Education Committee Senate & House

Is this it today. There we go. There we go. No but have you all been backed your plot. I don't know about you all. All right we're going to go ahead and get started. Call this meeting to order. And But I'm sure you have a remarks today. Looks like we'll have to items today though still for five. everything's good I would like to go ahead and say though we probably are going to have meeting on the sixth and seventh of July if that doesn't work for anybody please let us know if you gonna be out I know I just wanna make sure we don't have a total exit of everybody on vacation that time I don't think anybody really going awful vacations a lot right now anyway so just collect let's put that out for you all that is the sixty seven there also is I'm still trying to get some information on it there is appeals C.. Of conference is going to be a little rock on the eighth ninth the tents that correct that's correct and I think what. I actually sexual here at the down at the convention center. Obviously I'm looking lobby she's saying that so I know they did ask you for some legislators might wanna go and I'll try to if you're interested in that let me know and I'm not sure how many slots they have. She said limited limited. Limited is a limited attendance okay at the do you know anything about that IV if you want to come cut to speak about that in and if you want some of a couple three legislator to go or not or whatever. This is very yeah very informal is one. Nine okay. So I don't have the email pull that and I do know that there will be participants on site and I think that there was an unlimited maybe two hundred and fifty people I don't know that to be a hundred percent accurate though so I'm gonna look for that email and and I can send it to Michelle but we are getting more information I think today and there were some spots being held for legislators who were interested in attending so that would be great I'll I'll get all that sent to Michelle is that work for you that works right okay yeah just let us know in another way if anybody's interested will will put him in there and if we have too many will yes and I do think that they were gonna do part of it partially for those who couldn't attend on site but they did want to have an option for on to good and anybody could watch the the virtual part of it too so thank you. All right anybody have anything this morning before we get correct up. Being no one all right. Okay Jane Jane you right here. I think yesterday we got a lot of really good information and I think some of our folks in here sometimes we get more information we know what to do with set what does it mean and some of the they present presenter had some good graphs and things like that but I think we're going to house for more clarification about what that means what do those. Sharks made because I think in some cases we might be surprised by what what they found that we've got against what we've always been thinking but you know for the average person like me I don't understand what those things amount I don't I don't have been in the context so board deals going to work with them and see if we can't get that better information for everybody. All right miss Lori you are recognized to crank up today. Thank you madam chair of the co chair Mister chairman and members of the committee my name's Lori bow and I work in the policy analysis section of the bureau and I'm going to be presenting the teacher salary report this morning. Inside to of of your handout you'll you'll see The kind of the statutory required issues that were of the committees are required to look at as part of the adequacy study relating to teacher salaries. We look at of how Arkansas teacher salaries compared as sorry be in surrounding states how Arkansas's average salaries have changed in comparison to S. sorry be in surrounding states how does cost of living in Arkansas and surrounding states affect the value of Arkansas teacher salaries and what disparity in Arkansas teacher salaries exist both an average in minimum salaries and last we look at how do teacher salaries in Arkansas compare with professions with similar educational requirements. So how do we address the study requirements by analyzing average and minimum salaries of A is sorry be in surrounding states state mandated minimum salaries Arkansas school district minimum salaries Arkansas school district average salaries and we also look at the attic we serve adequacy survey responses that we received from of teachers principals superintendents. So how does Arkansas is the of average salary compare nationally. The national education association publishes a report called the NE a rankings and estimates of school statistics report which includes average salary information for all fifty states and the district of Columbia. As we looked at any age most recent report with actual average salary information for two thousand eighteen and nineteen we looked at Arkansas's average salary ranking compared to all fifty states and DC and we also looked at the ranking compared that to a sorry be in surrounding states and what we found was that Arkansans average salary ranking is falling. In two thousand nineteen which is the most recent year for which there is average salary data available the national average was sixty two thousand three for which is an increase of fifteen hundred thirty six dollars. Arkansas is average salary ranks forty sixth among the fifty states and the district of Columbia which is a decline from last from the prior year two thousand eighteen in which we had a forty fourth a ranking of forty fourth in two thousand seventeen when we reported to you and last time our ranking was seventeenth pardon me was forty second. Arkansas is average salary in two thousand nineteen three increase three hundred and forty two dollars or point seven percent. To account for cost of living differences that were required to look at the bureau used the cost of living index that's published annually by the Missouri economic research and information center to just all state salaries to account for the descriptive princes in cost of living state to state. And when we apply this coal adjustment to each state salary amounts Arkansas's average salary does improve in ranking to twenty fifth. Even though our ranking does improve though it is still decline from our prior year cost of living adjusted salary which we had a ranking of twenty second in two thousand eighteen that was also the ranking we reported to you in two thousand eighteen for two thousand seventeen of twenty second so we decline three up places. How does Arkansas compared as sorry be states so just as we have served on the national comparison Arkansas is also declining in its ranking is when we compare it to a story be states. Page two of your report you can see of the S. sorry be states with the highest average salaries or Maryland Delaware and Georgia. This provides a a chart that shows the salaries and by rank order for both two thousand eighteen and two thousand nineteen. Arkansas's ranking in two thousand eighteen was twelve and it bill the thirteenth in two thousand nineteen. Oklahoma had the largest increase in two thousand nineteen with this average salary increase of six thousand ninety seven dollars. It is largely attributable to some salary changes they made in two thousand nineteen where they increased all of their degree salary levels. for all degree preparation so for all their bachelor's degree prepare teachers they increase their minimum salary five thousand dollars and for their teachers and that was with zero years of experience and as they progressed along the the greeted as gaining more years of experience in the increased even got larger so for the a teacher with twenty five years of experience they received an increase of seven thousand seven hundred twenty four dollars so this change in their minimum salary schedule in two thousand nineteen appears to made a big difference in their average salary of for that year. Again as we mentioned Arkansas's increase was three hundred forty two dollars. When we apply the cost of living adjustment to these any a salaries for the S. sorry be states Arkansas's ranking does improve improves to seventh in nineteen two thousand eighteen and nineteen two thousand nineteen so we see again just a slight decline of in two thousand nineteen from prior years. House Arkansas salary average salary compare to surrounding states again we saw the similar pattern that we saw nationally in with this sorry B. the ranking is falling. Texas rings eight if you look on page Sorry could Jeff here if you look at page four of your report you can see The rankings for Arkansas along with all of the surrounding states. You can see that Texas. Is first among the surrounding to states with Tennessee second in two thousand eighteen and then Oklahoma become second in two thousand nineteen for reasons that we just described. Arkansas's rank of fifth in two thousand eighteen declines to ark two six th in two thousand nineteen. When we costs when we adjust for cost of living again Arkansas's ranking does improve and you can see those cost of living adjusted salaries for surrounding states on page five of your report. Arkansas's ranking improves to third in two thousand eighteen and fourth in two thousand nineteen. In addition to looking at any a average salaries we also looked at the minimum salary schedules because that does seem to have an impact on set in salary progression so we looked at the minimums for the S. R. review states as well as sorry be answer rounding. So beginning on page of six you can see the S. sorry be minimum salary rankings for two thousand nineteen in two thousand twenty we can look at a little more recent years because those minimums are published in advance of the year so this is for two thousand nineteen and twenty. And again as we saw with the average Arkansas's ranking among this RB states is falling as well. Again Maryland and Delaware topped the list with the highest salaries Alabama ranks third in both the both nineteen in two thousand twenty Arkansas ranks twelfth in two thousand nineteen and fourteenth in two thousand twenty. When we adjust these for the cost with the cost of living adjustment we mentioned earlier Arkansas does it improving its ranking to ninth both years. If you turn the page to page seven of your report you can see the same information on minimum salary but just for the surrounding states to see where we fall. You can see that Oklahoma ranks first both years with a minimum salary of thirty six thousand six so one Arkansas ranks fourth in at two thousand eighteen and sixteen two thousand excuse me two thousand nineteen and six in two thousand twenty. When we adjust for cost of living that the ranking does improve the second year to fourth. Next we look at one of the other statutorily required questions which is Arkansas salary disparity and so the next several sections of this report are going to talk about first of all of district of state and district minimum salaries that have been established and then we'll move on to average salaries but by this FOR the state at large and also by district. This first chart that you can see on a. On page Eight of your report. Illustrates the state mandated minimum that's established in statute and is you all will recall in in the two thousand nineteen session this was of established for all the years through twenty twenty three to bring Arkansas to a thirty six thousand dollar minimum salary level for bachelor degree prepare teachers with zero years experience. In the box is superimposed on these bar chart you can see the number of districts that have minimum salary schedules that are at the minimum. In two thousand fourteen you can see that nine districts what we're at the minimum level and this was when the the salary had not been changed since two thousand nine so you see a steady decline in the next year it went down to five districts that were at that minimum level as the salary the minimum salaries schedule was increase statutorily we see the number of districts that are at the minimum growing culminating with seventy one districts being at the minimum salary level in the current year twenty twenty. Next we look at on and this will be on page nine of your report we look at the difference between the district with the highest minimum salary in the district with the lowest. The difference in The and you can see the actual difference in the black boxes above the bar charts the gap between the highest and lowest adopted minimum salaries have range from thirteen nine seventy eight in two thousand eleven to seventeen two fifty six and two thousand fifteen the dish the gap between highs and lows has been decreasing over the last few years but is still exceeds fifteen thousand dollars. In addition to looking at The state minimum state minimums we also looked at the number of times that the districts to change their minimum salaries. You see on the the chart on page nine of your report and on slide sixteen it shows the number of years that districts had changed their minimum salary schedule and you can see that only one district Springdale had changed their salary schedule or increased it every year of the the ten year period that we looked at two thousand eleven to two thousand twenty. In addition we see three districts oral for city and what's in Chapel have not had any increase during that ten year period in their minimum. One hundred sixty two districts increase their salaries five or fewer times. because because we see the that sometimes districts will use bonus payments in lieu of making adjustments to the actual rate of salary we look to see how many of these districts had actually paid a bonus in two thousand nineteen and we saw that seventy percent of the one hundred sixty two districts. Of the hit increase their salary five or fewer times had used had paid bonuses in two thousand nineteen. As I mentioned just a moment ago and two thousand nineteen the General Assembly enacted ACT one seventy the teacher salary enhancement act and it updated the set the state mandated minimum salary schedule for years two thousand nineteen twenty three twenty twenty three twenty two twenty three. It increases the minimum salary for a bachelor degree prepare teacher with your years of experience to thirty six thousand dollars and you can see in the chart this provided on site seventeen the amount of increase that was provided both for bachelor degree prepare teachers with zero years as well as master degree prepare. In addition to the increase in the state mandated minimums it do the passage of act one seventy Joe simply also enacted ACT eight seventy seven which provided a sixty million dollar appropriation and a sixty million dollar fund transfer to be used for the educator compensation reform program. And it ensures that all educators receive a minimum salary or is intended to ensure that all educators receive a minimum salary thirty six thousand by school year twenty two twenty three. In appendix I of your report. which begins I believe on page thirty nine you can see all of the districts that are eligible to receive this money these are districts to state minimum salary was below the minimum salary required by law in there in the most recent period prior to the enactment of the bill which was eighteen nineteen and so you can see each districts amounts how much they're going to receive. I believe that little rock school district was the school district slated to receive the greatest amount from the fund and Hackett school district was the one to receive the least. In that amount for a little rock was two point six five million and heck it was four thousand six hundred twenty. Well districts are so At do you have to meet certain state minimum amounts in their salary schedules they do set their own and they have latitude to do so and they can exceed and all into exceed the minimum levels. So looking at the most recent year that twenty twenty we see the district millet minimum salaries range from the state mandated minimum of thirty two thousand eight hundred to forty eight thousand to eighty two and there's a concentration of districts at the lowest in the district minimum salaries in that chart that you see on the on slide twenty you can see that the top five beginning salaries range from forty three five thirty to forty eight to eighty two or range of forty seven hundred dollars but in the lowest five beginning salaries. Thirty two bit thousand eight hundred to thirty two thousand eight sixty five they're seventy five districts so we have a large concentration of districts kind peppering near that minimum level. To further analyze district adopted minimum salaries the bureau divided districts into for minimum salary groups we typically look try to divide is districts in the courthouse for the purpose of analysis but due to the compression of so many districts in the lower salary levels was it possible to do that so we divided this into for salary groups that are shown on slide twenty one. So so on page eleven of your report if you're following along with that. They're seventy one districts in the lowest salary group which doesn't even it's a zero range because there were so many that were sitting at the thirty two thousand eight hundred range. The second range of thirty two thousand eight oh five to thirty four nine fifty had seventy four districts in the top range of forty thousand to forty eight to eighty two had only twenty six districts so there's a little it's not an even distribution. If you look on page Twelve of your report you might be able to see this map a little better than you can see it on your handout but there we then took this quartile information or for minimum salaries thank you and and displayed on a map so you could see where the distribution of these court trials of salaries are present. You can see of a bit of a a pattern because the darkest blue is the highest salary quartile there's of a bit of a concentration of those in northwest Arkansas. there's and central Arkansas and there are a couple instances in eastern Arkansas. There were so many in the districts numerically speaking in the lower to sell records house that they're kind of dispersed throughout the state but they appear to be more in the non more more non urban areas. Next we took these minimum salary court tiles and went and looked at various district characteristics to see if any pets relationships or patterns emerged and what we found was that district one groups which had the lower average a minimum salaries had lower average salaries in two thousand nineteen lower average number of ACT to ease lowered average student if two U. ratios lower average ATM or a smaller school size and lower average achievements school percentage scores on the student achievement we took the percentage scoring ready work seating on English language arts and mathematics in did a combined proficiency percentage for each district and so that's what you're seeing here and these are the averages for each of those courthouse. Group One districts have also had a higher percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced price lunch. We also looked at these minimum salary court tiles in relationship to teacher experience in preparation. And we and the pattern that we saw was as the minimum salaries increase we see a higher percentage of national board certified teachers as compared to the total lefties the higher the percentage of advanced degrees that of the teachers have and a lower percentage of bachelor degrees. Next we as to looked at minimum salary averages by the locale classifications that we get from the national center for education statistics they have four classifications city suburb town in rural and what we found was that districts in cities and suburbs have higher minimum salaries then do towns and rural areas. As long as districts adopt the minimums amend state mandated minimum levels they do have a good bit of latitude when adopting in changing their minimum salaries the chart on fifteen and sixteen of your of your report of your report you might be able to see it a little better there. Shows those districts that have to occur at three percent or greater increase in their minimum salary in two thousand nineteen over there two thousand eighteen level. Sixty of the two hundred thirty five districts racer minimum salary at least three percent pine bluff had the highest increase with seven point eight percent and the districts shown to the right on the on the. Slide twenty six they increase there's four percent or more an eighty four districts did not provide any increase in the minimum salary levels in two thousand nineteen twenty. Next bill are took a closer look at the salary schedule structure specifically we looked at the number of salary levels of that each district adopted in their minimum salary so the number of times that is teacher can progress to a higher level. Beginning on page seventeen you can see some of the fun things that we found. We also looked at it in addition to the number of levels that they have we looked at what they're minimum salary was it zero years of experience that fifteen years of experience and then their top level on their schedule since the every district can have a different level number of levels we use their top level for each district. District can have as few sixteen salary levels as required by law but there's no upper limit. And what we found was the number salary levels that was adopted by the greatest number of districts was twenty one so there were forty four districts are nineteen percent that had established their salary levels that twenty one which meant either twenty one steps or it's years zero two twenty. The highest number of let of levels was adopt that was adopted was fifty three and that was either fifty three steps or zero to fifty two years. Overall we found the districts with fewer salary levels generally have lower average minimum salary amounts for all three of the three bachelor degree prepared of salary of figures that we show here both zero years fifteen years in the top. Districts with more salary levels tend to have higher minimum salaries for all three eight three BA prepare teacher salary levels. Of the districts that had the very minimum of or sixteen levels have the fourth lowest twenty twenty minimum salary for teachers with zero years of experience the fifth lowest salary for teachers with fifteen years and the lowest salary for those at the top and the average salary that those in that sick with sixteen salary levels was forty five thousand two hundred ninety six. There's also a table on page eighteen of the report that shows the the average two thousand nineteen percentage of it to ease that our national board certified the two thousand nineteen average years of experience and the percentage would be a degrees and the percentage with advanced degrees by each of the salary levels. For the most part there wasn't a real consistent pattern but the district with the highest number of levels or almond had the highest percentage of national board certified teachers the longest number of years of X. experience and the highest percentage of teachers with bachelor degrees. Next we looked at the minimum salaries for open enrollment charter schools. as young probably aware many of them and in fact in the year we were looking at twenty twenty twenty one of the twenty four open enrollment public charter schools operating and twenty twenty received a waiver from the minimum teacher salary requirement but they still publish minimum salaries and so we use those to present to the committee so that you can kind of see a comparison. Twenty twenty minimum salaries range from thirty two thousand it scholar made achievement place and exalt academy to forty three thousand at house hall academy fable in Bentonville. Eleven of the charters minimum salary levels increased in twenty twenty with pine bluff light house charter having the greatest increase of six thousand dollars. Similar to what we did with the district minimums we also looked at selected characteristics for the minimum salary courthouse of for charters. And what we found was that the lowest or quartile one the lowest salary quartile had the lowest average annual salaries the lowest average student to F. T. ratio and that average person lowest average percentage of students scoring ready your proficient or ready or exceeding skews me on assessments. The quarter went to charters also had the highest percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced price lunches. Thanks for going to transition to the statewide average teacher salaries. If you turn to page twenty one of your portent intentions Fite thirty you can see a history of the average salaries for Arkansas districts overall from two thousand thirteen to two thousand nineteen. We see an increase in this average statewide teacher salaries each year in the highest increase came in two thousand eighteen with an increase of one point eight percent. The average salaries increases across those of a year so seven years was two thousand eight hundred eighty two dollars or six percent increase. Districts average salaries have consistently been below the salary matrix of amount that's provided through foundation funding and you can see that depicted with the blue triangles above the red bars bar charts. Also the the squares that are superimposed on those bars show with the amount of percentage change each year. Looking at the highest to lowest average salaries. If it is on page on slide thirty one and page twenty two of your report. We can see that of spring Dale has had the highest salary six of the seven years shown between two thousand thirteen and fourteen and it was replaced by fable in two thousand nineteen with the average salary of sixty thousand nine sixty three. This this process bites that the gap between the high and the low if you look in the left the. Our write columns gap you can see that in two thousand thirteen there was a gap of twenty one thousand three eighteen the highest gap that we see is that it was in two thousand sixteen with that gap of twenty two thousand eight ten and the lowest gap was in two thousand fourteen with twenty thousand nine fifty six so again this gap is kind of declining as we saw with minimums but there's still a significant gap between the highest average in the lowest in is still exceeds twenty one thousand dollars one thing I would point out though if you look at the change from prior year on the highest and the lowest the increases for the the lowest salaries or have been greater the last three years then the increases for the highest salaries so it's still have a ways to make up the difference but they are increasing at a little faster rate or higher rate. So what occurred in average salary overall between two thousand eighteen and nineteen one hundred and sixty seven this school districts two thousand nineteen separate salary increased thirty two of those districts increased three percent or greater and the ten districts just for shown for example to the right you can see all of these on page twenty of three of your report but these the show you the ones that increased five percent or greater. Sixty eighth day's of average so districts ever salaries actually decreased in two thousand nineteen and ten districts average salaries decreased three percent or greater in those are shown to the right with Nemo Vista having the largest decrease of thirty to fifty or a decline of seven point four percent. Similar to what we did with the minimum salaries we also of divided these into salary groups in this instance we were able to do it by salary for tiles in the range of ran from three thirty nine thousand five seventy eight twenty eight to sixty thousand nine six ninety three. Again we see a compression if you look at the top three salary court trials you see there's a range of ninety six hundred dollars as compared to the range of eleven thousand just for quartile alone so of the range and salaries for those three low score tells the districts is much much smaller than are that the highest salary levels. In quartile for. We also have mapped to these salary quartile of amount so that you can see which districts are up falling into the highest salary quartile in the lowest. And we see a few similarities to what we saw before there's students to be a good number of at salary of in the portal for the highest in northwest Arkansas in central Arkansas but we see a little more currents of of this version of those in the highest salary groups we see some about five of districts in southwest Arkansas a few more in eastern Arkansas then we saw under minimums but overall there's a similar similar patterns what we thought with minimum salaries. Again in addition to looking at to just what the actual average salaries are we also compared average salary to Very selected characteristics and we found again a very similar pattern that the quartile one districts which we have the lowest salaries have the lowest average of to ease the lowest average student if the ratio Lois average ATM or smaller school size in the lowest average percentage scoring ready or exceeding on assessments and these districts also have the higher higher percentages of students eligible for free or reduced price lunches. In addition to looking at those selected characteristics we also looked at the teacher salaries teacher preparation keep the characteristics of districts by salary quartile and found that districts in the lowest have the lowest average percentage of teachers that our national board certified the lowest average years of experience in the lowest average percentage of master degree or advanced degree prepared teachers We also looked and at average salaries for through the of in the categories of in CS at in CVS locale classifications and found a very similar pattern to minimum as well we're districts in cities and suburbs have higher averages then did towns and cities and rural areas. You all for those of you that heard this report in two thousand eighteen you write a member might remember that we had a good number of questions about our their cost of living differences that exist district to district at that time there was not a Kerr current cost of living adjustment available to us to it to try to shed some light on that however we became where last year that of the national center for education statistics had updated of an index called the comparable wage index for teachers and so we were able to we're able to give you this time a little insight into what some of the cost of living differences are district to district and so we after applying the the index that we got from in CS we then a raid the salaries into court court tiles again and the range. ran from thirty six thousand four forty eight to seventy two six ninety. In addition we also in you'll see on slide forty. We and maps that is will so that you could kind of see the differences and we do see some rather a big changes that occur after applying that cost of living index. We see that some districts that were formerly in the highest out category which were the dark blue they became they went to the lowest category you can see that in northwest Arkansas the lighter pink. And we also saw some movement the other way as well not could not three point three S. salary levels that but we did see at least two and you can see the total number if you turn to page Sorry problem a little bit behind on my page. I'm sorry on page thirty and thirty one. You can see the actual math and then on page thirty two you can see the actual movement how many court tiles districts moved after applying this salary index. Twenty districts after this they're they're adjusted salaries move to courthouse higher and five districts adjusted salaries moved three courthouse lower. Next we looked at the average salaries for Open enrollment public school charters. And we see that their average salaries range from thirty nine nine ninety seven to forty two thousand nine twenty five in two thousand nineteen. They haven't had quite as consistent a pattern of change over time is the just the districts did they had a increase period from two thousand fifteen to two thousand eighteen but then they have to do to cause some small decrease in two thousand nineteen of point six percent or two hundred fifty four dollars. If you look on page thirty three of your report you can see the actual salary listed for each for each open enrollment charter school. You can see that twelve charters average salaries increased in nineteen and Ozark Montessori academy in spring to have the largest average increase of two thousand nineteen of eighty six hundred however their salary was still next to this section the lowest it was not the lowest but the next to lowest and intent of the charters ever salaries actually declined in two thousand nineteen. Just to get the overall picture the average salary for eighteen was forty three thousand one seventy nine their average salary in two thousand nineteen was forty two nine twenty five or decline of two hundred fifty four dollars and the gap between their highest to lowest salaries in two thousand eighteen was twenty two thousand six thirty one and we're seeing a decline of that in two thousand nineteen to four fifteen thousand so the gap between the highest and the lowest was fifteen four ninety five in two thousand nineteen or reduction of seventy one hundred dollars. Again we look that district characteristics by their average how record tiles and we found that that charter ever salaries of charter schools that are in the lowest quartile report how one have the highest percentage of students eligible for free or reduced price lunch and the lowest percentage scoring ready your exceeding on student assessments. Last looking at one of the last category that's required by statute is to see a comparison of salaries for of the elementary middle and secondary level teachers four of selected occupations so the bureau of legislative labors to to the statistics puts together a report annually that lists occupation wages annual mean wages for based on different levels of academic preparation and so this is a selection of professions that are bachelor degree prepared. Then you can see them again on page thirty five of your report the report fashions including Ginny years accountants nurses social workers those are some examples and we see that secondary school teachers annual mean salary ranks twelfth in Arkansas and eleven in the United States middle school teachers the annual mean salary ranks fourteenth in Arkansas and in the US and elementary school teachers annual mean salary ranks sixteenth in Arkansas and twelfth in the US. As you've heard from each of us as we presented our these adequacy reports we did conduct and adequacy of survey of districts in the fall of last year and fort when we conducted the seventy four site visits the teachers were invited to participate in the survey and we had twelve hundred eighty eight of those teachers to respond and well principals and superintendents few salaries as the top barrier to recruitment and retention is interesting we saw in response to the question what were the primary reasons you chose to teach at your current school only twenty two percent said that the higher salary was the reason for their decision to work in their current school. However when we asked what under what conditions you'd be willing to relocate or teach at a school and a high priority or skews me at HIGHPOVERTY or remote rule community we had it set forty seven this it percent that said they'd be willing to relocate for a higher salary we also had forty three point eight percent said they are considering transferring to another school to route to receive a higher salary and last in response to the question about whether or not they're considering quitting teaching and K. twelve education We had a forty percent say that that yes they are considering it and it was attributed to salary. Next we asked the superintendents to rank seven to the seventeen or matrix resource items that the matrix provides for and ask which ones are most in need of funding and the first and second ranking for this question with classroom teachers and special education teachers. And again in we administered a principal survey and a superintendent survey and both of them viewed salaries as one of their top barriers in recruiting and retaining teachers. Last we had in a site visit interviews where we sat down these were more narrative types just open discussion and so we recorded notes on all of those encounters and then we looked and analyze their responses and of the twenty seventy Ford of principles that we spoke to twenty seven percent of the mention teacher salaries as a significant staffing challenge. That's a brief overview of the information that to. Relating to teachers hours I'll be glad to try to answer any questions I have a question of fact chart number forty four which was on the charter schools the of. Difference in the salaries from the forty three to twenty two forty two to you know it's fifteen to kind of come up some is a lot of that of course I know they're not to a certified teachers a lot of A charter schools teach for America still. Does some teaching in that are tell you normally lower paid or do you. As I recall it from our previous report is their salaries if you look at there's a let me pull get you to the right page. You look on page thirty your report it to thirty two yes Sir you can see A comparison of the charter average salaries to the district averages and you can see consistently there below the the district average salaries each year and they're also below the amount as provided in the matrix for teacher salaries which is also depicted with that little triangle I just knew will we toured some of the schools in the past of a especially proud bluff and first ward had a lot of teach for America teachers there so I was kind of figure that they were some of the reason for that being a lower salary and course not be a certified teacher to and I know we have people that always expressed concerns especially senator Chesterfield Senator Elliott about those teachers not being certified in those areas too so I just to just my question there well when other possible explanation is that twenty one of twenty one of the charters are a do you have the waiver for minimum salary requirements and so That also gives them the latitude to this list. Okay that's a question committee senator she to. But. And I'm I have a step in somebody's total twelve or later because you were talking about. Your term what charter schools Laura thank you but I what your question really address not to charter schools to schools in employed for American take. What will it and optional rather there does most of more charter I think that the teach for America does still not order but they're also in regular schools to yes but I mean that they have to get a waiver for that I believe is that correct your. Yeah anyone go at it well. I'm sorry. Laurie are not this been awhile ago when you're when you start your presentation but so we just duck out when you were looking at compression of Teacher salaries of yes A. B. states. Remind me when you were listing Arkansas office hours in those reports for those charters that include that well that nineteen hundred dollars it that we kicked in at some point for health insurance. That include that in the salaries. I don't I don't I think this is just salary I don't think this is benefits no Sir. So I guess my question would go to the fact would we be higher or in those so. Sharks. That was added and do what dog but do other states do that also but for we don't know against A they also. Put in additional money other than present may would out I'm not not done much so security here or that's it but I don't like that additional money we kicked they often got when it was but it was so we years ago. for health benefits we get good and for that right that would that would not show up here because this is just salary amounts that that we're looking at it's not gonna be include my question would be to these other states do the same or is that something we're doing the state is not really. So impact or what our teachers Mike. And I I assume you're talking you're saying that the nineteen hundred was added to the to the foundation funding rate for teacher salaries and so again. Districts have latitude about how they spend that so You know if ET we won't necessarily see that showing up on the salary side I've I mean they. I thought we require them to spend it all but may not have but I'm black and draw set me under. We require that a lot of that money we kicked in failed benefits of years ago that we require other schools been that'll. We did that yeah that was that yes yes we do. Well anyway just. We would look better in these if. But we don't know what the other states that might be something simple. And I and I'm not sure I apologize but again the salary amounts for other states as well as Arkansas that you see here today are salary only they're not inclusive of benefits. Thank you Mr chairman all right Sir to start. Thank you Mr Laurie I just had a quick question and it kind of goes over a lot of the things that you have mentioned it's kind of a movie two moving parts the same time so like if I look at the beginning of the presentation were falling were falling or falling or falling in ranks but we're also then on the other side of the coin on the individual level falling and years of experience so aren't like our average year of experience went from like twelve to ten I think in the past couple years so like I'm looking at page twenty four I'm looking at page thirty two or thirty three skews me and the presentation so you mentioned it here you know minimum salaries as minimum salaries increase then you see the higher number of advanced degrees then you see the higher numbers you know those type of things the teachers with experience so I'm I'm wondering then if like for example on page thirty three these average salary center decreasing in the school system because older teachers with more experience are leaving so therefore you have a new teacher coming in that's getting a minute you know minimum salary or smaller salary how much I guess my question overall is how much does experience moving at the same time affect our numbers on the salary parked I would think that it would have an impact and and I'm sorry that I can't tell you exactly what that is but we but we can see that at the lower levels they have lower years of experience so that would that would probably lead one to think that that there might have been some movement there where they're having it look there's either movement of their hiring more new teachers because people are leaving to go to somewhere else or it may just be retirement certain in natural of attrition aggression out of the profession so I and are compares and then to other states to their numbers take into consideration years of experience or do we have access to that we could see okay taxes in and you know is keeping their higher paid more educate teachers longer than we are or the average in Maryland is not that great either or something and. I don't we did not look at that and that's very good question and I in the probably does what warrant some further review but they do it in answer to your question when looking at the statement mended mandated minimum salary schedules for the other states there is the they do have a progression based on years of experience okay thank you Mr thank you lord and do a health add to that I believe it was last month sorry add to help last month A. P. A. reported that actually Arkansas has one of the higher rates of retention so that may not affect other states is you know the. eight maybe have more of an impact in other states than it does here right thank you. Senator Elliot. Thank you Mr chair I I was my my question has to do with the that the number of steps I think we talked that that will go to up to fifty three In the end the discussions that doesn't think come up about Well the not we're adding steps to keep from two to adding steps rather than just make in it of just having a raise that goes across the salary schedule a discussion about that at all and that make sense. Well I I mean I think each even if they have a higher number there were few instances when we were analyzing it where when you got to some of the higher state step levels where they would stay at that level a couple years the room it wasn't real common that we did see that some yeah but generally speaking as they progress up to an additional step or year of experience the the salary would adjust upward I'm not sure that's answering your question no I know it is it is in a way because I one thing I've seen over and over is and and not is counter intuitive but is not good salary practice to keep adding steps and even teachers get caught up in that web because the salaries are low and that's the only way if if all we do is fund steps then the only way a teacher who's been there say for twenty years gets in a counter raise is to add another step and what that does is it just keeps it keeps exacerbating the problem well it looks as if it's solving it and I think that's something that we ought to be thinking about because what would make more sense and you know what some of us that advocated for years you know you probably shouldn't have more than ten at the most fifteen and spent and and look more carefully at teacher raises as opposed to you can add steps ad infinitum and basically get nothing which is probably one of the things that's leading to even though we have we are retaining teachers with more experience the salaries averaged continues to go to go lower this is a policy decision we have to make do we want to invest in races A do we want to keep on ad and steps to something to make it look as if we are really doing so with something that the salaries My other question has to do and I'll get back and he Mr chair because I'll just asked to and come back if I get a chance to when this super we we to use A reported on I forgot a percentage maybe forty or something like we will allocate a certain amount of money for teacher salaries in the matrix and I've forgotten what that percentage wise that all of that money went toward teacher salaries And what I and sometimes we want to mandate that it does and superintendents are saying that you know this is one of the hardest problems they have that is retaining teachers and special ed teachers in particular yes and salary is a big deal in doing that yet all of the money that we put in the matrix does not go to those salaries so this is the real conflict that you would think a superintendent would say well if is we're having a difficult time maintaining teachers and although teachers this and something else we do we need a better salary we should add it to it so what I would like you to speak to if you can even though these things are in conflict they still don't do it is the information you're getting indicated they don't do it because there's so many other things that must be funded and if they are not required to put all that money on the teacher salary and if they do we're going to have some other things so we hear that a mandates that are not gonna be funded. This may be a crossing into a little bit of what you'll hear from Julie and what I we covered in previous reports now that a report where we shut looked it would help people how districts are actually using the foundation money that so provided to them and you're exactly right there are some categories like I did report on the district level resources which is operations and maintenance and transportation and what we saw of consistent over spending you know off operations and maintenance so it is possible that some of the. When we see these the salaries that are consistently falling below that matrix level that it may be because they're subsidizing other categories of expense like operations yeah that's a possibility Mister chair I know that this is been an ongoing thing from time to time to time and I I I I don't know I at some point I would just like to have some superintendents come sit and talk to us about as opposed to I know we got a report from them but I think this merits a discussion on what we're doing from the folks who actually out there trying to make the schools run so so that's just a request I wish you consider at some point we get a chance okay as you know we we know that's a big part and I just or going into the yes. The moms and that's what some do now we have a lot of that or way above but not all or so that's been an ongoing problem and. So we figure out a way to fix that that's before but what I'm saying is I believe we know how to fix it we just aren't fixing it and because if we know that any superintendent of sound mind if you say you're losing teachers and part of that is salary you would spend every dime of that money on salaries so there has to be a reason they they're not and it just seems clear to me that is because they are not we're not funding the teachers salaries as we should or some other part of that matrix and we need to understand why I think from the folks who are out there trying to solve the problem. If we continue to do this. How are all policies exacerbated the problems they're having and trying to recruit maintain teachers and so forth That's where I'm going I just think we know the answer well you know we talked a lot about thank you teacher salary out of the matrix and that's going to be the biggest headache we would probably ever do yes trying to figure out how to make that work at a house matrix but we can work out the bill right now and November to try to figure out some ways to get our teachers of what yeah I would I just want when we come to the time the we fund the matrix let's remember this and find it in a way that is. Well anyway. Point and finished. Representative Beck this. Thank you Mr chair I have two questions the first one is related to that to our as sorry be rating in where we slip down one notch. And I guess this is a little bit of a statement and and possibly A question the. Actually what have is Oklahoma moved up. Of and they they they moved up by six thousand dollars it actually in Arkansas if you take our averages compare to the other ones we uh the least the lower ones in there that will we we actually moved up as far as closing the gap between those two so so that's an interesting point but. Given that that. The this the salary increases that we of mandated if they have been followed it looks like we're moved quite a ways this rights are I we will next year I guess I should say. But next year's data is that correct well essentially what of Oklahoma did is they made a very large jump in their minimums in one year and so we well I think Arkansas is taking a little more incremental approach to that so we're going to see probably a little more incremental impact on average but I would expect you know that we would probably see some affect from that because it certainly showed up for Oklahoma right it yeah could sell the I agree with that statement basically we took me Camilla that they took one large up in that that explains a shift down the other thing I would ask is it's a question I and I'm sorry don't have this data. But I'm looking on page twenty and it says that is talking about the student to full time. A teacher ratios and I was just looking at than the than the various salary groups. Obviously the and you mention this I believe that the the lower levels we have this the the lower level of our a more favorable right now like I should say of educators to to students. As compared to the actual what's in the majors is that fourteen five what we have in the matrix to you now. I don't I didn't have a copy in front of me. The staffing ratios very depending on grade level but That the act the kindergarten is twenty to one grades one three is twenty three to one in grades four through twelve is twenty five to one but but on the on that what what what we called the ideal school the five hundred yes that is a fourteen Todd one that would that would those were that this ratios are used in the calculation of the the matrix which is based on a prototypical five hundred students school right and if you have results all out or are they is is it for fourteen five or on my wrong I don't know I don't have that I I see what you're saying but I don't know what the average is across K. twelve is that what you're I I read it in because in in terms of the mattresses skews me Mr just give me a sex that it affects eighteen hundred dollars annual salary The average teacher would receive eighteen hundred dollars increase in salary. If you you took one educator out of the of this is the ideal school if in other words if you go over one it because everybody eighteen hundred dollars if you go under if you go down one every every teacher gets eighteen hundred dollars the the reason I want to make this point and and see if you agree with that is is that I think one of the things that we do. that we ignore is that. Our superintendents and there's been some references made to this are not following the educator ratios that are set up in the majors and that's one of the reasons that the salaries come back and give this is because they basically got more I'm not saying they're wrong in in were right but I'm like we need to make that alignment within the matrix if we did that and and maintain a minimum minimum salaries that would be an increase for our educators I believe would you agree. Thank you represent back I think a lot of times we have to look at the classes they offer and I may not all be full but that does cost the the schools for teacher position to offer partial classes so I agree with what you're saying but doesn't always come into effect there we go ahead your response. You should still bill. Or you know them thank you I will have a variety in it it does and I've to still distance from the teachers it looks like our matrix works a lot better if you get about a hundred students if you're below eight R. state seems like we kill you with the matrix numbers so I think that's one of the things that this committee should address and if you go back and look at all the numbers it always falls or if you're above a hundred you're not doing so bad if you're below a hundred more calendar and that hurts a rule school districts which. All right I believe we should address. Senator Chesterfield. Thank you Mr chair and good morning was born. Thank you for the report when we were deal when we're dealing with the education state state you look horizontally and vertically at the steps. Well to the degree what we did was when we of and make it to the right page so that I can. Direct you but We look at that for every level it of salary level that we had we looked at the zero two years of experience salary level the the X. salary level at fifteen years of experience and the salary at the top level so I guess perhaps we we heard a click yeah I'm what I'm trying to find out one of those things is troubling is you have a lot of small school district to pay a lot a higher starting salary. But you never get past ten thousand dollars more when you at the top of the salary schedule. And I'm wondering also how many districts pay for for instance you had a bachelor's degree bachelor's plus fifteen then masters masters plus fifteen and then doctorate do you see much of that movement in the salary schedules how it that's what I'm referring to is horizontally yes ma'am and I apologize I understand what you're saying there is of course a great deal of variation am I didn't try to quantify it that but there is a great deal in it no no two districts probably do it exactly the same but we do see a good many of the schedules that will say exactly what you just described that though for any additional of post graduate work that they received and it's a different increments even different districts will select different increments sometimes is fifteen hours sometimes is thirty thirty six and then and they even do that be on master's in some instances so that does provide some additional movement of. Yes some districts do give credit for but four P. H. D.'s or or things of that sort which recognized in the effort that the teacher is making to improve his his yes own ability of her own ability to do whatever they need to do but the state mandated minimums only cover the the years of experience zero to fifteen and so some districts have us a salary schedule that's as simple as zero to fifteen years and then others have much more involves schedules that do have recognition for additional teacher preparation did you look at the difference between the starting salary in the ending salaries for these districts because back I mean it thirty five AM and when I get to fifteen years I'm still just it thirty eight. there's more like the that I'm gonna go somewhere else. What we did see is that it appeared in looking at that that this that the salary the districts that had the greater number of salary levels tended to have higher the minimums at the top also so I mean they might have had taken longer to get there but they did tend to have higher minimums ultimately and when we looked at those that had just the minimum they actually had the in the top level they had the lowest average salary at that top level so it wasn't as if they were getting you know doing larger increments you know going to the fifty year fifteen they they said it appeared that they were still falling a little behind in that regard one of the things that I found a when I was in education was a people goal for they have the best future. If my future is gone only going to be a three thousand dollar increase after fifteen years I'm going to go somewhere else and that's what's troubling to me that this trend seems to continue that we have this high entry level but we're not doing much to make sure that people stay where they are because the salary continues to go up exponentially. We did see one instance where we we were kind of concern about the years of experience that came back for one of the districts and so we ask them about that and and they told us that there was a decision made to front load their schedule where they had a higher beginning point to but it didn't it wasn't isn't Banteay just to more tenured people and they did see a great many people leave the district as a result and so that is what he wrote every year experience to look so dramatically low because we were concerned that maybe the data was for Hong and so we wanted we went back and we tied a conversation with the superintendent and and he fully acknowledge that that's what was going on in that it was a decision that was made when they enacted their salary schedule to try to get. You know it a tract more people you know what those lower levels but not keep them there that's been the effect on thank you. Represent Eubanks. Thank you Mr chair of senator Cheatham question maybe start wondering about we're talking about straight salaries were not talking about the whole compensation package so. Are all districts do they all contribute the same amount for health insurance or. I think there's a state mandated minimum that they had to but. If I would be curious to see. How that compares across the state is as to how much districts contribute to the health insurance package but then I was wondering how Arkansas's teacher retirement compares with other states as well not only yes sorry be but maybe nationally because I've heard a lot of teachers talk about how. But it of generous just right word but how good the Arkansas teacher retirement program is and if it wasn't for that even though the salaries were low possibly lower than surrounding states. The retirement package sort of made up for that so I was just wondering how are our retirement package would compare with other states. Would you like to see that information brought to this place okay I think that's something they can probably do. With that being. As close as you can just see to retirement or health insurance retirement and health insurance I know each school does a little different to me usually the some of the ones that are proper in the list to paying the bigger salaries are going to put a little more into their insurance I know they do my area so the minimum for a twenty. A two thousand nineteen I think is the most recent I've looked at recently was like a hundred fifty nine dollars and ten cents per teacher per month that I think the districts are required to in that there's a cost of living adjustment on that each year so it moves and and that operates on a calendar year basis and most of what we look at is on a fiscal year basis so there's a billion to but that was my mind and I don't know what the current year radius but two thousand nineteen I think was one fifty nine. Okay thank you. just bill. All along that line that Representative Eubanks was talking about as we look at a salary the state we have to look also at those states that have the windfall profit offset. Where you can't get both so social security and retirement and so I think in looking at it you have to make sure that you're comparing apples to apples as well Texas may pay more but you're not going to get both your pension and your social security unless things have changed dramatically in Texas so and they have not so I think that's important too and that's one of the reasons people like coming to Arkansas because they can get a pension and social security and their states were you cannot get both. Okay thank you that's all the questions we have today all that so we'll move on. Thank you Mr chairman members of the committee. miss Julie you're up. We already. Again okay and Julie how with the bureau and I am here this morning to present the final resource allocation report this deals with this section of the matrix on school level of resources. And We present put in your packets I think it's exhibit C. one that shows the progress on our reports so in addition to this being the last resource allocation report with the exclusion of presenting the economic forecast indicators this is the last at the scheduled reports from BLR for this year's adequacy study process. again just to remind you guys of why we're looking at resource allocations part of the adequacy statute requires you to look at the spending distribution and also the expenditures in order for Arkansas to deliver and and equitable and adequate education. So like I said this is the last of the three resource allocation reports so in March now presented the school's level staffing which is the classroom teachers nurses counselors and so forth in April and there was no meetings so we email D. lorries report on the district level resources and also there was a narrated power point to try to take place of our presentation and that was the mail to you as well and then today of course I'll be talking about the school level resources. And in that section of the matrix that we call school level resources are the lines for technology instructional materials extra duty funds supervisory aides substitutes and then we also include in this final report a look at expenditures using foundation dollars on items that are not in the matrix and this doesn't mean that they're items that schools don't need to spend money on that they were not deemed as part of an adequate education and included in the matrix in two thousand three or any year sentence. And. Since this is our very last go round and we wanted to put together those district level comparisons so after I've gone through this part of the matrix I'll go through each line of the matrix briefly and just remind you of what expenditures are so you'll be able to see those class ring comparisons and that you were talking about and you'll see lorries report kind of presented in a very summary fashion without and then at the very end. The chair is that asked us to talk to survey the school districts about their technology needs during the covered nineteen period of of when students are not able to learn at school and so we'll have those responses and at the end of the presentation. Seven we're talking about school level resources as I said these are the five matrix items were using data from twenty eighteen nineteen so these are the funding levels for the twenty eighteen nineteen school year and they made up about nine point two. I'm you can follow along I'm I've and. That there's the power point is in there and then Yeah I mean I've. Okay sorry yes. And I'll refer to my report some but I probably won't stick as closely to each page numbers Laurie did. But it's all in there it's all in there. it is it follows along in order that there is a lot more in the report then I'm going to give in the presentation. But you can ask me any questions afterwards and I'll do my very best so anyway if that statement the school resource items together make up about nine point two percent of the overall spending that's provided in the matrix yet then we look at expenditures we're gonna see that out of foundation funds school spent about eight point three percent of their foundation dollars on these line items. And this is the way it looks over offer school level resources and links that sense of schools and this chart will come up several times during this presentation and I know you've seen it in the other resource allocation reports that an just a quick reminder on it that the two columns on the left that say districts and charters this is the only place you'll see charters divided and that compares charters to traditional school district spending and then the Collins under district size in poverty are really just subsets of traditional districts of charters are not included in that as those columns of spending in these are per pupil expended two hours and so you can see that and. Out of the subsets of schools charters were the only ones he spent I'll the foundation dollars and more that the matrix provides that other schools subsets of judicial districts surpassed the matrix level when they added and other funding sources such as categorical funds isolated many and growth and declining like to you talked about yesterday some so and this chart will help you see that hopefully as we got three. We also has Laurie alluded to then we surveyed superintendents in the fall the essence to rank each matrix item in terms of and needs for of mice to dish dish not binding and at these items in fiscal resources you can see that the highest ranked in terms of needing norm pending or technology and instructional materials and the least and being seventeen almost right across the board where the extra duty fence. So now we're gonna talk specifically about the technology line and you can see for the last biennium in the biennium or and now funding has held steady at two fifty per student this money is used to buy things like paying for broadband buying devices such as desktops laptops and. Tablets and also software and and at those kind of cost so it's not staffing. The and collectively the foundation provided for the matrix provided about a hundred nineteen million dollars for technology expenses in twenty eighteen nineteen and schools and school districts and charter systems collectively spent about forty nine million of that so that means that for every dollar in the foundation dedicated to technology out of foundation fence that's been about forty five cents to the dollar however. And I kind of think about it like my bank account and I get my salary my husband seller guys in there so and then we just don't really care work as so if you look at it that way using either funds For every dollar they got in the matrix for technologies they were actually spending about a dollar twelve cents per student. And as either find sources came from federal funds and ESA funds mainly. So here's our yellow chart again and you can see that using foundation dollars only they were not meeting the matrix level or the legislative intent you you have in the matrix however when they add in those other friends they do you tend to reach and surpass that. So some of the expenditures as I mentioned are for broadband in you can see that in recent years the number of school districts who are purchasing broadband services has decreased as has the amount they spent and this is largely and due to the partnership between desi and the department of information systems working to provide and quality propping and to the school districts and the D. I. S. official I spoke with earlier and this month about that said that actually these costs he expects them to decrease even that they are improving the quality of broadband and their work with vendors the vendors or pricing things lower so he expects and this to continue to decrease over the years. I'm another an expense in this is probably been a very good initial first step that we didn't know about to prepares for Kevin nineteen was in twenty thirteen ACT twelve eighty required schools to offer at least one digital course and also for graduates to and have one digital course on their diplomacy to be able to get that diploma. So and this is made a big difference because back before this law there about eight thousand students across the state enrolled in digital courses now and in twenty eighteen nineteen so it's probably the more for this current year there are a hundred and twenty seven thousand students and there may be some duplication some of that some students may be taking more than one digital class. There were and twenty eighteen nineteen sixty six hundred courses offered in two hundred and forty six of the school districts and charter school systems across the state. And the law requires that there's an adult facilitator in each of these classes because they may be taking it in the classroom at the school but the teacher of record is actually coming virtually to them so they do have someone in the classroom with them and one of the questions we ask on our survey in the pop were and principles is to hew services these facilitators and most of the superintendents I mean must principles indicated that they have nonlicensed para professionals monitoring those classes but the second most common answer burning licensed teachers we also received responses of counselors nurses library media specialist and I think we went district two and or maybe a couple of districts using volunteers. The most popular courses for digital learning and I remember hearing this when we were doing our site visits two years ago for the adequacy study and that a lot schools were using the health and wellness because they could kind of kill and two birds with one stone and that health and wellness is required yet it wasn't and a core class but still is requirements that they could meet that digital and that health and wellness requirement it wants to other popular courses at our survey of business in the English ten AM in twenty eighteen nineteen there about thirteen thousand students taking health and wellness Three distance learning or digital learning and about fifty seven hundred in riled both and survey business in English ten. When we performed our site visits as Laurie said and we sent kind of talk conversational A. with principles one of the questions we asked as you know think about the classes you're offering three digital learning at their school and what are the you know pros and then what are the challenges you experience and many of the superintendents and that listed the same positive features in that they were able to provide ACT provide access to classes that they would be able to on their campus because either not having a teacher or not having room in their schedule to really offer it and and then also the we had several that use digital learning for credit recovery and then there are a few that also use it in their daily classes. The cons that we heard from our challenges that we heard from principles is that even high school kids but particularly younger at they need and a lot of monitoring that they're just a lot of distractions both on the computer or if they're at home doing a Class around and so not having that teacher there to really keep them on task was or to make that connection with and several principles that was missing in these classes and there's been some national studies recently in education week actually did an article and because of the pandemic that looked at three of these and they echoed what we heard from the principals with some of these benefits and challenges but also had looked at A couple as of the large studies were students were randomly assigned and and one of these was a credit recovery algebra one class and so they're about a thousand students half of them were put into a digital class and half for put into a class ring with the teacher and it's so they could compare how they did and they found that more learning did occur in the classroom with the teacher and that also the students ranked the class with three digital learning is being at more difficult class so as we get into next following we know there's going to be and things we have to do differently those are just some things to keep in mind and and and what's been found nationally anyway. Okay so now we'll move to the next line at the matrix instructional materials and you can see that and the last biennium. And which includes the year will be looking at that a wise the amount was eighty one eighty three ten and that's increase a little bit at each of the two years at this biennium and instructional materials of course include textbooks workbooks worksheets math mean applet is science project equipment and and a library materials. And twenty eighteen nineteen we It funded about eighty eight million dollars worth three the matrix in foundation funding and at the foundation dollars spent for less than that it was about sixty eight million so that was the quilt a line of about seventy eight cents of every dollar in the matrix and that was dedicated to instructional materials yet again if you look at all sources of spending for instructional materials that came out to about a dollar thirty four cents for every dollar in the matrix and again those other and sources of pending were largely federal funds and ESA funds. So if you look at our subsets of schools here the surprising thing that jumps out at you is the amount that charters and spent on instructional materials and that's the only subset of schools that surpassed with their foundation dollars and that matrix amount and then I added some on top of that as well I did looks three to see what was was driving this and there were two charter schools that really spent a lot on textbooks and etextbooks that year and Arkansas virtual academy spent about twenty nine hundred dollars per student for instructional materials that year in Arkansas connections academy spend about twenty four hundred per student that year and we looked in the letter and. In we just did this yesterday so it's not in your report that found that that all those expenditures and seem to go to their parent organizations so either K. twelve Arkansas virtual or connections kadam me for Arkansas connections. this is one of the lines and the school resource level where we can make national comparisons because in seat national center for education statistics collects this information as well and the date is a little bit older but looking back at twenty sixteen seventeen which is the most recent year Arkansas ranked seventh an and then all states and in DC in terms of instructional supplies and then twenty third somewhere in the middle of the pack when it came to textbooks for S. sorry be states be were ranked third and seventh respectively and then if you look at just the surrounding states and Arkansas we were second and then fourth highest. And one thing I didn't mention our expenditure in twenty eighteen nineteen for textbooks averaged about sixty dollars per per per people. So one of the things that we've looked that and. When read in the state in the last few years is because we know that teachers use their OWN many often to buy supplies for the classroom and in fact that think in twenty seventeen there was a law passed that allows teachers to and claim up to two hundred fifty at these expenses on and their taxes for today and purpose tax purposes and so twenty eighteen there were about twenty a half thousand teachers they claimed an average of two hundred thirty eight dollars each for and taxed expense. So we also ask questions about this on our survey of teachers in this Laurie said we had almost thirteen hundred respond that was actually about a fifty two percent response rate among the teachers that we had center surveys to and it is SO what does responding eighty five percent of all teachers for K. through twelve reported spending an average three hundred twenty nine dollars on classroom supplies and and then we looked at the subset of elementary teachers and ninety percent of that is also said they spent a large amount of many of their own pockets and ranging anywhere from twenty dollars to four thousand and then we ask them what they were spending these there many on it was to buy a lot of times more books and more reading materials but also there were art supplies and and other and experimental hands on type learning. Supplies. and I need to mention on the elementary schools do you provide are are supposed to provide their teachers with five hundred dollars that they can spend on top of what schools buys for the classrooms in these elementary teachers are still and spending more as you could see. So the next one we have in the matrix is extra duty funds and these buttons are whether used to pay stipends to coach is and your book sponsors and any extra curricular activity that demands quite a bit of teachers times that is school district to pay stipends for. And last biennium we're at sixty five fifty that goes at and now it does not it went up and last biennium it's it's holding steady this biennium at sixty six twenty. So and this is one area however were schools really and out spend even though it's a smaller amount of money they do out spend what the matrix provides in this and occurred in the last time that this is report so it's it's a true it's a fairly steady Trent but for every dollar and foundation funds that they were provided out of that thirty one and a half million they spent three dollars and thirty one cents instead of the one dollar and that was just out of foundation many and there were some other friends added to that that brought it up to three dollars and forty one cents for every one dollar they were provided in the matrix. And those other friends is mostly foundation as he saw on that last chart and federal funds made at most to the that remaining two and a half percent. And when you look at your substances schools see see that everyone is spending about that except for charter schools and I really have very low expenditures when it comes to extra duty fence. The next line item is supervisory aids and these are the people that schools hired to monitor at the lunch hour word recess and or to be there before and after school is kids are getting on and off the bass and at that pending is held steady at fifty dollars for the last several years and it seems actually to be one place that's over funded in the matrix because even with considering all sources of funds for expenditures that and schools and charters OR spending about thirty six cents for every dollar that's provided in the matrix for supervisory fence. And again you can see most of that and spending does come out of foundation funding. And again when you look at this chart you see that everyone is below the matrix no matter what many is put in and charters and then that's HIGHPOVERTY schools tend to spend the very least for supervisory aids. And the last in line in the school resources portion of the matrix are substitutes and of course substitutes are higher than ever the regular teacher is not in the class ring and teachers generally receive one sick day a month so and they're those days it's and teachers might not be in and they're also sometimes professional development opportunities that pull them out of the class ring. So let me look at expenditures. The The schools receipt collectively thirty four million in twenty eighteen nineteen yet they spent about thirty nine and a half million just out of foundation funds on substitutes and that a quote about a dollar twenty nine cents for every dollar in the matrix and then when you add in those other funds sources it's a dollar and forty four cents and again foundations makes up largest part and that they seem to use other state and restricted funds and federal funds next to fend those items. And when you look at it by and subgroup you see that your HIGHPOVERTY schools spend more per student for substitutes this could be that they're more long term substitute serving in the pipe property schools and so that drives that that amount and then when you look at charter's they're spending the least and they're actually a couple of charter schools that have waivers from the substitute rules which require either a bachelor's degree for a long term substitute or high school degree and FOR the temporary substitutes or short term substitutes and then also charters often as Lori mentioned in her report often have the waivers for needing to have a at a certified teacher so that also may lessen their need to hire a long term substitute because they're not trying to replace a certified person with another certified person. And then as I said we're gonna take a quick look at other and items that school spend money on that are not in the matrix because foundation dollars to go to some of these items so in twenty eighteen nineteen schools actually spend a little less than was reported to you in the last adequacy study that about a hundred seventy seven million dollars a foundation many did go to non matrix items. The three largest expenditures with matrix dollars were instructional aides at sixty nine point five million and instructional aides of been debated since the matrix was put together in two thousand three and that year I will pack is actually counseled against including instructional aides in the matrix because they said there was no research to show that instructional aides actually added to the benefits of a student's education it when I came back to recalibrate the matrix in twenty fourteen they did amend that opinion a little bit they said some research showed that eighty hard instructional aides to And train them to be tutors and I worked as tutors that there was some benefit shown that the legislature that time again decided not to include these in the matrix however schools are still hiring them and spending foundation dollars on them. Next we had other instructional supplies and objects and that was thirty three million and I look I had to go into Cognos must. Look to see what these expenses were and there was a lot listed as mail it mail it posted or by phone there were St gifted and talented expenditures because that's not a set aside in the district so not so much books or or or things like that and making at this thirty three million dollars and then the third most common and place to spend foundation dollars outside of the matrix for for athletic supplies and transportation. When we look at the nation dollars by substances schools there's not a whole lot of difference HIGHPOVERTY schools spent the leased it to seventy six per student and and. Then I guess medium sized districts or district as a whole spent the most at about three C. sixty in three seventy two. I we did pull out instructional aides to just to look at what's going on their little bit more again was that there was sixty nine and million dollars spent on those In that year most of the money and it was kinda equally divided between foundation funds for forty percent of those expenditures and then federal funds was and almost thirty six percent. And then again when you look all of this is the but by two expending as matrix was zero that HIGHPOVERTY schools supplement and their foundation expenditures the most for instructional aides said they spent five hundred ninety seven per student in that may be a lot of our HIGHPOVERTY schools across or smaller schools so that could be a function of just efficiencies. Okay and now we've gone through all of the school resources those going to quickly goes to redo all seventeen lines at the matrix since we spread this out over three months and these charts are in the final section of your reports before you get to the appendixes and And I've I've put them a little bit differently on the power points in which you'll see in the reports because I want to I did want to go through line by line so I'm just gonna explain how I've got this set up at the top up to a you wet the matrix matrix spending for that item was that year and I believe this is flat salary matrix spending not not salary and benefits and then blood that I have where the superintendents ranked this in terms of need and then in the chart I'm looking at her people expenditures in the top line is what's coming out of foundation funds in the bottom line is what they're spending using offense then the numbers in Fred are we're spending is below the matrix level in green is we're spending is about the matrix level. So hopefully it makes it pretty easy for things to jump out at you that with classroom teachers and just looking at what school that districts are using with foundation dollars no one's getting to that matrix intent legislative intent that's put in the matrix however when you add in all other sources of funding that and matrix level is Sir passed except for charters and you saw that and Laurice charts as well that this spending just isn't there on to teachers For charter schools. So I'm not gonna spend as much time on each of the slides that will free to jump in if you see something that is a question and a lot of these patterns will look very similar. And again the if you look at just my to expense for instructional facilitators you have to add in the other sources before they get to the legislative intent. And this is a little disc interesting that charters spend very a lot lower on library media specialist most charter systems do you have that waiver from library media specialist so even though they receive the funding in the matrix and the expenditures are not there. Earn counselors there's a very similar pattern as there is with the nurses. However other people supports everyone reaches that when they add in the other funds. Principal are more likely to have their intended pay out of foundation dollars. And then school level secretaries is an area where everyone surpasses the matrix with foundation money line and then I still or adding and dollars to that. Then we get to the lines we just heard about technology instructional materials extra duty funds supervisory aides substitutes. And then these last are the ones that Lori and read about. Very eloquently and operations and maintenance and and as she said if you look at all expenditures it's really double but is in the matrix Then there central office expenditures which an increase go over that amount when you add in the other funds. And transportation and again many of the charters do not have the transportation expenses that the districts to. And so if you add it all up and look at and the matrix that year the total funding was sixty seven eighty and if you look at just foundation dollars now district spent all of the violation dollars to meets the legislative intent however when you add in the other funds they they did also pass and the amount that the matrix provided for. And now we're down to the very last section of this report which is that survey I mentioned asking schools and districts and charter systems have they were faring in your with technology during this time of the crime of virus and we sent our survey out on April fifteenth so that was about a month actor in school learning seized on March seventeenth and we had originally asked for surveys be returned by may may first we ended up extending that to my eight and we ended up with about an eighty two percent response rate so not quite as good as the one response right in the fall yet with all the things that superintendents are dealing with right now we we were pleased with eighty two percent many of the questions we tried to replicate sometimes too well what we ask in the fall just so we could do some comparisons and this first question we added two responses to what we asked in the fall and they indeed be ended up being in the top three responses of you know what are the barriers your districts are facing right now in the use of technology and the number one answer was the technology that's and not present in homes and then broadband other superintendents and I'll at lab right on this in a little bit more later and. But where it did say that it wasn't the schools broadband that was so much the problem but it is the broadband and lack of broadband in the community for students just couldn't connect and then the third most significant barrier was just that parents weren't equipped to help their students learn in this new manner. We asks school districts how many of their schools allowed students to take home devices and laptops or tablets and you can see that the less frequently and time that students got to take home were were but the high schools lease being the elementary's and that's not and not terribly surprising a question we added was we wanted to know what proportion of your district students actually took cuts take devices home any can see that a little over forty percent of the districts and charter systems tell us that fewer than half of their students have the right to take devices home or did take devices and and while we had seventeen percent of them he said all of their students took devices home and we did hear back from superintendents that there were this wasn't strictly a supply issue that and I up I think a few I was saying this yesterday that the school district's they've talked to but And they need there's not connective itty and so much of their community that it didn't make sense to send home computers when they were going to be able to use them to connect and some had parents that opted for I gave an option of you know do you want learning online or do you want the paper packets and lot of then opted for the paper packets and then and. Some also didn't send said they didn't send the devices on because they had survived their families and people said they had computers are a home that their students could ease although anecdotally I know and I've heard this in the national meeting that in C. and the national conference of state legislators had been a friend of mine also time me this that they thought I mean when these questions are answered it was had to do more with weather days that during the nineteen you got parents at home needing to use devices for work as well as multiple siblings so this ended up being more of a stressor for people and then I think they realized and also we did ask in the fall and what kinds of devices you have for your students and then how are they use any can see that sixty four percent of the district's told us that and the devices primarily were shared so again this points to we were really ready to send one to hb one home with all of our students without additional expenditures. And. So the next question we asked was back on broadband and we ask in the file house mission is your districts broadband in allowing for smooth operations of instructional and administrative and in the fall you can see and there was a good deal of satisfaction most or all the time it worked very well there is a little less satisfaction reflected in the question this spring although that probably has more to do with now the one with the communities like a broadband and not so much but the school had to offer. We did hear from several superintendents and disturbing remarks about how the pandemic was really exacerbating the divide between the haves and have nots because and A families who couldn't afford broadband even if it their communities had it and we had one district tell us that they had even offered to purchase subscriptions for online services for some of their families but their families didn't want that because they had I think miss and bills and so they didn't want to be alerted back to the providers so they're they're just so many issues that are out there that they had to deal with this the spring but then another divide that we had several superintendents mention was the urban rural divide and one superintendent road in his comments section you know I'm in a school district in western Arkansas and even my affluent families don't have access to broadband that strong enacted either do streaming lessons by Sam or however or to download BT as so even then a lots of very as of the stated in matter how much money have you just don't have access. So we asked this and or we do this analysis for this question in the fall and repeated it for the the result of the responses we got this spring and I was really surprised not to see these answers fall off more than they did everyone rated that sufficiency of their property and a little bit lower but it was the and subgroups in the towns for the biggest difference was in that may be a reflection of. Not getting all a hundred percent response. So these next series of questions are ones repeated for the spring and in the fall and you can see quantity last fall and superintendents felt pretty good about the quality of their devices with the pandemic that satisfaction fell down a little bit and they needed more devices however the that satisfaction with the quality of the computers remained about the same. again with software and like tronic subscriptions the the satisfaction with the quantity dropped from last fall to this spring while and the quality was still teen to be pretty darn good. And we ask about how will teach their teachers integrate using technology into their classrooms and here you see a little bit opposite going on and. Where there was more and higher ratings among superintendents for how other teachers for integrating how many other teachers or integrating this in the spring than there were in the fall of course that's when the push came to shove for everybody and then same thing with and the quality of teachers ability to do this. And then finally we asked about tech support any concede that the opinion of their tech support when a. In terms of quantity and and then at the state about the same in terms of quality. We also asked if school districts are providing any professional development during this period to help their teachers and use technology to deliver their lessons and we got of response that about sixty percent had. And then we asked you know with relationships with vendors or that is changing we thought we covered a lot of the possibilities that we had about a third tell us that been theirs or helping them out in ways that we had asked about about twenty seven percent of the districts were using more of their vendors course offerings and then we had about twelve percent that said there vendors and actually created Nicks course offerings for them to use and during this period. And at the point that the last survey came in may eight and fifty two percent of the respondents said they had spent about two point five million dollars on technology needs that was created by the pandemic about two million dollars of that was on equipment and about and one point three million of that came out of foundation funds we did have about ten percent of our superintendents to write in the comments that it was much too early to be asking this question as they either were waiting on the carriers ACT money which got released after this survey to be able to either get reimbursements for use that money for their expenditures some of them ran into problems were vendors had backed out orders this seemed and especially tree for hot spots because schools were trying to provide hot spots and and then they also note that when their devices are returned to school next fall or next winter winter that happens that there's likely going to be a lot of expenses due to either replacement repairs that those devices and some other things that happened after recent this survey out and a TN has partnered and provided some learning on TV and in all that we didn't have a question on that we did get some responses and there were some areas of the state where that was not helpful because they they're at public television came from Missouri the department's light work like Trojans getting stuff out to help schools there's a map with all the hot spots and we're Walmart's in libraries that said you can consent our parking lot and that that's not ideal it allows connective itty that and. Students often don't have in their homes. And with that I will be glad to answer questions alright we have a few Senate just really recognized thank you Mr chair on page twenty five we talk about the fifty dollars is allocated for aids it it's been my experience that is that that is the teachers who are the aids playground duty it's there it's there. I. Is is fifty dollars put into their salaries are. The the well the out the way they want to. And that's twenty five of the page twenty I mean it's like twenty five twenty five when we can make their. Or if. There's probably a quicker way to do this. Well I at the end I wanted to make sure I was going to the right one yeah this is I don't and I don't know what's happening to that fifty dollars because it's not going to supervisory aids even when you add in other funds they're not spending that and I think you can see on that yellow chart and and I did not make calls to follow up on this and I'll be glad to do that but you see the HIGHPOVERTY schools and spend very little and supervisory aids and my thought is they probably are using teachers but I haven't checked that out to make sure so we don't really know where the money's going we just in a was not going to pay aids because having early morning duty lunch duty in afternoon duties what teachers are expected to do well and that they're not supposed to they're supposed to have a lunch period that separate so I don't believe there's. Meant to do all of those duties and that's why this is in the matrix But that but if they have a waiver they can do that right and and then that fifty dollars is probably going to some of these other areas where they're spending over the matrix amount using foundation dollars and some for we're going to have to find out where they spend money that we've allocated for something. And where else it's going. Speaker I have these categories and we know the teachers are getting paid that extra fifty dollars to pull all those duties we know that and they're not bringing in extra people to do it they used to and even an in little rock now that's no longer the case but moving on the substitutes. Are there many places where substitute will never make seventy dollars and seventy one dollars and eighty cents. Do we have any idea of where that money goes because many times the so that makes fifty Bucks a day. And I do have we've got an because we ask that question on our and survey and that is in the report and substitute section of what districts reported to us that they spent. Processed for substitutes a day and I'll of honestly I don't remember it off the top of my head but it was and you will be very is the average. For this is districts and charters and. Substitutes or certified teachers and that pay averaged eighty six dollars a day for substitutes to add a degree but not certification of seventy five fifty a day and then for those without a degree without a college degree of seventy to eighty seven a day that's the average that's the average okay we know the lowest and the highest do we get to that are you can get it to me later I right actually likely I did have this in here the range is fifty dollars to a hundred eight dollars for the lotus would not agree thank you very much you're welcome represented makes. Thank you Mr a question I have is on the extra duty can you know better defining that for me and then I'll follow up. I'm out a lot of extra duty is going to be your athletic coaches. And I think that's why you see pure expenditures for charter schools that school some school districts to provide stipends for teachers to you know do the school newspaper sponsor the cheerleaders the yearbook says some of those activities that are pretty labor intense so is it going towards salaries then or is it going towards other things the I guess my my my concern over all concern here is you know the previous report we heard that only about fifty percent of our kids are proficient in math and science and. Error for an hour spending salt six to seventy million dollars above the matrix allocation and I'm wondering if. That's a justifiable expense. You know is that money that could be better spent and this is probably more of a question for us on the basics of verses on the extras. so I saw my and not and that's yeah that's a you question right right but but but but but that. Laurie I you know I honestly don't know the stipends are considered part of the salary do you know. Yes I believe so okay that that answer would be yes okay so most of that money is going to pay for coaches and thing attacked the labor. For most of that yes okay and is that above and beyond their normal salary or is that in lieu of. Now that would be a stipend about their normal salary of the like over time or okay alright thank you most never stopped most of you what you really want to know are the justifiable right right right should should we be spending sixty million dollars on this when we've got you know when we need to come up with sixty million dollars to pay the teachers and we're having trouble with you know so forty talk to you know if you go to that department and ask them is justifiable but look at the wall what picture but anyway okay by senator Elliott. Thank you Mr chair I I have a question about the the vendors and and they are helping out with preparations for I guess what's being taught at do you know in these cases where school districts use vendors if that decision was made by the superintendent by teachers by whomever and It also I'll leave it at that now followed by the two. We don't ask he makes the decision so I don't know if they have a committee or I know its I believe it's answered on our superintendent survey so we think that they know they're over the finances do you know offhand how many school districts chose to use vendors for a lesson plan preparations do you know offhand how you can probably find it somewhere but they don't know offhand A. yeah I don't I don't know FOR lesson plan preparations okay you can see if if you have is someone that reporting can point me toward a fine I don't I don't you don't think you I don't think I have it broken down I have class you know that for the digital classes I don't think I have but other things that the vendors are doing. What did superintendents give you any notion of why they chose vendors as opposed to teachers who would be actually doing the teach in any discussion about that I do have differences on the digital classes in here and there's a designation and Cognos of whether it's home grown which is one created by the teachers okay or if it's blended and or if it's from the vendor and It's fine if you just drop me a note okay I will yeah it is that it is on its in here on one of these pages thank goodness I have heard from some teachers that they are just having to when they get these vendor plans it's so much less responsive to what their students need to have that one there had been getting teacher lesson plans so I would hate to see us to do something for expediency you know at that for this rather than using. The people who know what they've been doing with our students all this time just because we can package it and say Here it is some thank you Mr Mr Clark I will get that to you Representative Beck. Thank you Mr chair of. Actually represented makes contact close to what I was talking about but I'll I'll is it possible that we could request a report of the break down of the extra duty funds in other words this amount went to to coaching or whatever those are so that I mean we can't really have a discussion about that list we have the data that breaks it down and says okay this is what this is what's going for I don't know what the individual parts of that our is is it. Mainly athletics ours and mainly school I will mentions your books and those type deal so I think if we had a report that shall this is one of those actors do you funds or are their salaries apparently but this is the activities related to those hours salary reported very from school to school but we can we can find out what each and every one of those probably are that's what you would like to see the yes that the I'll be on the be transparent about this what I'm looking for psych are we paying extra duty people to do task that possibly we should be hiring someone else to do or could we save money that way or or you know is is everything in the line here so we I mean I honestly don't know if it's we'll see how much is going to different categories sign you do task. Well we'll we'll be glad to look in and see what we can can find out from those deeper levels of coding and okay thank shins. Our. I represent of all thank you Mr chair on account of piggy back a little bit on how what Representative Beck said just so you know extra duty is also people who sponsor classes who do FLA who do FFA who do FCA all of those are considered extra duty just so you kind of know that is it's not just a football coach to be a cheer coach it would be all of those things that is listed are also considered an extra day AT an. I want to ask though while we're talking about extra day eighty how many schools because of the minimum wage increase that we did how many of them took away that pay for that extra duty to try to make up for moneys that they needed to do for minimum wage increase does that make sense what I'm asking it makes sense I don't have that is there a way for us to find that out. That's that's so Reese about doubtful have data for that okay because I do know of schools that have already done that have taken away the extra paid to be a senior class sponsor or to be the FBLA sponsor they took away their monies for their extra duty to try to make up for so those teachers essentially lost money. Instead of gaining money and it hurt more than it helped cut does that make sense that does make sense and I don't know if there's a way for us to kind of find out Mister chair I don't really know how to address it it would be something we'd have to probably just service schools and so the but I'd like I said I doubt if there's anything out there so it's it's so recent that would be on the books yet but we can't find out can I have one more question and Mr chair to run it is so Broadband is a huge huge issue and my district like I've got places that have zero broadband and there's some of my largest communities in my district and they don't have cell towers so when you did this survey I know that you were talking to the principal or the super in that graph and that was like sixty percent were pretty okay with it. But not all parents can drive to hook up to ADD why five at McDonald's or at Walmart or at a school so. I'm wondering if those superstore thank and just or those principles or thank and just at school are broadband's good or if they were thing can be on to a kid trying to do homework of was that address also in the question well I that was one of the questions we did not ask very well and so getting out and I actually talked a couple superintendents on the phone and or actually by email dot chat that and. That that date while I felt like there's good they were changing their opinion about their schools broadband but they were not able to deliver education because of the community broadband in it so it was a huge issue that was and I I think greatly on the minds of several superintendents. Can I ask one more question Mr chair I'm sorry. That and then the technology for this the students had to share. Or would be able to take something home or not be able to take something home I know with this considering some online at school type of school for the next year do we look to see how many schools do not like how many actually only have one per two students one for three students and how many schools had exactly enough for everybody to have one at home and one at school. I've got some of that right down in the report we had last fall we had a hundred and fourteen that said they had no computers for students to take count and then but then you know the trend in recent years it's been for a lot of districts try to get to one to one at we had one school district that that they're one to one were kindles and I said you know that bill short of what I needed during this time so there there are going to be and I would think I get a mailing needs out there if this continues thank you Mr chair Mr chair sorry. Representative Barker. Wait a minute go back I've knocked off. I think I'm lying in. I'm on are you on isn't thank you I'm going to. So. I'm kind of needing to get a little bit more information so that distance learning five four it looks like a whose you senator use that for the health and wellness course is that. That is to have the largest statewide enrollment yes so is there a. Where is there already an overlay of where in this state that's happening to take and put it on a map and say what school districts are doing that we could take our survey responses and do that honestly our staff member is not able to command who does our mapping so it it may be a little while that we could do that for you I would really like that and here's why Arkansas has the highest teen birth rate age fifteen to nineteen in the nation and if the majority of our health and wellness classes. Our by distance learning and somebody just cannot computer the maybe that's an area that we can look at I'd like to overlay where that's happening with the majority of the counties of the school districts where we to see those higher birth rates even in the state of Arkansas. And that's it thank you. All right senator Chesterfield. Thank you Mr chair I am concerned as we look at this at the substitute area how many are using it to. A keep from hiring. Certified teachers even if they have the waiver we have the substitute you can't substitute for more than thirty days or twenty nine days is that right. Right the anything over thirty day consecutive days it needs to be a long term substitute used to be a long term substitute but. The long and if they do it for twenty nine days bring in one person for the next day and then bring back that person that was there before the you circumvent the process is that right. The directly that would be right I don't know how often that happens believe me I've seen it happen so it's not just theory I I too am concerned about the broadband because a large part of my district is rule. And I appreciate the superintendent of the superintendent in the Pulaski County special school district for putting. buses to create hot spots for key it but as we go forward we're going to have to do better. Then that. Because for weeks those kids went without broadband until they called and then I called so. What are we hearing from superintendents because if they're sixty some percent that say it's okay then there's another almost forty percent is saying is not nice to me keys to lose. So do you have any idea not superintendent sort I mean are worried and like I said there thanks that and I do have in the report because this is that exacerbates what was already not an ideal situation here that we're last out of the ranking is states according the twenty eighteen education digest in terms of. We're dead last among states in the sea in terms of having broadband in the home and were I think next to last in terms of devices in the house so yeah I'd at at they do not have that this is creating at a division between students to have what they need at that home to be able to keep up and even then it's more challenging than sitting in the classroom according to the national research but there's so many students who don't even have a device or the broadband to be able to connect. Do me a favor to a with the permission of the chair which you survey teachers to CS status they are with this PD that they're getting in the middle of the pandemic. I did you do that now in this because the ones I've talked to a going nuts about having to teach kids and I'm a man or they're not accustomed to deal with parents were not accustomed to teaching their school their kids and then dealing with PD that they feel is irrelevant so I'm just wondering if you've if you've well our at the art teacher survey the way we've had the most like getting responses from teachers because we don't have a database of teachers so when we go out do our site visits will meet with a teacher and ask her to distribute the surveys to all the teachers in that's and what and that's worked well for us you know we we haven't done site visit so we have to find a way to reach teachers to ask that question but we can try to do that for sure alright thank you thank you Mr chair. All right that is all of the questions for today thank you for the presentations great day were get the before noon so they get in here clean up anybody having thing just remember our meeting July the sixth and seventh back here. anything else from anyone. If not we're Jr.