February 18, 2009 - Issue #5
Ed. Finance Working Group Appointed
Senate Committees Vote to Restore SAP Funding
House Judiciary Committee Completes Work on S13
The
child sexual abuse bill, S.13, was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee
yesterday on a vote of 10-0-1. The
bill will be considered by the full House tomorrow; if approved by the House,
both legislative chambers will appoint members to a committee of conference to
hammer out the discrepancies between the House- and Senate-passed
versions. Please refer to our Education
Legislative Report of January 19th for a breakdown of the handful
of sections of the bill that directly affect public school operations.
The following changes to the bill affecting school operations were adopted by House Judiciary Committee:
1. The Òwork groupÓ that is assigned responsibility for developing materials to assist schools in implementing a new curricular component to the Comprehensive Health Education course of study has been expanded to include representatives of several professional education groups, including counselors and health educators.
2. The working group is required to Òprovide training and other supportÓ related to implementing the heath curriculum requirements related to recognizing and preventing sexual abuse and sexual violence, if requested to do so by school districts or supervisory unions.
3. The Commissioner of Education is required to request information from the child protection and vulnerable adult abuse registries maintained by the Department for Children and Families (DCF) and the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living (DAIL) when conducting record checks on individuals applying for licensure as professional educators.
4. A person who is required to register as a sex offender under current law is prohibited from obtaining an initial professional educator license or from renewing or reinstating a license as a professional educator. Nor can those individuals be employed by school districts.
5. The Vermont Criminal Information Center will be required to indicate whether convictions on an individualÕs criminal record are ones that require registry as a sex offender.
6. School employers are required to obtain information from the DCF and DAIL registries when initially employing or contracting with an individual who is currently subject to criminal record checks prior to employment.
7. Employers are also authorized, but not required, to request criminal record checks of current employees during the course of their employment in the capacity for which an original check was required.
8. Individuals who are currently employed by school districts, but who have never been subjected to criminal record checks because they have been exempted from those checks under current law, will be subject to criminal record and abuse registry checks when they apply for license renewal.
9. The Commissioner of Education will be required to Òexamine ways to ensure the safety of students in schools and offsite workplaces without creating barriers that make it impossible or impractical for volunteers and work study students to assist school staff or for students to participate in community-based learning programsÓ and to submit recommendations to legislative committees by January 15, 2010. As part of his recommendations, the Commissioner will be required to Òpropose mechanisms for ensuring that registered sex offenders do not have unsupervised contact with students as volunteers.Ó
10. School boards will be required to Òensure that adults employed in the schools maintained by the district receive orientation, information or instruction on the prevention, identification, and reporting of child sexual abuseÉand sexual violence.Ó School boards will also be required to Òprovide opportunities for parents, guardians, and other interested persons to receive written information regarding child sexual abuse and sexual violence.Ó In both cases, the Department of Education and the Agency of Human Services are required to provide Òmaterials and technical support to any school board that requests assistance in implementing (these requirements).Ó
11. The effective dates of several of the above requirements are delayed in the bill approved by the House Judiciary Committee in order to give time for the development of necessary materials and processes.
Last
week, our associations made several recommendations for improvements to S.13 to
the House Education Committee, which was asked to review the education portions
of the bill. Among our
recommendations to the committee, three were most strongly emphasized: (1) We recommended that school officials
working in good faith to verify the background of adults working in schools
should be exempt from personal liability regarding criminal and abuse record
checks; (2) we recommended that a Òone-stop shoppingÓ process be developed
wherein all relevant abuse registries, criminal record databases, and
professional and sexual misconduct databases could be accessed by a school
employer with one formal request; and (3) we recommended that the issue of how
extensively and formally a school volunteerÕs background be verified be the
subject of a legislative Òsummer studyÓ committee, whose charge would be to
take testimony and make recommendations in this area.
The
Education Committee accepted our suggestions and conveyed them to the Judiciary
Committee at the end of last week.
In the end, the Judiciary Committee accepted our recommendation on
volunteers. The one-stop shopping
recommendation was accepted in part by requiring the development of ÒprotocolsÓ
for sharing information from the Child Abuse and Vulnerable Adult Abuse
registries in Òthe most efficient and timely manner.Ó The Judiciary Committee did not include
liability protection in the bill.
The
see the version of S.13 that will be debated on House floor, go to http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/2010/calendar/hc090218.pdf.
Stimulus
Deal Reached; More than $138 million for Vermont Education
U.S. congressional negotiators announced a deal on February 12 for a federal stimulus package of approximately $787 billion that includes between $75 - $85 billion for pre-K Ð 12 education funding. The amount of education funding is a compromise between the House and the Senate, the former having authorized up to $140 billion and the upper chamber having approved $80 billion for education (including higher education). The funding will flow through to a variety of programs, including early education, Title I districts, special education, state ÒflexÓ money, and emergency relief for school budgets.
According to preliminary estimates, VermontÕs education system will receive at least $138 million in federal stimulus, although millions more may be available depending on how certain discretionary funds are allocated. Reporter Sam Dillon of The New York Times described U.S. Secretary of Education Arne DuncanÕs new authority.
ÒMost of Mr. DuncanÕs unusual power would come in disbursing a $54 billion stabilization fund intended to prevent public sector layoffs, mostly in schools. The bill sets aside $5 billion of that to reward states, districts and schools for setting high standards and narrowing achievement gaps between poor and affluent students. The law lets Mr. Duncan decide which states deserve awards and which programs merit special attention.Ó
"This represents a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to do something dramatically better," Secretary Duncan told reporters in a conference call on the 13th. Duncan said that a key goal of the bill is "pushing a significant reform agenda," and he highlighted money for programs in the measure embraced by the reform community, including the Teacher Incentive Fund, which would get $200 million.
81 percent of the $54 billion stabilization fund is earmarked directly for education ($77.2 million for schools and higher education in Vermont); the remainder is a flexible block grant under each stateÕs control (in Vermont, $17.2 million). The stabilization fund money will be available for the current fiscal year (FY2009) as well as FY2010 and FY2011. As a condition of receiving stimulus money, states must continue to provide education aid to local school districts at a minimum of current lawful levels throughout the three fiscal years (i.e., aid to districts cannot be reduced below FY2008/09 amounts).
States can spend their flexible grant on school renovation, repair, or modernization, but it also may be spent on other state services like public safety and social programs. School construction funding was among the most contentious provisions, having been stripped from the Senate bill, although renovation money was restored in this limited, flexible form in the final version. Title I schools will have an additional $3 billion funding stream for school improvement. No stimulus funds will be available for new school construction.
According to the Congressional Research Service, at a minimum, Vermont will receive the following in federal education stimulus funds.
- $77.2 million in state fiscal-stabilization funds earmarked for K-12 and higher education;
- $33.8 million for Title I schools;
- $27.1 million for special education.
According to Education Week, the total pre-K-12 education portions of the stimulus bill break down as follows.
- $53.6 billion for a state fiscal-stabilization fund, including:
- $39.5 billion that local school districts and higher education institutions could use to avert layoffs and programmatic cutbacks;
- $5 billion for the Secretary of Education to disperse as bonuses to states for meeting performance measures;
- $8.8 billion in flexible funding for states to use for Òcritical servicesÓ;
- Leftover money in the stabilization fund would be distributed to Title I schools.
- $13 billion for Title I schools including $10 billion for programs and $3 billion for school improvement;
- $12.2 billion for special education;
- $4 billion for early education, including $1 billion each for Head Start and Early Head Start;
- $680 million for rehabilitation services and disability research;
- $650 million for education technology;
- $300 million for states to address teacher shortages and provide financial incentives for teachers who raise student achievement;
- $250 million in competitive grants for states to develop data systems that analyze individual student data;
- $100 million for impact aid construction;
- $70 million for the education of homeless children.
The roughly $100 billion package for K-12 and higher education represents a significant increase from the U.S. Department of EducationÕs current annual discretionary budget of approximately $60 billion. Discretionary spending is that spending which is not mandated by entitlements such as Medicaid. This is a huge some of money available to a Department that as of press time had not filled dozens of top posts including deputy secretary, under secretary, and chief of staff. The stimulus has the potential to greatly enhance the federal governmentÕs role in shaping education policy, as states vie for competitive education grants according to federally defined guidelines. In doling out incentive funds, Secretary Duncan has indicated he would favor districts and schools that improve student achievement, tie teacher pay to classroom performance, and offer innovative educator training programs.
When the final votes were tallied, there was minimal Republican support for the stimulus package. The U.S. House ratified the agreement on a vote of 246 to 183; no Republican members voted in favor of the bill and nine Democrats also opposed the legislation in its final form. The Senate passed the bill 60 Ð 38, with three Republicans supporting the package. President Obama signed it into law yesterday.
Reporting
from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Congressional Research Service, Education Week, the
National School Boards Association,
and The New York Times were sources for this article.