Education Committee - House and Senate

Come to the joint committee on education we should you being here today. I don't be on your agenda need a consideration most to prove january aid in january nine meeting minutes are going to motion second on the other all those in favor i. Those nay motion passes thank you will move to items c m slory good habit where this today you'll induce yourself for the record and then you may begin your presentation. Thank you mister chairman adam chairman members of the committee my name is laurie belin and i'm a policy now assists or an analyst gives me with the policy analysis of research section within the bureau of legislative research and this afternoon i'm going to be presenting a report on k twelve facility spending and expenditures. In this presentation we will cover the legal requirements for public school facilities legislation that's been enacted to provide facility funding for school districts state bunding and expenditures for facilities will also look at the funding that's available for traditional a regular public school districts and also for open enrollment public charter schools will also look at some national comparison data on how other states find what models they use to find their facilities programs and will also look at some of their expenditure patterns for capital projects and last we'll look at the some of the survey responses that we receive from superintendents and principles relating to academic facilities. Burst the the arkansas statute does establish a duty for the state to provide i'll public school children with an adequate education which includes access to adequate academic facilities and and equipment in a response to this responsibility the arkansas general assembly pass a facility spending act in two thousand five but with the passage of act twenty two o six which created a series of public school funding programs for facilities including the partnership program and catastrophic programs which will talk about today later in this presentation and this is then then effort to provide a adequate and equal educational facilities for school arkansas school districts. The next provides a little bit of a and abbreviated timeline of some of the legislative actions that have been taken to address facility needs in two thousand three the general simply created a joint committee on educational facilities with the passage of act eleven eighty one and they had some responsibilities that included determining what an adequate educational facility was and work hypes of funding where's going to be needed to provide adequate educational facilities in addition to that in two thousand and four through the work of a test force working jointly with the committee statewide assessment was completed of all school buildings across the state this was done by a consultant at a cost of ten million dollars in two thousand five after the conclusion of that study and the investigation of the status of school buildings there were three x pass the one that created the division of public school academic facilities and transportation of one that created the academic facilities program and then one that will spend a good bit of time looking at today the one that created the public school academic facility spending act in two thousand and thirteen we see the first intrio funding being made available for open enrollment public charter schools with for a great program in two thousand seventeen the general assembly created an advisory committee to look at what had gone on so far with the partnership program in up to that point and to look at other facility programs and make recommendations which they did in a two thousand and eighteen report and several changes were made as a result of the recommendations and then the most recent action that was taken by the general simply was the establishment of an open enrollment at a school facility long program in this most recent regular session twenty twenty three and that was in an at two thirty seven which was the learns act it was one of the components. So will first move to state funding and expenditures that have been made available for facilities there are three primary funding sources for state facility banding during revenue allocations the revenue stabilization law are savings from predecessor programs to the partnership program of the primary one right now is the bonded debt assistance program that we were that the program received savings payments from its also received a number of transfers from state finds such as general improvement fine rainy day restricted reserve those types of the phones. The next side shows funding for the last for five year period including this year that we're currently in starts with a fiscal year twenty twenty and we see that general revenue was provided in the amount of about forty two million dollars in twenty twenty and their savings from boundary debt less other transfers added up to about sixty million dollars in twenty twenty total funding in twenty twenty three the most recently completed year the program was provided with about ninety one million dollars in total funding and you see a shift in this current year estimated numbers where there's no general revenue allocated to the program but there was a hundred and four point eight million in between the bonded debt savings and the other fund transfers eighty three million of which came from restricted reserve um also I just wanted to point out that since the initiation of this program it's received at on average about ninety million dollars a year and funding for a total of about one point seven billion through the end of twenty twenty three if you add that twenty four estimated estimated it would bring it to one point eight billion. This keeps me I think administrative the next slide shows are expenditure patterns for the program over the let this five year period beginning with twenty twenty receiving for the partnership program that a hundred and five million was expenditure the partnership program there were no other expenditures that year so that was the total in a twenty twenty three there was about forty point eight million expended and that was between the partnership program and the academic facilities catastrophic the number goes up a little bit precipitously and fiscal you're twenty four and there's a good explanation for they have them facilities division does have to budget for the fall all of the projects for which they made commitments but it would do the nature of facility programs they operate in a facility project can run over several years so it's probably not interesting that all of it would go out in a single year but they do need to budget for the commitments that they've made so they have a total budget at two hundred fourteen million over the again over the life of the program they've spent a one point five billion through the end of the most recently completed year twenty twenty three and an average of a seventy eight point six million each each of those years for that same time period. We're gonna transition they are to just a review of the the facility programs that are available for traditional or regular public chart as public school districts there are three primary active programs right now the academic facilities partnership academic facilities catastrophic and the academic facilities extraordinary circumstances program. We'll spend most of our time talking about the partnership program because that's the program with the largest amount of funding and projects as though said with it and within that project program there are two major project types space growth projects in warm safe try the space growth projects include new construction or conversion of non academic space to academic space or adding on to a school and it's for a district that are experiencing growth the warm safe dry projects have two types one is a space replacement which is new construction to replace the facility that's been deemed not to be warm safe and dry and then warm safe dry systems replacement which is new construction to deal with facility systems issues like a fire safety heating violation air conditioning instruct or structural issues. The partnership program runs on a buy union cycle and it begins approximately august one of i'd numbered years where the division publishes a two state wide needs list that prioritize what are the greatest neat facility needs across the state it prepares these are creates these list using some ranking and waiting factors their space growth uses for ranking factors to develop its list a two of which we are related to five year division projected enrollment groves to or related to a suitability which is a comparison of what that square foot that they want to build or that they feel like they need compared to what's actually already in place and then after they rank these four ranking factors then they apply equal waits each of those and then the lowest score is right first and that helps them prioritise funding we'll see the role that displays a little later in ranking partnership projects under warm safe dry they use a have two ranking factors campus value and facilities condition index and again a way to supply it against those two ranking factors and equal way to fifty percent with the ultimate range the lowest ranked first in the lowest a higher score ranked last. The process continues with the submission of facility master plans by the by the school district which is due by february first of even numbered years so. I guess where we've already passed that deadline for the next funding cycle twenty five twenty seven but that districts are required to submit this six year plan which is their projection that ten year projection of enrollment figures that they proceed coming on the horizon as well as all of their plans for maintaining and any new construction projects that they might interest the paper would like to do over that six year period by march one of which is now so coming up deadline districts I will have to submit their partnership program applications if they want to seek any state funding for the projects that they have in their plan. By may first of all numbered years the division completes its review of application it ranks the projects a space growth and reform safe dry oh both use this same ranking system but there are two separate ranking list the branching values that are used or the facilities wealth index with the lowest facility wealth index ranked first will cover will go into a little more detailed facility wealth index just a moment over yet the second ranking back to a state wide priority needs list ranking which is the less we just spoke of and the finally is academic facilities maintenance expenditure ranking with it which is the percentage of expenditures that districts have expanded for maintaining their properties with the highest percentage ranked first again weights and reply to each of these ranking factors thirty percent of facility wealth index fifty percent to the needs list and twenty to the facilities a maintenance expenditure rank to come up with a final project at a recommendation for the facilities commission. By may first about number years the commission sets the funding level for your one projects and the they are so divided then a recommended funding into two parts how for space growth and half reward safe dry in the current cycle that were currently in twenty twenty three twenty twenty five in the first year they did they discern that there was a need for being able to shift funds between project categories because not every cycle with one project category need the full amount of funding but yet the other right needed and that indeed did happen in the first year of this project cycle where space growth didn't need all of its funding and there were additional warm safe dry projects that could be funded so they start a rule change recently and which was approved and went through our legislated council and so they shifted in needed portions of the growth money over into warm safe dry then by may first of this year the commission will make a decision on the second year of the buying any amount on what they feel that can be funded in approved projects for the second year. Coming back to that facilities wealth index that I mention to you a moment ago in addition to it being a ranking factor for a partnership programs it also determines the amount of financial excuse me the amount of financial participation that districts must make it at brow approved projects so if a district has the facility wealth index point eight five there they would be required to spend eighty five percent they were fine excuse me eighty five percent of the total qualified project cost the state would pick up the remaining fifteen percent are we been in a state of transition on on how we calculate facility wealth index and we just fully implemented a new calculation the spending cycle twenty three twenty five and it includes an adjustment for median household income which was a not a part of the the calculation in the two thousand nineteen twenty one it was a partial part of the calculation in the twenty one twenty three so going from two thousand two thousand nineteen twenty one to the brand new facility wealth index calculation in twenty three twenty five we see that two hundred and nine districts had facility wealth in index decreases which meant that the amount that they would be required to contribute to facility projects would decrease in nineteen school districts they actually start increased in their facility wealth index that was a decrease is ranged from about a half a percent of a decrease all the way to a sixty four percent decrease for lee county where will look at a list here in just a minute. Of what that looks like for the current fiscal cycle. The first of chart shows the top ten reductions in facility wealth index is a result of this change you can see in the nineteen twenty one a cycle fitle county head and ninety nine point five percent o. Facility a wealth index in in the most recent cycle twenty three twenty five it fell to thirty five point two four or sixty four percent reduction these are the top ten reductions. The next slide shows a tapped in increases in facilities wealth index valley view had the highest increase and they rose from a forty eight point five facility win index to seventy two point four eight so they had a roughly a twenty four percent increase in their facility wealth index which would impact how much they would need to contribute to any approved projects. To get an idea that the total dollar impact of the program over it over its life week this slide shows the total qualifying project costs the total state financial participation in accumulative payments that have been made for a facility projects through the partnership program through the first year of the twenty three twenty five but there's not been any for that cycle any payments quite yet but through that that time period the state had expended almost a billion one point four billion dollars for a facility partnership approved projects. To look at kind of the impact but in terms of project numbers we see per the last three funding cycles nineteen twenty one twenty one twenty three and the current funding cycle you're one of twenty three twenty five the number of projects and the categories that they from which they each find so in night two thousand and nineteen twenty one there were a total of a hundred proof projects with seventy seven of those being warms sake dry projects and the rest growth the twenty three balance was growth a similar pattern for twenty one twenty three and in this first year of the twenty three twenty five cycle a total of twenty six projects have been approved was fifteen of those being warm safe and dry projects. To look at it from a dollar perspective in nineteen twenty one there were two hundred and seventy six million dollars worth of projects approved in a hundred and forty three million of that a project cost was to be borne by the district and hundred and thirty three million by the state and we can kind of start seeing as the facility wealth index new calculation was transitioned in twenty one twenty three and then fully in twenty three twenty five we can see the impact of that with the shift between district and state responsibility the total approved project costs in the middle cycle twenty one twenty three was three hundred nine million one hundred and eighty one million of that estate responsibility for the current cycle that you're one hundred and seventy nine million dollars and projects have been approved and a hundred and sixteen million of that will be funded with state resources. We took them the app that payments there had been made for the partnership program and converted them to a per student amount for each district using their twenty twenty three current your idm and then we looked at it at for various district characteristics to see if we saw any patterns that he merged for these district characteristics are we look at picked three and reduced price lunch percentage eligibility for districts minority percentage of more nora students for districts the district size and then we last looked at are the districts by region and these are just geographically similar regions that we've divided the stayed into to look for for patterns there's not as a significant consistency that we see anywhere for any of these characteristics but I will point out which categories did have the highest per student average a partnership payments you can see that the upper delta had the very highest per student payment at fifty three thirty seven and those districts that have between five hundred and one in seven hundred and fifty students had the second highest payment average payment of fifty one seventeen and the statement average was three thousand nine hundred and four dollars. We also looked at the total payments that districts received an error can put in an amount format so that you could see where the money's been going from actual payment perspective you can see that there are some white districts appearing in why they are those are the districts that have not received any partnership funding at this point you can see that the range of payments right ranges from the zero for those fourteen districts to over eighty eight million of the fourteen districts that having it received payments two of them brinkly and wrector actually have approved projects they've just not yet received a payment and then little rock school district also has some approved projects from the nineteen twenty one and twenty one twenty three cycles are that they've not yet received a payment on overhalf or a fifty six percent of the districts have received a payments in that bottom court quintile that you see they are built below four point four million dollars so fifty six percent or a hundred and thirty one districts fall in that quintile and at nine districts or four percent are following that tap quintel that had received more than twenty six million dollars. So how to district come up with their portion to match partnership project cost a districts use debt service meals to generate their matching phones to receive partnership program funding i'll district but a three have passed some level of debt service meals goes now mountain view in salem or the three that don't have that service meals. And the authorized its service mills range from one point three to twenty nine point eight and the average is thirteen point one two. Band in dad is one mechanism that districts use to finding at school facilities and each year the department of education prepares the debt ratio report to show the level of indebted debtedness that exists for school districts in the debt ratio ranges from zero for the same three districts that don't have that service meals gos nail mountain view and say home to thirty one point eight eight for southside school district in independence county. So we took those per student partnership payments then we kind of compared them with the average at service mills and averaged at racial to see if there was any pattern as the per student amounts that they'd received in partnership went up and we did indeed see a progression the lowest quintel had the lowest average debt service miller may hon of eleven point one three and the app and the lowest average at racio of six point five. Um the statewide average debt ratio was nine point one nine and we can see that the highest debt servicemeal rate average rate and highest debt ratio appears in that quintel five with the highest per student payments. Just wanted to cover a briefly the other two partnership programs that are currently operating one is the catastrophic program it provides spending for emergency facility projects that are required due to an active guide or violence these are payments or intended to supplement what insurance pays or other public or private assistance and not replace and it's provided about three point three million dollars to sixteen districts since its inception the extraordinary circumstances program provides are funding to districts that aren't able to pass enough millage to raise their local share the extraordinary circumstances program had not been activated until fiscal year twenty twenty three when projects were approved for the first time in twenty four million with allocated for seven projects in three districts. Uh the arkansas cobe does place an impact of level of importance on facility public school facilities being properly maintained there's even a statutory requirement that they spend a certain percentage of their of foundation funding on operations and maintenance after investing good bit of money there was an interest in making sure that districts did properly maintain so in looking at the twenty twenty three report that the department publishes to illustrate house and districts are doing on meeting that threshold i'll districts but wine met that nine percent bismarck was the district that didn't any amount up to that threshold that they did not spend is required to be placed in an escrow account where they can only use it for maintenance costs or they could seek special permission from the division to use it for construction purpose. One issue that's been able to some importance and we were asked to focus in a little more intently on this term is district property insurance and it is part of the rate there aren't there is some funding provided as part of the rate for operations and maintenance in the foundation funding matrix the initial foundation rate for operations and maintenance was nine percent of the foundation rate plus twenty seven dollars for property insurance the first rate that was said was five hundred and eighty one dollars in two thousand eight and in the most recent year that was completed if school you're twenty three the rate had increased to seven hundred and forty one dollars or an increase of twenty seven point six percent. Oh the division does have rules that require districts to have risk property coverage for at least ninety percent of the replacement cost of their facilities to participate in the funding programs. So as I mentioned this became an issue in twenty twenty three where districts work in front of with rather significant camp property insurance rate increases end so when we try to determine what the foundate what the foundation rate would have provided to districts for property insurance and twenty twenty three we applied that same rate of increase that I went in had experienced twenty seven percent and we estimate that about thirty four dollars for student was provided to the districts for property insurance or about sixteen point three million dollars. Then we looked at the actual expenditures that districts had for this purpose and saw that they speak twenty eight point five million or about sixty dollars and forty three cents per student. The ark until they just like cancel did respind to the concerns the districts raised and approved a one time eleven point one million dollars allocation to help offset these rate increases for districts and for open enrollment charters and have also hired a consultant to come up with a new plan for providing property insurance for both k twelve and institution of higher education. This. So with others investment in maintaining of buildings we are we wanted to address the question of how we determine facility condition as we mentioned earlier I know for there was a comprehensive assessment where they went out to every school building but that's not been replicated since that time so I wanted to just briefly touch on the tool that the division uses to assess facility condition and know how public schools are doing with their building. The facility condition index is developed using information that districts enter into the master planning tool which is software type program that the districts in facility or bit of building information into and the higher the facility condition in next score the poor the condition of the building the cival you must be at least as a general rule anyway sixty five percent in order to qualify for partnership funding. As we looked at some district characteristics facility condition indexes are done on a campus or building level so we looked at school characteristics and that they're corresponding fci score averages to see if any patterns emerged and when you can see the categories we looked at urban versus rural of their free and reduced price lunch percentages minority school size whether or not they were a bill are cohort school you might recall duly describing what that is it's schools that performed higher than they were statistically predicted to perform and then we also looked at the fci values for schools based on their rating a through f. Um there are don't appear to be a pattern for school size but there are some patterns that you can see for some of the other categories and I would point out that the two highest fci values were for schools with the highest percentage of minority students and those are schools with an app rating. The. Now we'll be looking at the facility spending that's been made available for open enrollment public charters the first spending was provided in fiscal your two thousand sixteen you can see the state distributed about four point six million dollars in the total amount that's been distributed to open enrollment charters since the program began through the most recently completed year fy twenty twenty three was fifty three point seven million dollars. The general assembly did establish in statutes them eligibility criteria that that charters messed me in order to qualify for this funding they cannot have virtual technology as their primary method of instruction they have to meet all applicable health safety codes and also it's accessibility requirements in addition and open enrollment charter school can't be in level five intensive support need or in fiscal distress they also can have received an f rating or being in probationary status with the charter school authorizing panel. I. The the facility spending a that goes to charters is distributed on a paradium basis and so you can see some variability as the number of eighty em qualifying for the funding goes up and down so does the rate in a fy twit two thousand sixteen at the twenty two operating charters fourteen I received the aid that year or sixty four percent at a rate of five hundred and sixty two dollars a parade in the most recent cycle twenty three there are twenty one operating charger systems and eighteen charters receive that funding or eighty six percent at a rate of five hundred and fifty four dollars. To pay for and we see that the highest category of expense for the charters was purchased property services in way so we drill down in that a little more and solve that of the six million seven point nine and seven point eight that they spent on purchase property services that the highest category of expense was for rental of land and buildings and they spent six point five million the first year shown nine million the second and eight point nine in twenty twenty three. Yeah. We next a is I mentioned before or looked ahead wanted to do some national comparisons for your information so you could see how we compare to other states than the national average so we looked at the expenditure patterns that are reported to the US since this bureau buy school districts nationwide. And i'm getting ahead of myself the first thing that we looked out and apologized was what funding models other states had other states at facility funding models were reported in an education commission are the states report that looked at all fifty states in the district of columbia and they found two primary funding method methods that were used to find facility projects are for school districts appropriations for grants that don't require repayment and then dead assistance or loans that could take the form of the state providing assistance with the insurance of binds or help or doing state issued binds or even loans and these do require repayment. We depicted what we felt what the steady results found in the mail so that you could see how we are compared to other states the lightest colour shows those states that only provide appropriation or grants for facility projects the next color showed those that provide both of preparations and debt assistance or loans and arkansas and found in that category the next categories those states that just provide debt assistance and don't provide appropriation and then there are five seats two of which are a neighboring states louisiana and tennessee that provide neither of the type of assistance. Now i'll get to the expenditure sorry I got a little head of myself we looked at the as I mentioned a moment ago we looked at the capital expenditures for each date both as a percentage and had what they spent per student but also what they simp speak is that percentage of their total k twelve spending and this first graph to pics arkansas per student expenditures for the period two thousand and seventeen through twenty one which was the most recent year available oh as compared to the national average and arkansas balls below that national average each of those five years. Four of which were more than two hundred dollars below the national average but we near it the national average in two thousand and nineteen we're only about fifty one dollars less the next slide shows however that when you compare our expenditures as a percent of total of twelve expenditures we exceed the national average each of those years sometimes by as much as two point four percent in two thousand and nineteen. So again we put this into a mount form so that you could see how arkansas compares to all the other states. And you considered them the highest per student expenditure per student was by the district of columbia at seventy eight sixty two idaho has the lowest per student payment of four hundred and fifty two dollars in arkansas isn't a similar category with misery and oklahoma but spends a little less than texas and mississippi on a per student basis but more than tennessee and louisiana. We see a similar pattern when we look at our expenditures as the percentage of total k twelve expenditures the lowest is in vermite they spent three point nine percent of their total k twelve expenditures on capital projects and dc again was the top state with spending twenty three point two percent of their total expenditures arkins are speed to a tin eleven percent of their of art signatures on capital outlay and the national average was ten point four. So last we're going to look at our those questions that were opposed to the superintendents and principles relating to facility matters. The first question we asked what it would be likely who that their school district would be able to fully add an address identified needs that required immediate attention. And the super tendence responded with fifty three percent of them saying it was likely or somewhat likely that they could end twenty three percent saying it was not very likely that they could meet there was immediate needs. When asked what what they anticipated being the greatest unmet facility need and we are asked them to have respond in the categories of the partnership program they responded that they thought that they were concerned that them but greatest unmet facility need would be warrant safe dry replacement projects with twenty two percent responding in that category. The. We also so to them to describe the physical condition of their buildings are asking if all of their buildings created a conducive learning involvement via most some or nine and a eighty percent reported that all or most of their buildings created a conducive learning environment. So for those districts that did not say all of their buildings created a conducive learning environment we asked them to identify some of the problems that they see with their buildings and that the number one reported of the listed array there was building being unat aesthetically unattractive as the number one we also asked them to have offer any others that they might not have seen in the list and the most often sided other category was the roofing was inadequate building was old and need and repete needed repairs or they had designed problems. We the superintendents are also asked if there were any other supports or oversight that they think they needed to assist their district as they thought to prepare it provide a good facilities for their students and thirty There most often cited a need that was for additional funding for facility needs. The last question for super tendence was what they proceed to be the greatest impediments to you school for facility deficiencies and and the greatest impediment started was the availability of state funding with one hundred and sixty five choosing that response. In that other category they also cited that rising construction car safer in requirements that have also increased their costs and then passing local millages was also an impediment to them addressing facility needs. We asked two questions of the superintendence relating i'm scared me principles relating to school our facilities one similar question to them when we ask the superintendence asking if all those summer none of their facilities created a conduct of learning environment and ninety two percent said all our most of their buildings created that can do siblinging environment. And for those that they did not say all we asked them what some of those building problems were in an again the response that got the most responses was building is aesthetically unattractive. And then there other categories where they rising construction car stood inflation they are so side of the safe room requirements that have increased costs and person local millages. And and that concludes my remarks and i'd be happy to try to answer any questions thank you miss lori as always very detailed and very well presented we'll go to questions now representative cozard you recognized. Thank you mister chairman. Lori back on page fourteen and you don't have to go back there as just simple question you said that the bismarc was the only one that did not spend the least to nine percent on their one am the day state any reason for that I was because they have new buildings are any different thing that we have on record that they said why I don't believe that there was any explanation I got that from a department report and so I did not speak directly with bismarc to ask them a I think historically there might and II miss speak if I would say for sure but I think in the past there may be one or so that don't quite meet that mark in there there may be a variety of explanations and i'm sorry I don't have well I know they have a lot of new buildings but I think that's of a falseness that you think when you have new buildings you don't have to do maintenance and operation but that's a reason to do that is to keep on new so thank you for that answer thank you. Representative painting or recognized thank you mister chair on a slide twenty two can you explain why they're such a big difference in the adequacy funding for the north since or argos all region. The next closest I think is the lower delta that's like a fifteen hundred dollar difference there now sir and i'm sorry we we just ran those per student and we are right them in the various categories then i'm sorry I don't know what would what account for that okay and also miss chair do can staff get us the full list of the of the two hundred nine districts that were low that the difference percentages that decrease certainly probably that that information can be supposed to and it's in your poor to turn all of the facility wealth index decreases are in an appendix of you in your record if you look oh i'm sorry give me just a quick second it's in a pindic which begins on page thirty one thank you mr chair. There was in the mechans of your recognized they was chair so you you mentioned that increases in the facility fund wealth calculation is the what has changed in terms of weights and measures been published or is that information readily available for the committee. That actual calculation is provided for instance you and the department does publish the facility wealth index calculations in a report and I can i'd be happy to get that to you that's going to be great thank you. Sinnerstone yes you mentioned about rising building calls for school do you have a feel for what a good average calls per where is right now to build a school. Um that's an excellent question and I do know that the division of that and the commission subsequently reproved a higher rate but i'm gonna have to differ to the division because that member is alluded me but they have gone up on a per square foot price so I may need to defer to them I would like to know yesterday. Will you get somewhat from the department came with facilities. Mister rogers I believe you're back behind the poll. The. Glad new german fuel identify yourself for the record then center stone if you'd like to restate your question. Great graduates to buy my education time came to vision of the solid's intransportation then understand. Yet was stated that the building calls to rise and for public schools I just want to know what a good average prosperous square would be to build a a school building ratner and two thousand twenty four. A general range and trying to make you down I just try to get a fair port itself it depends on what region of the state idiots that plays a big rolling it I would say that when I have seen the last few minutes what we have seen. Is is around three hundred hours a square for north of that there are some that are higher in certain parts of the state. That actually go north of that attacks seem to be a. An average and like she said the commission debates the max month and the interest. Thank you thank you german. We have any other questions from members of the committee. Representative back you recognize thank you chair just to not get too far down to the weeds honor singer stones question was there any other correlating data as far as like when there was a difference in price what could it be correlated to different costs of living between i'm just districts or anything like that do we get in so that's what time was referring to related to we have a contract and does a study that breaks out has taken a twelve different regions and within that twelve different regions a different calls factors attitude teach when the based off the car to living based on the inflation based on the account so to wait as gone in there the twelve different reasons that they break stayed into so we do break it down into the metropolitan area is the bigger the bigger so we know how much the cost in that area is in the depending on the top of project what's going on in that project the cost factors what goes on into that whether it's a new building a remanded remodel what has happened and based off their master plan per that's breaking into the twelve regions going into it. Follow yes maybe i'm missing something so is there any other independent like the same region as is fifty dollars a square foot higher than region b right is or any other. Attribute a rate where you go you want to call that you can attribute to the difference in the price between those two other in the study they do I mean it it passed it's based off it is reasonably about access to the products about the living of the cost of construction where he has the availability of the materials all the different things that that going into a a building contract those are what are contract to try to break down in and split in those twelve different regions so is it safe to say you could be correlated comma to the difference in construction costs between that's absolutely what we try to do yes sir thank you representative mckenzie thank you mister this is just a quick question in in this I think the answer should be going from this side but for the uninitiated can you help me understand why. The appropriation for open roman charters for fit facilities funding started at fifteen million decrease to six and then went back to nine week when we seem to have the same number of charters as beginning of the program and. Fiscal your sixteen and a higher rate of participation that I know that elected officials are the ones that help probably navigate that appropriation but yes with anyone with institutional have an understanding as to why that appropriation is fluctuated so much. So the the public school fun appropriation is what down is and where we've tried to keep that appropriation is is where they the total schools are getting about five hundred dollars in the neighborhood of five hundred dollars per admit they're going that they have going into it so when it first started out and going into the and then we added the seventy five thousand dollars to it to offer back and it was called school dude is that online maintenance platform to allow the ever district in charge calls to have access to that to know when they need to do upgrades their facilities but that's our target area that we try to keep it at is about five hundred dollars five hundred dollars per adm in those open role in charter schools. Absurd to keep punching the button but. What's the rationale five hundred dollars is is that based on a blinded rate that we see and competitive regions or is it just conventionalism just trying to get understand a y we're locked in on the number that was to say historically what was established to help the schools offset some of the remainders caused back when it was set up compared to the blinded rate per student in a public school what's what's the difference because we've got sixty sides here I don't know that I don't I don't know that we've ever broken down that far because it when you get to the the traditional public schools their ability to go out and raise an additional meals or raise the additional cost to what they need to go out to the people and ask for an increase in that yeah and to have it set to worry what he called the five hundred dollars we've never gone to them thank you seeing no other questions from committee will go represent your springer you recognized thank you mister chairman good afternoon I would just like to ask the question what respect to slight number twenty seven and also I would just like to say I ditto what has been said about this report very good report slide twenty seven that relates to extra ordinary circumstances for program part projects to be funded are those start circumstances in writing the give examples of what those extraordinary circumstances are for additional funding. I believe that I believe it is outlined in rules as tattoo to what we can use that extraordinary circumstances or I just don't have that with me but I would be. Mr chair yes ma'am will get that for you get that sent out thank you thank you see no the questions you might thank you miss lori thank you very much for your presentation a day. Members will now go to item d on or agenda it's an old review of alternative learning environments invite eh say she smiled during home table. The. But it's a lot of your problems. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The. Yeah. Thank you very much for coming today there seemed to be our last month's meeting there was several questions that kind of a rose about what is a lee worded it really start where we add so we thought of each be great had you come and into a presentation day so thank you very much for preparing this you'll identify yourself for the record and then begin your presentation sounds good thank you for her mommy stacy smith deputy commission with the arkansas apartment of education and with me all it injures your. I am during the alien program manager for the department of education. And so again we were asked to kind of put together a high level overview of what ali is specifically how students are placed in the alley the funding that's connected to that and then what are the outcomes as the account tried to be precisely in those things today but if you have more detailed questions were happy to try to answer this. So first taking specifically out of role in legislation what an alley is you can see here that and it really is it's a student intervention program a lot of people have in their mind that a lease this punitive place it you send kids that are bad and so today hopefully I want to kind of shift you away from from that thinking and and what it is because that's not what um i'll turn to learning environments are supposed to be in the environment is supposed to seek to unlimited traditional periods that children might be facing whether within their academics or negative characteristics that are creating them not to be successful it is not designed to be a punitive environment but one that is conducive to learning. So there are several pieces of identification criteria for soons to be placed into an ailing so you can see here are pretty long list there students have to meet at least two of those to be placed and when students are being placed it is done by a committee there is actually an alternative education placement committee and that committee is supposed to be made up at the school counselor administration regular classroom teachers who are familiar with that student the parent the ali administrator and the ale educator. That's who makes up the committee to make the placement decision that an ultra education and alternative environment would be appropriate for the student and when you're looking at the list here of reasons why a student might be placed there again you see that first one being about academics struggling with proficiency and math literacy in other academic areas or credits students who have abu said their background physical mental or sexual. Frequent relocation from one school to another homelessness inadequate emotional support for that child all the way down to the bottom disrupted behavior and a lot of times disrupted behavior is the one that most folks think about students being placed in ali four disrupted if you're and that does happen and stings that have high levels of absenteeism a lot of times when you get into high school these are kids who are at risk for dropping out and so this is an effort to place these kids in an environment to get them to the finish line so that they graduate when you look at sending calculations for alley it is a categorical fund and that this body has sat at this last year the fund allocation was over twenty eight million dollars. And for a student to be eligible or school to be eligible for the funding in that category a student has to be in an ali setting for twenty consecutive days. For at least twenty consecutive days and then there is a formula that is used to calculate the percent of funding that that student would actually receive so satisfied right now an adequacy for a full time student that is in the system for the entire year would be four thousand eight hundred and ninety dollars if you replace there for half the year the school district would only be an behalf of that funding so it's not being placed there for score automatically gets that for funding amount so looking at some of those calculations there student a since they were not there for the for twenty days they wouldn't be eligible for the funding soon b was placed in the system for eighty nine days he was there for consecutive days. In his course minutes throughout the day he was in a lawy classes from most of the day again that's another myth that you're there once you're put there you're there all day long you have some students especially in high school settings you may be there for half the day and then transitioning back and forth the classes because that's what you really want you want to back in general classrooms and but you can see for it for funding for for student be there they're only their point three fd of the year so that school district for that student being placed there roughly is going to get about fourteen hundred dollars they wouldn't get the full four thousand. Therefore a student who was there for the entire year they would. You look at who actually was in ali this last year there was over eleven thousand students actually served in a program again that doesn't mean their students were there full time. Alright when you calculate to full time you will see five thousand eight hundred students but eleven thousand students were served throughout the year. Again probably doesn't surprise you that both of our students from l sixty three percent mel and then you look at the demographics and by race fifty four percent why twenty three percent black and then see the other categories there which fairly represent the arkansas are hold. Once a student is placed in an ale the email and needed chime on this one a student action plan is created based on the reasons why they replace there and that is supposed to be created within the first week correct you want to add a little bit more what goes into creating a student action plan once a student has blased into ali the committee begins working immediately on the creation of a student action plan they have within the first five days of placement to put the student into some to run some instruments to make sure that they can find out the current level of functioning of that student in certain areas they then use that information to create short term and longterm goals that will be beneficial in addressing some of the criteria that were present that place the student in there in the first place and they have within the first five days of placement to get their taking care of and then that's their blueprint and making sure that student is receiving their help they need when I stick when a score sets up and i'll turn to learning environment or replace all that like school nurse counseling all the things that are available to students and general like classrooms should be available to students and alternative learning environment as well they should be accessible to those in addition to that you're looking at additional wrap around services a lot of times there are specific contracts with middle health providers that are coming in to provide additional counseling services. Sometimes you'll see and school districts have contracts with behavioral specialists who are coming in I am especially in our high school area when you have care to they may be the main person and their family that's working full time and trying to go to school and they've been placed in alternative education because they weren't going to make it throughout the year with the schedule that a traditional school has and so your you'll see systems put up and wrap around supports to meet the individual needs of those students that are in their classroom. Here when you're looking at program models and components when you're looking at elementary most the time a student is placed in an elementary ali based on their academics and behavior. That's that's those are the two primary reasons there middle school the same thing you're going to see mainly this behavioral and the academic reasons but when you go visit sites that have elementary a middle school students they should look like an elementary classroom it's much more structured you're going to see a lower student to teach your ratio for an ali environment to qualify for any additional funding in elementary it's ten students to one teacher. And a middle school I believe it's fifteen to one secondary in general so secondary all the way at so much smaller ratio of students to teachers in that scenario when you're looking at high school again you're going to see behavior academic primary reasons credit recovery or are another reasons for students haven't gotten their credits and the jeopardy of at risk of dropping out or failure those are those are some primary reasons and we added this hybrid model on here because this is something that is I wouldn't say it's new but we definitely had to adjust things in our rules because of hybrid settings in high school you see a lot of our schools who have a on site plus a digital offering in a hybrid model and we have actually in the last couple of years changed some of our rules that you guys have approved that has kind of adjusted some of the funding around that you saw hybrid models growing before covered where high schools realize that they could have a digital provider who has a teacher certified in that content area to teach math certified that area to teach social studies and students and ale setting could still access the teacher who has most qualified to teach that subject matter and yet still be in a small setting with that wonder fifteen ratio of someone who supporting them while they're going through a virtual program. What we saw sometimes though was that after covered especially you saw a lot of school saint o you're interventional school you're doing virtual instruction that's kind of an alley because you are struggling and you know weak we had lots of discussion about that there was actually lots of discussion by this body. If you're a student who can do virtual instructions without needing a lot of additional support you're not necessarily a student in need of an alice setting you're just a digital learner and so we broke that apart and there is a funding differentiation for hybrid models that's a point five so it's half the funding that you would get for a full time. Um again just kind of pushing in on the fact that ale is intention to be an intervention and it's focus is to provide support for students sentencing is to be a positive program not a punitive program and they have students continue receiving the services and tell the referral concerns have improved and again these are just some photos of different alley settings and things that you're seeing and them. When asked for outcomes and and unjaired you may have to chime it on this as well when you look at the last year's number of eleven thousand students there were two thousand seven hundred and nineteen twelfth grade students they were put into an ale at some point and every student's seventy seven percent of them graduated. So the question is is that a good outcome seventy seven percent of the students who win in and I think what we have to remember is the two thousand students all were at risk of not graduating and the placement and an alternative learning was an effort to get them to graduate do we want better than seventy seven percent we do but had the set had the two thousand seven or ninety not been placed and we think the number for the student's graduating would have been much lower same thing with credit attainment it's they improve the number of credits that they received while they replaced in the aidley am soon as that replaced in for academic reasons seventy five percent of those showed and approvement and their academics while being placed in an alley and the same thing with attendance sixty six percent of them had better attendance while in an ali versus not in the alley do you want to add anything they need those outcome pieces. In case without can hit all the high points that you asked us to hit and we're open for any questions great thank you very much start up we got him a cochair senator chestfield thank you so much miss this year I appreciate this I think most of you are probably sick of under chesterfield asking about alternative learning so i'm just delighted to have a program my questioning is how many folks are a certain to monitor the programs across the state of i'm the director of the program and then we have four i'd sorry three program advisors one on a half time basis because he splits his time between being the state's boying specialist so there were there have been three of us for several years and approximately how many schools do you monitor per every every school district every public school district that has a program and they're all required to at least on paper have a program they're not required to necessarily play students some school districts I chose not very many but choose to not play students because their ratio their student teacher ratio is already much lower than what an ali would require but we do go around and we sell you up me understand this now how many. Alternative learning environments do we have about two hundred oh no we have more than that because some school districts have I have two or three and so you four people have gone across this state in a year and monitored all of those we monitor them on a three year cycle. You had let me clarify cassette so I can't see to I can't see for people covering two hundred they they monitor on site every three years so they have a four site in every school districts are required to submit a program approval further ali program which is submitted to the division that outlines with with their program who it's serving what type of program they're setting up and then on a monitoring basis as far as boots on the ground in the program at least once every three years unless we get a report that there is something there's a concern or some type of desk monitoring on our end also raises at the level that somebody needs to go and see what's going on. So you rely on each school district basically. To tell you the truth about what is going on in your program. Yes and now I mean we we rely on our superintention school administrators to report to us what's happening in terms of monetary the program in terms of funding program approvals and we follow a process for that and the top turns are learning the office has an at risk assessment in which they do for everyone yearly to determine if there is a higher need to visit on site and more frequently so but right now the monitoring on side is every three years every three years okay what percentage of students are put back in the classroom after they've been in ali i'd I don't have that figure off the top on my that is one of the items of a risk assessment though that we do encourage them to meet these needs and in a timely manner sometimes it's not going to be expeditive sometimes it is and then to see that that students were turned at least partially because we we we want to see them place back in that regular environment so they can be on around traditional peers. All right and how many school districts. Have brought an additional counselors and psychiatrist into their program. So when you look at funding first for districts you do see a lot of times as the same funding being used to higher additional counselors so specific to this program I do think you see most of your ale programs who do have some talk of a partnership with the mental health provider and they're ale that's a pretty standard okay i'm gonna go back to my question says your monitoring how many school districts. How about in a brownian additional counselors. Because that too may should be a central part of your evaluation of the program. Because it was designed to be a big million model. And i'm probably the only one around steel when it was established it was to have benefit million model it was to have had reduced glasses and i'm hearing you say the class as a sixteen. Which seems reasonable to me and that you that they are supposed to have additional counseling. I don't know what you have told me is what should be enough what it is and that's my concern right now I need to know how many of those school districts that have these programs have brought an additional counselor or psycho interest to help with some of these kids whose behavioral needs are such that they need their assistance i'm still concerned because you're talking about a one. And three ratio. Once every three years you look at it you're relying on people who are getting stated money had always been good stewarts of the money. To tell you the truth and so i'm monitoring is steal about what it has been over the years we do the best we can I get that part with four people to cover over two hundred schools. Seems to mean a small amount. And so I would appreciate you just telling me. The next time we meet. How many school districts are about an additional counselors and or psychiatrist or psychologist to meet the needs of these case in the alternative yes I get that thank you so much like it was me and senator hammer thank you for joining us everything. I. A few questions. The. It was first thought the hub program that some schools run are those the same things hey early or they different they are the same thing and in your probably referring to a consortium with the cooperatives okay and along the question of the cooperative then the the archboard education service cooperative they're their vendor to about how many schools is that you know amy has changed since last year when when we changed the rules they have sustainably changed their program you saw that each arch ford have program kind of split into two dollars and co operative took some of those areas I want to say it was about fifty. Programs there there were about fifty and that's reduced only servicing school districts in the archboard zone so it's been greatly reduced and i'll i'll point out that the hub model is is ali but it is a hybrid ali. Okay but but as far as the number they're now under archboard are they all within their respect of service areas are there any of them outside have we corrected that they're all within orange ford service area okay and do they all have certified teachers whether they are under the archboarder in the other ones do they have certified teachers in the all you environment they they have teachers that are certified and acut so they may not necessarily be teaching and their certification area that they do have arkansas qualifying teacher status meaning that they have either use the air house form or taken the practice fifty five eleven in order to get that qualification to be able to teach in that area. And as far as the auditing process when it comes to like tracking attendance and. They were going out every three years. To if a student graduate weights and they're not in that three year window how do we know that what they got out of there with. Is what they should have got out of their with or or help me understand the three year cycle and if somebody comes in and then they leave before the audit takes place so these students and scored it so they're following the same process for all of our schools in reporting credits within a system and so it's the same system used for any student who's taking english in their traditional high school how that credits being reported back to us in terms of the archboard specifically or the consortiums we monitored actually every single one of those last school year and specifically looked at teacher certification and a there has been a big conversation in terms of how those are these are operating it was also one of the driving factors to why we changed ale funding and then make up that but the school districts are still responsible for the alleys so even when you have a consortium with the co op it's the it's the school district responsibility to report those data elements okay i'll go about huge technician. Representative duke thank you mr chair thank you all for all that information is i'll like to take and i'm sitting here googling some of the things that are chesterfield was talking about just to try and learn a little bit more and so the question I guess that I have is in reference to when you said it's a positive environment and there's no punitive umm. II outcome as behaviour or whatever that's done with an alley so if you're an ale student and cause they can be in there because of behaviour and because of absentee is why they're in there but just particularly seems to be some of the problem the lower buildings. So if you're an ale student and you are a behaviour issue in any other buildings are those students able or are the school district able to punish them or discipline them in any way and in that room itself is that teacher given the ability to not just do positive reinforcement but do discipline as they deem needed in there thank you for your question because II definitely would want to clarify that and yes there's there are still behavioral plans set up they're still able to be disciplined just like any student in a traditional classroom and they're still to follow the handbook and the rules that are set up within the score system those teachers in that classroom actually go through additional training and behavioral and mytifications and support and most of those students are put on like behavioral plans to correct behavior but yes they they they can be suspended just like a student in a traditional class they can be removed sent to the office put in attention and there's usually other behaviour or pieces set up during the school day for all the kids so with that behavior plan is there more steps that that teacher or that school district has to go through to get to a detention or get to a a more discipline piece as opposed to a positive reinforcement piece of in if you are in an alien classroom then if you were in a traditional classroom. So would there be more steps the goal is that when they're in the ali there they're being tight at the same time that the behaviour is being corrected they're still consequenced for poor decisions and poor behavior. And so there are still consequences but at the same time they are also doing wrap around cancelling and support with students and with behavioral specialists coming in to. For them to start think about what you're doing what's a better choice that you can make there's probably much more directive and guidance given to kids in an ale setting than in a traditional classroom do you think that with going to the three year monitoring I think that's that unlike the lot to me with that do you think your school districts all understand that peace or that they are just like it kind of read across you to me you can do positive which can't do united do you think as little as you are able to be in those buildings then they are actually understanding that that is also a tool and they're tool belt II do think they know that when I talk about this this classroom itself is supposed to be this positive class what we saw at one point with some of our alley settings when you would go and visit them it would look like students that were like in gel or a modified version of what you know nothings on the wall students are setting in cubicles although it only not interacting with anyone and that's not the purpose of when I talk about a punitive environment. The classroom should look like a classroom and there should be access to they may have more limited interaction time and there may be more times in which they're working by themselves but the goal is not to send someone to an alley setting where there in a punitive setting all day long but yes there is consequences and behavioral reinforcement for any type of misbehavior. I'll I got the questions relative back in line thank you representative cozar to recognized. Okay thank you thank you mister i'm going to count it take that a little bit further that was my question but man was a little hard than I think where she was going to so you've got a student less say at a school that just is not behavioral and they're not going to be behaviour all they're going to be the worst thing to be mean they're going to be bad. And at some point I guess. Do you all make a recommendation to school takes our own recommendation to expel that student from that school but there's no other student school for it to go because they've already been expelled from others is it the responsibility and if I am trying to make sure I know this answer but i'm let you tell me is it to responsibility in their school to make sure they get an education whether it has to be at home tutoring our online services are some things like that there was legislation that required school districts who expelled students to offer them some type of digital educational offering and that was repealed this less legislative session. Okay. Well I know there are schools to have that and I have one of my area that have students set to this is nothing you can do with them and I and they say that we have that but that the ali classroom is a classroom in a part of a larger district so it's still following everything that are traditional school would have so you can you have a student and an ali classroom that thing it's expelled yes thank you thank mister yes. Center brian and recognized thank you mister chair how do you monitor attract the plans for the students certainly when we go on side and I do want to clarify one thing of dated the school districts are on a three year rotation cycle so of course we're visiting school districts pretty much all you're along every year but we also feed all of the data that we have into a risk assessment every year if the district is deemed to be at a higher risk they do receive a visit so we do have programs that we are in constant contact with we may we may do a visit every every school year twice a school year just to try to assist them to help them out but but as far as the exit criteria when we go on site we do a review of a sample of holders we go through to make sure we have a check list that we follow to make sure that the rules are being followed and that everything that needs to take place has been taking so if you find a schools out of compliance what actions are taken with the school at that point what we do as we write up a report to let them know that they are out of compliance with the rules we give them a certain amount of time to bring things back in and then we stop back in thirty days later sixty days later for another visit depending on the nature of the severity okay alright thank you senator hammer you're back up. Thank you assured are there any districts that partnership is forever like a county wide ale in order to combine the resources and if so where are they and what kind of success and watch the the plus as my answers just hit it for a minute you would. If you want to do that with like hospital yes we we do have a ailey programs that airly programs can't either be operated by the school district themselves they can be done in conjunction with another school district with one of those district serving as the lead so you follow that districts calendar or they can be operated through an educational service cooperative so we do have some school districts for instance that follow the educational service cooperative whether that be archboard program dawson program are constant river educational service cop they have a program there as well but then we have other districts that will I come alongside each other and and work together for instance in northeast arkansas there is a program in jones borrow called success and many of the northeast arkansas districts participate with that program do you find that those said have that cooperative set up. Have better results versus and I understand geographics yell logistics transportation may be a issue to factor in there but for the ones that are in a cooperative program where they're working together did they produce a better outcome than just a district operating solar II don't know that I can say for certain that they produce a better outcome I think there are pros and kinds to look at when considering that but but I we do visit the programs and so we do know that those that are in operation right now for the most part of our doing a good job the success program has been visited recently and and we know they're they're doing a good job their compliance and they're serving their students I won't want a piggy back on that too so originally when the archboard first started the program that they had one of the reasons why site kind of spreads date wide was because they had a really good model and in the beginning I visited several of their programs first hand they are looking at what they were doing and one of the things that made them pretty good at what they were doing is they were specialized they they were specific victor with the training that was provided to their teachers they had better contracts with outside side providers from mental health they had their own array of behavioral specialists that were going in and out of each of the programs and so you saw that you had a group of folks are really invested in students who were being placed in ali I think for some of the concerns that we end up seeing facing arch for especially in the last few years is they grow so fast and what started off is really solid type program because it grew so fast and was spread and tried to replicate throughout the state and they didn't hold to the fidelity that they had in the beginning and I think I think that's where they ended up having so many schools jumping in with them and I don't think they could keep up with the pace I think it was probably wise for them to pull back to their area and then some of the other co op's stepping out and kind of taking the lead in there so I do think you see and some of these cooperative models. Where you do have a group of folks who are really focused on that and there's a more support versus some of your smaller schools running their own program and you have that one or two people in there trying to do it all again these are students who have been identified as at risk there's for some of your more higher need students in a school that need probably more specialized supports one of the things we saw especially with the dossen cooperative this last year is they were having a hard time finding certified teachers and so instead of just paying fifty thousand they pay fifty five thousand and they had teachers who were leaving general like classrooms to move over to a leave for the additional funding and so again I think you can right recognize the the high need of this area and and the support needed so I do think we have some good models and they went at the same time we've seen where we needed a program. Can you give one more mister. Yes sir okay. My me too but no one yet the one I guess is on the funding that they receive to do that in comparison to the scroll are they able to pay how are they able to pay the fifty five thousand when schools are only able to pay the fifty had how do they get the funding stream to be able to be that competitive that they can take so again the co op's the score districts are are the ones who were funding the programs so the school districts are once that in the money to the cooperative to run that program is it a dollar for dollar or do that schools have to pay additional because they're there is an important yeah there'll be an mo set at between the co up and the school district and every mo is a little bit different in some cases you'll see were there the score district is actually providing the teachers for the program versus other times the they've given that to the corp co op today when the coop than it's going out and actually hiring and so it's a little bit different is each model represented your backup thank you thank you mister chair and couple quick questions so you mentioned in there that people they ought there was concerns their liver information comes from superintendents and feedback when superintendence that there's concerned people could report a concern with an ailing ring rim where do they report and who can do that and how do they how do we make the public I assume that's what you're referencing aware of. Hey i'm this is how you would let like the state no that there is a concern so that is my that's one i'm just in a rattle not real quick as they're pretty shortened helping the chair will give me a little leniency with it thank you two are you tracking the turnover in your ali with your teachers. N the third one is on the better headlist of several the outcomes up there think it's not youngs on positive now comes do you also have information on your kids with a behavior issues and their outcomes and success in that and please do not take my questions that I have you know the critical added there's just a lot of questions particularly than behave your areas i'm sure you know in education right now thank you. So i'll have till it's if we can get turn over information for for you I can tell you that teacher returned over an ali is high and so again looking at your funding streams and you know incentivizing teachers want to teach in that area it is something important for schools but turnover is high and then on the behavioural tracking of behavioral pieces about what we would have to pull our behavioral data piece on the out i'm not sure if they're reporting that to you in the cycle seven reporting thing about behavior or they nap so we would probably i'd have to go back and look to see if there's a way to pulling type of data round behavior and always and how do people if if there is a concern how do the general public or other staff members will know where to report it so that they can call the department and just express if they have a concern they'll be transferred to a unit which would take that complaint and then determine who that gets placed with that the department so if it was specific to ale it would think of the ali department for them to take that information is there anything i'm quote actively done to know that cause sometimes it's complaints if there are complaints and I don't know if there are but much of a dictate there would be. Go to maybe a principle or maybe go to a superintendent or a school board and they could get stymied there is there anything on a website anywhere or a folks can know hey this isn't avenue for you as well when it comes to the alley classrooms if there is a concern that it's not been utilized in in the way that it's described here yeah I think our website basically is just kind like general complaints I don't think there's anything specific to a I mean I think it's it's more general for if there is a concern for a parent for any of our programs then that again when that call gets into the department it's it's put with the unit and which the concerns about but we do have information about parents filing complaints or on our website. But I need and so that you. Representative mckenzie recognized thank you mister my question was the same band but so it seems you have some infrastructure set up for reporting on a was just called primary state order used to the teacher you yourself have desk monitoring and then the use of the principle and super tender response before reporting back there are issues that I can't say that correctly that's a dozen of primary stake holders who are going to be reporting back to there's a concerner issue with the program or an individual student correct account I mean if there is a complaint to our concern or issue then i'm a most that I make the complaints coming to us it's coming from a stakeholder or a parent in the district or an advocate who is saying that you do I don't think these programs are are running this certain operation correctly in the net that comes just at the state level score districts with any of their programs have assurances that have to be made rules of regulations standards for accreditation in which all those different pieces are being monitored so while we look at who's teaching in an ale classroom it's not just jared's ale unit who monitors that when he's on site but there also been monitored yearly in our system in terms of is there a license person in their classroom and so are data systems are constantly point that data and flagging and school districts if there is an issue and then we have an entire unit that's what they do is they're looking at a district getting flagged for a teacher not being licensed and they'll reach it out to that district to correct it within thirty days so that could be an ali teacher it could be the math teacher to that entered you have metrics available to the committee or public information to say here the number reports here's the investigations here are the outcomes of those investigations obviously i'll pi stripped away and this is born out of understanding from agent children youth committee we get those similar reports for charges outlined we understand how many coles be made what the substance of those calls have been how you have investigated how many have been either adjudicators. The. You know law enforcement again in not apples to boy boss here but do you have a metric like that that you could share with us because it seems like you've built the infrastructure you have primary stakeholders who are informed on how to make those reports you guys have that information accessible to share so we've got a couple of different things so we have standards for a credit in which is an entire system built on all things for standards that scores are expected to follow each each year and we have data pulls monthly that are playing information from that for a systems scored a search required to get those corrected within a thirty day period and we are constantly talking to them so we have a data system that is set up that i'd have to look to see what kind of public access there is for that I know that there's internal access in school district access I would have to look at with the reporting features are on there and then in terms of like individual complaints and how they're handled again it depends on the type of complaint and and what unit is handling that a lot of times complaints that come in that for example with some of the consortium concerns that came in previously that you know that came through public meetings even with like state board and so that was a public report than that was made two state board on how that was handled in what what was done and just followed I understand and I appreciate then it sounds like there's been a concern out of thought put into this but when we're running programs in the response with the committee is to judge this based on outcomes like we have here it's important interest in all of those variables so I would ask you maybe circle back of the committee that that either you go and pull that data because. This is great it's good to know that seventy percent of students are placed in an ali and then also graduate but we also understand what are those other hurdles they have to leap because in an outcomes based business it's important to understand all variable so could we somehow connect and get that information or it absolutely were happy to pull more data and information from you we provide a report actually to this body every year on our alleys and the outcome pieces there so we're happy to pull all those people suspect you can give it to you and one shell great thank you. So you have another question go ahead could you use your perusing your information. Would you please share with me of that seventy seven percent which you break that down by race and gender. Will be happy to ok thank you so much thank you mister. No other questions from committee members will go to non committee members representative in it you recognized thank you mister chair I have a question for you i'm how many students the replacement ale classrooms they have disabilities at that it's information i'd have to get for you accomplishment you've got it got its currently around nineteen percent a little over nineteen percent statewide. Okay one please do you test the students if they have a you say behavior I have a tower special need so this is why i'm interested. Sometimes they act out because of other things that are out testing them for. Disabilities before you place them in these settings. Okay prior to taking the position as the program manager for alternative education I actually was the administrator for dispute resolution in our office of special education and as somebody who taught in a special classroom for many years that is one thing that we do council districts about is we say that is the ip team's responsibility to make sure that the students needs are being made in the least restrictive environment and certainly to take into account there there that needs from the student's disability in a week we certainly cancel then we we want to make sure that they're in that least restrictive environment so please be very certain that ale is what you believe to be the least restrictive environment. So was there a yesterday now well we canceled districts we we you know we don't overturn ipt decisions but I will tell you when we go on site and visits we do look at student folders that that these are students with an ip and when stunes are placed in an alley one of the first things is per that soon action plan in that first week is they are required to do different academic assessments for determination of placement so if there was a student that was placed when assessment's remained if there was a determination that there could be more going on then there should be a referral as part of that team. Alright thank you. The. That's their clark you're recognized thank you mister chair stacy jerry thank you for the work that you're doing and it's very important area and especially to stay where were we assigned you using we seem to see the results thank you sir the few years ago the education committee met in pond block and I don't remember which school specifically with their ale program taking a close look at it. And whichever score was I was very impressed. A vista like hamilton are ale program for years going on if either one of those are doing as well as they were then but also impressed and you hit on this little bit with her hammer's question to slightly about our sport what are we doing to duplicate and emulate. Are in copy the really good programs that around and have others do the same thing around the state and thank you for that question in ability pro the program that you saw in palm black was by the star academy and it was actually sat off of it a model that came out of new orleans at it out of a charter school. Umm and they are doing some really innovative things so like highlighting this this body come in and visiting we've also opened that site at four other districts to come in and visit answer questions and ask questions you know see how the system is set at the arkansas river co operative on that has kind of organized that piece with a steady tours that were having this year we actually have a program I believe in mountain home that they are putting a spotlight i'm because of some of the innovative things that are happening in that program there so a lot of it's through our alternative learning unit they have their own conference in meeting set up in which they're promoting different programs and so it's it's kind of. A lot of times it's it's more word of mouth within the districts that their cooperatives when they're having their meetings but has been able to spot item as well. Thank you if I may i'm sure the on the other side of this. Is do we do you have any and i'm not asking for specifics. And embarrassed anyone but do you have any school districts better recalcitrate. And still trying to just use this as a dumping area offer problem student. I mean I can't necessarily name a district breed today but does that happen most definitely probably does happen you have a student in a school who behavioral has been disruptive in and that's an easy way out to send them to an ali out of side out of mind i'm again but that's not the intent or the inpurpose of the program so part of the monitoring piece on this is one making sure that when students are placed that there's documentation that there was a placement committee that there were interventions tried before the statement was placed and that while the student is there there is a very specific action of what is happening when the students there and that's part of the monitoring piece of that. Um you know for every great classroom out there I can probably point to one that needs to do better and that's would be the same or thank you for your work thank you representative spring area you're recognized thank you mister chair I have questions what respect to the page this regarding demographics. In the past this total comes in my actually so request can you all provide us would desegregate it by school districts accord to state that include these demographics as well as the passenger student comes out would just like to see their and thank the committee for the question that it might really be necessarily been very good thank you I would be happy to thank you. The. Alright members any other questions. See no stacy jury thank you very much for all this information and just **** a little bit alight on a where we are with them in the state good attendance to set a name will be backed here tomorrow morning and nine o'clock see then thank you we are adjourned. The.