Representative Mark Lowery

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (1:42:04)

you are having to basically borrow to keep your school district afloat that should also i mean does it make sense that that should also be an indicator of lack of fiscal integrity i i could that be a could that be a factor that is added in i believe to any definition of fiscal integrity i believe it could okay all

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (1:41:27)

concern is that there's data that says of the 500 million dollars that school districts collect in school millage debt service millage less than half of it is spent to retire debt and something like 55% actually goes into other educational purposes operations and maintenance i know in in my case if i had excessive say credit card debt that would be a challenge of fiscal integrity okay so that's why i'm asking about this definition if

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (1:41:16)

okay well i do know she's looking at because i just center gave her notes on a proposed ISP that deals with this issue being that my

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (1:40:18)

madam chair representative Lowry thank you madam chair my question is related to the definition of fiscal integrity was that established by statute or by department rule I mean I see that it talks about indicators but I don't see where there's an actual definition of fiscal integrity that might be a better

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (1:06:54)

to your students so julie thank you for the data that lets us know that that schools are being responsive and especially with this one anecdotal quote where the the principal or the superintendent says you know we think it's important so

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (1:06:20)

one observation i don't looking at these numbers on the journalism classes i want to make sure that i'm not focusing on the glass half empty and not recognizing and acknowledging my appreciation that so many school districts have continued to teach journalism even though they're not required and so i just want to commend the superintendents and the superintendents association to pass that on um i just wish you know that we had not excluded that but thank you very much for offering that

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (1:06:16)

thank you madam chair I just wanted to just backtrack and just make

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (55:52)

requirement even without us removing journalism as a required class to teach.

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (55:28)

i'm not gonna i'm not gonna ask you a policy question because i know that would be something to be asked of the department but there already were mechanisms in place based on this data, that if a school district or a high school just did not have student demand, the vast majority of this number could have been excluded from that

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (54:58)

okay so the only ones that are really being exempted or that are not shoots choosing to teach journalism even after we've told them they don't have to teach journalism are three ALE schools in one virtual Academy well in that the account with the

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (54:46)

of enrollment or lack of resources they could have they could have gotten a waiver rather than us removing it as a requirement is that correct they

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (54:38)

totally removed the requirement for the vast majority of schools that if they couldn't teach it because of lack

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (54:22)

are either open enrollment charter or traditional conversion charters that if they couldn't teach journalism they could have requested a waiver is that correct they could have and they might

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (54:02)

well i mean what i'm looking at is 55 high schools did not offer journalism and of those i i did not look to see how many some

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (53:43)

that could have applied for waivers charter schools is that correct well one it's it's I

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (53:11)

what changes should be made I have been concerned ever since it was reported to us that journalism was no longer going to be required in the schools and now I'm even more concerned in looking at the numbers of the districts that do not offer it it looks like the and I just want to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly that the vast majority of the districts that are not offering it after we've given this I mean we've taken away their requirement our schools

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Jan. 7, 2020 (52:57)

thank you thank you madam chairman I know you're just reporting data to us and and not really discussing with this policy implications but I just wanted to confirm some of the numbers so I can better understand going forward you know

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Feb. 10, 2020 (52:20)

analysis of where we stand in relation to the SREB states and I think that that would be extremely helpful I know that you're trying to avoid a lot of overlap but it certainly is helpful if the data that you're giving us is also an apples to apples comparison with what we're receiving and have been receiving from BLR and I just think that if we if we go far beyond that SREB state list we really don't have the comparative data uh that would best fit what we're wanting to do so i

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Feb. 10, 2020 (51:57)

look at well we've already got one members turned his in. Well, if I may, I just wanted to go ahead and put in a plug, so to speak, for us focusing on the SREB states. We invest heavily in being a part of SREB. I agree. And the other issue is that I know we have gotten for a number of years from BLR great

Education Committee - Senate & House Meeting Jointly with Advanced Communications & Information — Feb. 10, 2020 (51:14)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to get clarification from you. I know that you had indicated that on this discussion of which category of schools that you were going to poll members. when you polled after you poll members are we going to have the discussion or are you inviting discussion at this point before polling i