug. 15 each year. That action made school leaders’ commitment to students a lower priority than the tourism industry’s complaint that school interferes with summer vacations. To add insult to injury, in the Senate, the process to allow public input on the legislation failed on a critical issue to schoolchildren.
The Senate gave no opportunity to school boards or superintendents to publicly express opposition and reported S.544 without even holding a meeting. It was bad enough this version of the school start date bill was assigned to a non-education committee, but it was rushed through with a late introduction Tuesday to get a favorable report within 24 hours. Five members of the Senate Industrial Development and Recruitment Committee simply signed their approval.
Thanks go to Sen. Tom Butler for voting NO and Sen. Kim Benefield for abstaining on the secret vote. However, all school board members should be dismayed that no meeting was held to discuss or allow a public hearing on the bill. Please contact local senators to oppose S.544.
The tourism industry played backdoor politics because their effort drew public outcries last year. Newspaper editorials said:
- “Let local school systems set their own schedules”
-- The Birmingham News (4/12/08)
- “Leave it to local systems”
-- Press Register (4/14/08)
- “Calendar is a job for school boards”
-- Tuscaloosa News (4/13/08)
Charlotte Meadows, Montgomery Board of Education member, is elected to represent nine schools and more than 30,000 constituents. She told House Education Policy Committee members Wednesday she opposed the bill because voters charge her to make decisions in the best interest of students, not tourism. The board process is to seek input from a committee of educators, staff, parents and community members to set the school calendar. Student achievement remains the priority.
More than 130 school boards already have made tough individual choices aligning learning goals to holiday preferences, staff breaks and training, local college schedules and unique community needs for the 2009-2010 school year.
Not a single school system in Alabama has a calendar in place for the current year that would be allowed under H.629/S.544. This legislation arbitrarily imposes a start date with no regard to students’ practical learning needs or local community preferences.
The House Education Policy Committee held a public hearing Wednesday and approved the bill by a vote of 8-6. Thanks go to those members who supported local choice: Reps.: Mac McCutcheon, Mike Ball, Dr. Barbara Boyd, Henry White, Dr. Joe Mitchell and Terry Spicer. Voting with tourism were Reps.: Allen Treadaway, Cam Ward, Lea Fite, John Robinson, Priscilla Dunn, Alan Baker, Harry Shiver and Dr. Yvonne Kennedy.
Testimony by bill proponents in the House Education Policy Committee did not speak to student learning. Tourism is not charged with accountability for public education and achievement. And it was a bizarre correlation that only months after state tourism heralded a banner year for Alabama revenues, tourism blamed public education for shortfalls as federal, state and local economies suffer.
The tourism council lobby presented a slick study to the committee showing a loss of tourism dollars in August. They’ve done the math in terms of dollars. But what’s the math in terms of sense? The applicability of the study need go no further than a statement in the executive summary – aptly pointed out by Rep. Joe Mitchell – which says: “It is important to mention at the onset that this report is not a cost and benefit study; where the cost of early school start date is compared and weighted against the education efficiency or the students’ achievement gains.”
This has been seen first-hand in Texas, where the tourism industry hailed a later school start date as a success, but school officials said the money wasn’t worth the impact on the children. Until the state government ruled against it, nearly all school districts in Texas obtained waivers to begin earlier than the uniform start date. They are now working to repeal the law.
Lawmakers must ask themselves how it would affect an athletic team to delay start of practice two weeks but expect the same performance on game day? How can we ask students to reach academic benchmarks by robbing them of time to prepare for the measures by which public schools fail or succeed? How can a week more of summer tourism cure that?
“Tim Tebow Act” Disrupts Level Playing Field
S.305 would create the “Tim Tebow Act” to allow home-schooled students to participate in public school extracurricular activities. AASB joined superintendents, administrators, teachers, the state Department of Education and the Alabama High School Athletic Association to oppose the bill.
Allowing non-public students to participate in public school extracurricular activities without enrolling presents significant challenges. Public students have no right to extracurricular activities but earn the privilege to participate. Applying the same standards for academic qualification for non-public students begs basic fairness questions. Denying enrolled public students coveted spots on extracurricular teams in favor of talented non-students troubles educators.
Articulate home-school students and their parents testified that their tax dollars earn them the right to participate in public school sports. The temptation to believe that an exceptional athlete is being kept from state sports also drives this bill. However, opponents stated that the choice to home school has the obvious consequence of being ineligible to be part of the student body.
“There is so much more to public education than team sports,” said Tracey Meyer, state Department of Education. “We don’t want to welcome you strictly for sports purposes -- we want to welcome all of you as full-time and participating students at our public schools.”
School Board Training Waits
S.220/H.182 are pending final passage in the House and Senate. The bills would require each school board to craft a policy outlining orientation and ongoing training requirements for its members. Upon their election or appointment, school board members must grasp intricacies about school system finance, curriculum, personnel law and more. With research to prove school board training correlates with higher student achievement, the full education community applauds the proposed legislation. Urge final passage of H.182, sponsored by Rep. Jeremy Oden, and S.220, sponsored by Sen. Ted Little.
Education Related Bills:
S.418/H.601 would create a new section in the Alabama code for competitive bid laws governing public education. AASB supports this legislation.
S.334/H.226 would raise the compulsory school age from 16 to 17 years of age. The House Education Policy Committee Wednesday adopted language to limit the bill to public school students and expand options for students who choose to leave school. AASB supports this legislation.
H.47/S.184 would update obsolete language in Alabama law regarding school nurses. AASB supports final passage.
S.101 would require local board policies to address indecent exposure in their student dress codes. AASB and CLAS worked with Sen. Rodger Smitherman, the bill sponsor, to focus on local policies and codes of conduct rather than a state law. Approved by Senate Education Committee.
S.265 would permit school board-employed security personnel to carry firearms. AASB, CLAS and AEA worked with Sen. Rodger Smitherman, the bill sponsor, to address safety concerns including strong, appropriate and continuing training requirements in the bill. Approved by Senate Education Committee.
S. 426 would provide budget flexibility to local school boards for 2009 and years when proration is called at three percent or more. AASB supports final passage.
Local School Budgets Riding Uncertainty in ‘09
As school districts prepare to live within a highly uncertain 2010 FY budget, it is critical to be aware of current year status. The governor has released half of the rainy day funds to reduce the effective level of proration from 12.5 percent to 9 percent.
Because employee contracts were already in place when proration was declared, it has been difficult to make significant cuts locally. School systems must be vigilant in monitoring system reserves. AASB supports full use of Rainy Day Funds to maintain adequate reserves as schools prepare for 2010 and recognizes that some school systems may not have adequate reserves to weather the full effect of 9 percent proration.
No new budget figures were available this week to help clarify the 2010 scenario for K-12. It is becoming increasingly apparent that K-12 will still experience significant cuts from the ETF shortfall of over $800 million. AASB urges the administration to release the remaining rainy day funds and lower proration to less than 6 percent this year, so schools can best protect the core academic experience in our classrooms.
**********************************
Local school boards work with
legislative leaders to accomplish
the public’s highest priority -- educating our children.
13 Days remain in the
Regular Legislative Session
***********************************
Alabama Association of School Boards
Celebrating 60 years of helping local education leaders improve student achievement
|
