Volume 35, No. 10
April 17, 2009
Two Approaches; One Destination
For Education Trust Fund Budget for K-12
The Senate Finance & Taxation Education Committee Wednesday approved an education budget, simply to get the process started. A Senate substitute is expected Tuesday. Committee Chairman Senator Hank Sanders Wednesday addressed the struggle within K-12 to address all priorities in the budget. How do we get there from here?
The difficulty has been in approach, not goal. A promising substitute is being hammered out after weeks of meetings to discuss alternatives. All K-12 parties met Wednesday afternoon and agreed in principle on the same goal. Cuts are inevitable, but where do they do least harm to students? Legislators on the budget committees are making decisions to ensure their priorities are addressed.
Fact: Education Trust Fund revenues are down $500 million for K-12. Fact: Federal dollars are available but can only partially fill the hole. Fact: Federal dollars must adhere to oft-changing guidelines as Washington D.C. makes rules for the package.
Fact: Some of these federal dollars will flow through existing programs with strict rules for local school systems.
No state authority can direct the local decision on how to use specific federal program dollars, which may explain some of the state-level dilemma. Every discussion focuses on protecting students from the economic downturn. Every discussion also emphasizes shielding employees and their families from losing jobs in an economy with limited options for finding other work.
Details on the alternate proposal are not yet available, but AASB is encouraged. The divisors, OCE and transportation numbers are being set at figures that will help local school systems protect their priorities. In addition, school systems will have some limited flexibility to use federal dollars available to them to apply to the areas where shortfalls occur.
Please urge your senator to support Sen. Sanders’ substitute to the education budget. Your local support is critical!!
Programs Remain a Priority
Fear Not: ARI, AMSTI & ACCESS will be funded. Despite rumors, at no time has AASB seen a proposal that zeroed out the governor’s key education programs. In fact, K-12 leaders have worked hard to ensure these programs will operate without misstep to benefit students. The final figures are not yet available, but every effort is being made to provide strong funding for the Alabama Reading Initiative, Alabama Math Science and Technology Initiative and ACCESS for student learning.
School boards prioritized their goals this year, before any mention of federal help. The expected Senate substitute budget best meets those goals. When the dust settles, it will be local school systems working day in and day out to educate our students. AASB is working hard so that the final budget paves a path chosen carefully and collaboratively.
Nothing to do with Education
Tourism and summer camp interests say their school start date bill has nothing to do with education. We agree. That is the problem.
Some questions are easy to answer. Longer summer? Loud chorus of YES, especially by students. Fewer tests? Let us hear an amen by EVERYONE.
Well, here is how it really works. School board members get a worksheet with the number of school days required by state law. It includes student instruction days, teacher professional development days and mandatory holidays. Discretion comes in how to meet those requirements and then add traditional holidays, weather days and preferred vacation days. Those extra days vary locally, are community-based and are set purely by the preference of administrators, staff, parents and local community members. When are students burnt out? When are tests? When is Mardi Gras or the Talladega race? When does the local community college offer courses for students who are dually enrolled? When are the high-stakes tests that determine a school’s success or failure? Good questions. The answers make up the calendar. It differs depending on where you live. That’s called local control.
What we want in theory sometimes clashes with reality. As a statewide group, teachers voted to start school later. Wouldn't everyone? Would we not vote for a fall break? Christmas break? A week off at Thanksgiving? Exams before Christmas break? Spring break? Enough time to prepare students for a high-stakes test? All questions get a heartfelt yes. But it doesn’t work when you start plugging all of these preferences into a school calendar. Tough choices have to be made and are made each year, locally.
School boards do not have tourism dollars for slick campaigns and phone banks that are now besieging legislators. Lawmakers are tired of hearing about this issue. They ask if we can make it go away. But the tourism and summer camp folks have a week more of revenues at stake, and those dollar signs blur their vision. The rest of us, particularly school boards, have the responsibility to see the big picture and decide what is in the best interest of students’ education. That's the reason they set the calendar, including when school begins, at the local level.
If parents truly support a later school start date, as lawmakers are being told, then why are school board members not flooded with that request? Parents actually serve on the calendar committees for schools. Parents serve as school board members. Parents have a local voice. And they already have the choice to begin school after Aug.15 each year. The overwhelming majority do not make that choice for it compromises their priority - their childrens’ learning.
School boards support this premise: Let local people use local information to make local decisions.
Final Passage for School Board Training
The House Thursday gave final passage to S.220 by a vote of 89-0! The bill would require each school board to craft a policy outlining orientation and ongoing training requirements for its members. Thanks go to bill sponsors Sen. Ted Little and Rep. Jeremy Oden who made school board training a priority. The non-controversial legislation had full support of the entire education community because it recognizes that training for school board governance correlates with higher student achievement.
The bill will ensure that all elected and appointed school leaders have a training protocol to help address complicated education issues they face from “day one” on the job. Thanks to lawmakers for their unanimous support for the bill.
Oppose Home Schooled Students’
Participation in Public School Sports
The Senate Education Committee will consider S.305, the Tim Tebow Act, on Wednesday, April 22. Public school advocates, including school board members, remain opposed to the legislation.
In truth, a small percentage of homeschool advocates are lobbying to allow their students to be eligible to participate in public school athletics. But that request would create inequities in a system created to be fair for all public school students.
Sports are a privilege, not right, that public schools can offer its students. When a student is not enrolled at school, that student does not have to comply with the rigorous curriculum, attendance
rules or grade standards. And it is difficult to represent the school on a team if you are not enrolled at school. Unfortunately, there is a lot of potential for abuse by those who seek loopholes to participate in school sports. Oppose S.305.
K-8 P.E. Bill Approved
H.719/S.552 were approved by Senate and House committees Wednesday. The bills would put in statute the state Board of Education policy that requires 30 minutes of physical education each day for grades K-8, without substitution. AASB believes the state Board of Education is the proper authority to set curriculum standards.
Child Nutrition Bills & Resolutions
Several bills and resolutions were introduced this week regarding child nutrition. The legislation will be detailed in future editions of this newsletter:
H.890 would require lunch menus with nutritional values be posted on school Web sites and the state Department of Education Web site.
H.891 would establish the Health Child Nutrition Commission with specific, controversial requirements outlined.
HJR.640 would create the Alabama Legislative Award for excellence in school health.
HJR.641 would establish a Continuing Joint Legislative Committee to award the Alabama Legislative Award with specific responsibilities outlined.
Access to Local Reserves Seeks Final Passage
Local school systems are quickly depleting their savings as proration continues at 9 percent. S.165 would codify when school systems may access the one-month reserve as outlined by the School Fiscal Accountability Act. School boards urge support for S.165 on the House floor.
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Local school boards work with legislative leaders to accomplish the public’s highest priority -- educating our children.
9 Days remain in the
Regular Legislative Session
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Alabama Association of School Boards
Celebrating 60 years of helping local education leaders
improve student achievement
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