Friday, March 13, 2009 - Issue #6

Educational Policy Priorities Begin to Take Shape

The pace of the 2009-10 legislative biennium picked up in February, before the General Assembly took a two-week Town Meeting break. With many new faces in public education leadership roles at both the state and federal level, there was an air of uncertainty heading into this year’s session, and broad themes have emerged in several policy areas.

The U.S. Congress passed the federal stimulus bill that originated in the Obama administration with significant education components. It appears there will be opportunities for districts to access new funding streams, as well as provide relief to stretched school budgets. Although a portion of the education stimulus funds will flow through established formulas, there is considerable flexibility in how a majority of the dollars will be divvied up. The U.S. Secretary of Education and Governor Douglas both appear to have significant roles to play to the disbursement process, and many details remain unclear. Our associations have been in touch with our national affiliates as well as Vermont’s congressional delegation and we provide our members with emerging federal stimulus information as quickly as possible.

In Vermont, the session began with Governor Douglas calling for funding school budgets at fiscal year 2009 per pupil spending levels. School boards submitted budget proposals that, aggregated together, totaled a modest 2.21% increase according to the Department of Education. As of press time, 92% percent of school budgets passed on the first vote (239 passed, three with cuts, and 21 were defeated). Ten districts proposed a second school budget article per the new Act 82 two-vote law, and seven passed.

In the legislature, Sen. Bobby Starr and Rep. Johannah Donovan both commenced their first terms as chairs of the Senate and House education committees respectively. Sen. Starr has made dropout prevention a priority for his committee’s work, and Rep. Donovan’s committee has focused on the miscellaneous education bill and the child sexual abuse prevention bill (all three bills are described in detail later in this report).

Governor Douglas has also appointed three new members to the State Board of Education, replacing members whose six-year terms expired. The new board members, Don Collins of Swanton, John Hall of St. Johnsbury and Judith Livingston of Manchester, have each had legislative experience.

Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Bill Enacted

S.13, the child sexual abuse prevention bill, received significant coordinated attention from legislative committees early in the session, and the 76-page bill has passed and been signed into law by the governor. The bill contains numerous provisions affecting school operations with varied implementation dates. We include below information about the relevant education provisions; you may also view the entire bill at the following link: http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/2010/bills/Passed/S-013.pdf

Curricula & Policy

Section 3 of S.13 expands the required comprehensive health education components in 16 V.S.A. § 131 beginning in the 2011-2012 school year to include the following:

(11) How to recognize and prevent sexual abuse and sexual violence, including developmentally appropriate instruction about promoting healthy and respectful relationships, developing and maintaining effective communication with trusted adults, recognizing sexually offending behaviors, and gaining awareness of available school and community resources.

A working group to be convened by the Commissioner of Education is to develop materials to support the implementation of this new curricular requirement. The working group is also required to provide training and support to any district that requests it.

Section 7b amends the existing requirement that school boards adopt policies on supervision of volunteers and work study students by requiring that policies explicitly prohibit a person who is on the Vermont Internet sex offender registry from being a work study student in a school. This policy change is effective immediately, and the VSBA will soon be providing boards with a compliant model policy.

Section 9 requires that school boards ensure that all adult school staff receive “orientation, information, or instruction on the prevention, identification, and reporting of child sexual abuse…”. Boards are also required to “…provide opportunities for parents, guardians, and other interested persons to receive the same information.” The Department of Education and the Agency of Human Services are directed by S.13 to provide materials and technical support to any school board who requests assistance in implementing the requirements of this section. Section 9 is effective July 1, 2011.

Section 7 directs the commissioner of education to “propose mechanisms for ensuring that registered sex offenders do not have unsupervised contact with students as volunteers” by January, 2010.

Criminal Record and Abuse Registry Checks

When a person applies for an educator’s license or is offered the position of superintendent of schools, section 4 of S.13 directs the Commissioner of Education to obtain checks of the person through the child abuse and vulnerable abuse registries maintained by the Agency of Human Services. Section 4 also bars persons from obtaining or renewing a license or serving as a superintendent if he or she has been convicted of a sexual offense that requires registration on the Vermont sex offender registry.

Section 5 amends 16 V.S.A. § 255 to require that a superintendent or headmaster of an independent school obtain child abuse and vulnerable adult abuse registry checks of any person offered employment, or any contractor or student teacher that may have unsupervised contact with schoolchildren. Section 5 also prohibits school districts from employing a person convicted of a sexual offense requiring registration on the Vermont sex offender registry. The prohibition is also applicable to contractors and student teachers who may have unsupervised contact with school children.

Section 6 authorizes superintendents and headmasters of independent schools to request a fresh criminal record check and a check of the child protection and vulnerable adult abuse, neglect and exploitation registries about a person who previously has undergone one or both checks, regardless of whether the check was for student teaching, licensure, or employment purposes, during the course of that person’s employment in the capacity for which the original check was required. This optional recheck can be conducted at any time, and can be either a name and date-of-birth record check of Vermont convictions or a nationwide fingerprint-supported FBI record check.

Sections 4, 5, and 6 of S.13 are effective December 31, 2010.

Section 8 of the bill establishes a criminal record check “subscription service”, but delays the service’s implementation until July 1, 2010. The subscription service will be an optional offering available only to authorized education officials and the Department for Children and Families. The service will notify authorized subscribers (i.e., superintendents) when a person’s (i.e., a current school employee or other adult who has regular contact with schoolchildren) criminal record is updated with new information. Individuals will have to grant written authorization before being included in the subscription service, and the authorized subscriber will be obligated to provide a copy of any updated criminal information that the subscription service yielded to the affected employee or other adult.

Miscellaneous Education Bill – H.427

The House Education Committee, chaired by Rep. Johannah Donovan of Burlington, has developed this year’s “Miscellaneous Bill” for education that contains both policy provisions and technical corrections to education statutes. This year, the bill includes several provisions that could potentially benefit local school districts. On the last day before the Town Meeting Day break, the committee passed the bill on a vote of 10-0-1. The bill will now be considered by the full House and, if passed, will go to the Senate for consideration.

The following describes the various provisions in the bill; sections that simply corrected outdated wordings have not been included in this summary.

Section 13 of the bill removes approved capital construction costs, and any debt service and interest paid on approved capital construction costs, from the formulas that determine whether a district is subject to the Act 82 two-vote law and the excess spending penalty. Section 13 also would remove construction costs from the formulas for those districts that received preliminary approval for construction costs, but never received final approval because of the state’s moratorium on aid for school construction. In addition, section 13 removes costs related to planning small school mergers from the two formula calculations.

Section 14 is also related to the two formulas (Act 82 two-vote and excess spending) and concerns districts that tuition either elementary or secondary grades. Section 14 would allow districts two options for estimating tuition payment amounts for the purposes of the formulas: 1) estimated actual tuition, as is current practice; 2) the number of estimated pupils being tuitioned multiplied by the average announced tuition for union schools (union elementary schools for elementary tuitioned students, or union secondary schools for secondary tuitioned students). The district would still be obligated to pay actual tuition rates charged by the districts that its students attend, but the new option would help some districts avoid divided school budget votes and/or the excess spending penalty.

Section 5 specifies that if a district that is a member of a union school district votes to withdraw from the union, the other member districts must vote to ratify the withdrawal within 90 days. Current law does not specify any particular timeline for this process.

Section 6 requires that when a school district increases its tuition rate, it must notify the state and other districts fifteen days earlier than prior law required (January 15^th, as opposed to the current date of February 1^st).

Section 7 of the draft amends the definition of a state-placed student. Section 7 would add two new categories of state-placed students; those students in the custody of the commissioner for children and families and those students in the custody of a temporary legal custodian pursuant to 33 V.S.A. § 5308(b)(3) or 33 V.S.A. § 5308(b)(4).

Section 8 specifies which district or state agency or adult would assume responsibility for transportation and transportation costs for certain state-placed students.

Sections 9 - 12 rename the term “base education payment” wherever it is used in the statutes; it would now be referred to as the “base education amount.” This is intended to make more clear that the base education amount is not, as many assume, a “block grant” to school districts that can associated with a certain amount of money generated by each enrolled student.

Section 16 codifies the existing legislation governing regional school choice for public high school students (Section 2 of Act 150 of 1999).

Section 17 repeals the statewide school calendar legislation passed as Act 31 of 2007. A uniform statewide school calendar was not implemented in 2008 as required by the Act, due to differing regional and local scheduling needs, yet it remained on the books.

Section 18 makes permanent the legislation that prescribes the financial relationship between school districts and teen parent education programs. The legislation, from last year’s appropriations bill (Act 192 of 2008), specified that school districts were to pay teen parent education programs 83 percent of the prior year’s statewide average net cost per pupil minus debt service for each full-time student, or a pro-rated portion for a partial year of services.

Section 19 expands the mission of the Council on Education Governance established in 2003 as part of Act 68. The Commission would be renamed the Council on Education Governance, Quality, and Affordability. The Council would be directed to report to the legislature regularly until its work concluded in 2015. Each of our associations is represented on the Council.

Dropout Prevention / High School Completion

The Senate Education Committee, chaired by Sen. Bobby Starr of the Essex-Orleans district, has made dropout prevention a top priority for its work this year. The Committee worked through several drafts of a dropout bill during the first several weeks of the session. The most recent version established a state goal of eliminating school dropouts by 2020, mandating school or alternative education programs for nearly all students through age 18, expanding the High School Completion program (16 V.S.A. § 1049a) to enrolled students, and funding grant programs that would encourage students to remain enrolled.

Commissioner of Education Armando Vilaseca requested, and was granted, leeway from the committee to utilize his department’s resources to develop alternative legislation that would accomplish many of the goals laid out in the committee’s bill draft. Department of Education officials have begun developing the alternative, and have centered their work on the concepts of “flexible pathways” to graduation, early identification of potential dropouts, and personal learning plans and supports for youth at-risk of dropping out. The Department’s proposal shares with the committee’s bill the concept of expanding the High School Completion program to enrolled students.

We expect the Senate committee to continue to prioritize dropout prevention when the legislative session resumes and we will report on further developments as they occur.

Small Schools Bill

The Senate Education Committee has also been working on a ‘small schools” bill. Despite its name, the bill would make policy changes that would affect all Vermont schools, large and small. Substantively, the bill is akin to another miscellaneous education bill; as currently drafted, the bill has grouped several independent policy changes into one piece of legislation. The latest version is still in draft form and several of the sections are only partially drafted.

The bill allows school districts that tuition one or more entire grade level (i.e., “choice towns”) to designate a public elementary or high school (or both) as the school for the district, provided the receiving school accepts the designation. Currently, districts are only allowed to designate secondary independent schools in this manner. This provision would allow districts another locally controlled option for managing their schoolchildren’s educational program without imposing any sort of a state mandate.

The draft also significantly changes how secondary school tuition payments are approved and applied to the school budget. Currently, tuition payments are estimated in a school district budget proposal; this section would remove the estimated tuition payments for grades 7-12 from the budget proposal, and instead append the estimated amount to the approved budget as a legal obligation of the district without the need for a vote. The section would also remove these same tuition payments from the formulas that calculate the Act 82 two-vote threshold and the excess spending penalty. (Notwithstanding these proposed changes, tuition payments would still be a part of a district’s education spending and therefore part of the homestead education property tax rate calculation).

The small schools draft requires districts to expend school-based Medicaid reimbursements (16 V.S.A. § 2959a) on the facilitation of early identification and intervention of children with disabilities and the implementation of “…research based programs that have been shown to improve student learning in early grades.”

The bill encourages districts to request waivers from the state board of education regarding specific School Quality Standards, when locally available alternatives can more efficiently achieve the goals of the Vermont Framework of Standards and Learning Opportunities.

The bill also prohibits school districts from voting to pay more than the average announced tuition of Vermont union high schools to approved independent schools. Currently, a few communities regularly vote to pay above the announced tuition rates to certain independent schools, thereby relieving parents of private tuition payments.

The small schools bill is an evolving piece of legislation, and we expect it to receive additional consideration from the Senate Education committee in the first week back from the legislature’s Town Meeting Day break.

Property Tax Impact Fiscal Notes – H.293

This bill would require that whenever a bill is voted out of a regular legislative committee that would affect property taxes, that the bill be accompanied by a fiscal note that estimates the impact the bill would have on property taxpayers. Our associations support the bill’s concept because we believe it will help inform the General Assembly of the impact that bills under its consideration will have on school costs and taxes. H.293 garnered approximately 70 cosponsors, a relatively large number, but so far, the legislature has not substantively acted on the proposal.

Education Property Tax Rates

The legislature has not yet set education property tax rates for fiscal year 2010. Late in January, the House passed H.12, a bill that would reduce base rates 1¢ from fiscal year 2009 levels (the rates would be 86¢ for homestead property and $1.35 for nonresidential property); the Senate has not acted. Because of the uncertain condition of state revenues in Vermont and education spending increases that are less than had been estimated, it is unclear at this time what amount the General Assembly will ultimately decide to set the base rates at.

New Education-related Bills Introduced

Over 300 hundred bills have now been introduced in the House, and over 100 have been introduced in the Senate. In our next Education Legislative Report, we will provide a list of the bills recently introduced that relate education.