Advocates: Start spending new money now on high-needs students
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2 dozen organizations advocating for disadvantaged students wrote county and schoolhouse district superintendents and charter school administrators Wednesday, reminding them that the new funding formula directing more than money to depression-income kids and English learners is now the law even though the initial regulations for the organisation are months away. The bulletin: Starting time spending money on your high-needs children this twelvemonth; don't brand commitments that might interlope on future obligations to these students.
The organizations are concerned that, without clear directives from the state, districts will treat boosted dollars however they want with the new flexibility that the Legislature has given them.
The letter is intended to grab districts' attention every bit they make concluding revisions, past Aug. 15, to their 2013-14 budgets. Some districts passed budgets without including extra dollars under the Local Control Funding Formula that Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law in tardily June; other districts built in the dollars simply have not allocated them to the targeted students.
"Nosotros believe identifying the current level of expenditures already existence devoted to back up services for these students and investing new LCFF funds in increased and improved services consistent with the new state priorities in constabulary is critical to a successful transition," the letter said.
The LCFF will exist fully funded over eight years. The formula divides money into a base grant for all students; a supplemental grant of 20 percent for every low-income kid, foster youth and English learner; and a concentration grant on elevation of that for districts in which targeted students comprise at least 55 percent of enrollment.
The LCFF says the supplemental and concentration dollars must exist spent "in proportion" to the students who generated them. But the Legislature gave the State Board of Instruction until Jan. 31 to write regulations defining proportionality: Must dollars be spent on services specifically for individual high-needs students or can they exist spent to improve services at a school site or districtwide that benefit all students? Must every dollar every year that the funding formula is phased in – most an eighth of full funding this year – exist accounted for, and how?
"There's a bit of a vacuum in 'thirteen-'14, but folks must understand that the implementation starts right away," said Brooks Allen, the managing director of education advocacy for the ACLU of Southern California, i of the 28 groups that signed the letter. Even without regulations, districts must follow the spirit of the police force, he said.
Until this year, there was land funding for loftier-needs students through prescriptive chiselled programs such as the $944 million Economical Impact Assistance. Those categoricals have been folded into the new funding formula, and regulations accept disappeared with them. The Legislature allocated $2.ane billion to start phasing in the LCFF.
What worries advocates is that fifty-fifty those dollars might now be spent elsewhere, as districts, facing a backlog of needs and getting extra money for the offset fourth dimension in v years, hire back staff, end furlough days and negotiate increased pay and benefits.
"In that location is not carte blanche" for districts to spend withal they want, said Arun Ramanathan, executive director of the Teaching Trust-Westward, based in Oakland, which likewise signed the letter.
Compounding the dilemma, Ramanathan said, is a lack of clarity. The state Department of Education has lumped districts' LCFF allocations as one effigy, instead of past components. Without a breakdown of base, supplemental and concentration dollars, there's no baseline from which to measure spending decisions moving frontwards, he said.
"At that place's no base and no guidance," he said.
Some guidance is on the mode.
Karen Stapf Walters, executive manager of the State Board of Educational activity, said Wednesday that the Land Board and the Department of Pedagogy volition be issuing a guidance letter and a sheet of Frequently Asked Questions to districts within the next ii weeks. The State Board "will non desire to leave ahead" of a transparent public regulatory process, she said, only the letter of the alphabet volition country that "nosotros recall the intent of the law is articulate, so follow that."
There has been no decision on whether to spell out each district'south supplement and concentration dollars; hearings will explore this effect. Simply the letter will probable stress that districts should exist open about their decisions, she said.
Ramanathan said that Ed Trust-Westward plans to monitor districts' spending this year and to highlight those districts that make wise spending decisions openly.
Budgets tin can be revised throughout the year. Fifty-fifty if boards make insignificant changes by Aug. 15, they can reconsider LCFF again at a future meeting, said Tammy Sanchez, banana superintendent of the Sacramento County Office of Educational activity.
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Source: https://edsource.org/2013/advocates-start-spending-new-money-now-on-high-needs-students/36555
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