Education Committee Senate & House

Patient let me call this me. Thanks we're about ready to get started here. Thank you. Okay. Okay we are with our consultants again eighty eight years to get with us today but first thing we have to do is do you have a remarks Mister chairman. Okay. usually don't sell what you know me understood. Of good to see everybody here today very important a meeting again this is our last one that we will hear from them and then we will go to the in person meeting in November so pay attention this should be the last one and tomorrow will be or meeting to go over the matrix and talk about the funding tomorrow so regular day okay all right I need a motion to approve the minutes from the September in September eighth and ninth meeting. Thank you all they were. All opposed thank you very much okay so Mister of Justin Silverstein is up first. Yeah are you. Charge of trying to get the video to play today so bear with me a little bit but we worked on it and we think we are good to to get. Okay. Good afternoon. Good to be back at school only been a couple days since we last spoke to all mankind and another set of presentations for you today. We're gonna. Start out with her usual study update it's going to be short were there any talk about case studies. The educator panels a stakeholder survey we're gonna bring back some information from the district survey on the school size policies. Public input on the school says policies and I'm gonna talk a little bit about capital needs which would be a general overview of how states fund capital needs how the answering the state the Massachusetts specifically from those on fund capital needs and then look at some responses from that same district Sir. A couple weeks in about two weeks were coming back with review with the resources in the matrix and approaches to routinely reviewing adequacy and then on the nineties when we'll come back with our recommendations which brings together everything we presented to you all over the last few moments. We'll take questions before we kick off the presentations. Okay. Do we want to move then to Mister Tonkin talking. Yeah me get that going. Presentation looks a capital funding. The right one give me one second. K.. Good afternoon. Going to talk about the successful case study. General began at the keys Senate complexion characteristic of the schools and then we'll look at the key takeaways from a specific area. He said he's going to keep. We rent schools based on performance so the highest rank schools that aren't expectations we landfill to the list by selection criteria so it banned school had a letter dated eight B. or C. if the interest between twenty eighteen and nineteen. Page English language to the population of eight percent or higher or they have to have a higher than average low income students Senate sixty eight percent. We could disclosed by region into the northwest northeast and just southeast region. Jennifer eight high school middle school and elementary school for each. Thank you city schools that were broken out patient as you can see here in the centuries and we had John elementary is the account of the north of middle school at least academy high school both at the same meeting we had in the southwest region asking him to mention middle school and Lafayette county high school in the northwest region Lamar and she school holidays in middle school and Jasper high school in the southwest region that that's ark elementary Crossett middle school in lakeside high school. And then in the northeast region we have we to elementary school parable junior high school and. The table shows the average of the selected schools as you can see twenty one because the case at the school's averages moment in in six months it just slightly lower than the matrix model under state. Each. Graphics free to the school to amend to school middle school. And later so as you can see. It be economically disadvantaged students which are free or reduced price lunch or direct certification students in the elementary schools it's in the first column. It ranges from sixty six percent of students are. As a bandage to seventy two percent academically this bandits if you look at a chance for example. Of the students that are economically disadvantaged ninety two percent are free or to wreck certification students are E. L. population ranks in tests are with zero percent English learner students to Peter Johnson eight as engrossed. If you look at those schools the reinsurance that sixty four percent. Weekly disadvantage to seventy eight percent of respondents are economically disadvantaged. Senate middle school eighty six percent of the economically just instance is ACT tracks sorts Jackson thank you since our state. Ranging from point seven percent I mean I. Middle school to twenty nine at Helen Tate school which is the highest percentage of English language learners of all the parties that the school. The range of economically disadvantaged students is from sixty one percent to eighty eight percent. If you look. Haskell you can see that ninety percent of the. The economically disadvantaged students are either free or direct state. The English language learner students range from zero present Jasper high school year at nine point nine percent. We also had to get diversity and our school thanks. Two of the fifteen school selected our charter schools and to the fifteenth build factor innovation schools and answer me back to school and Jasper high school. Want to talk about what we friends during the. So many other schools reported a low turnover the staff this was not true for all of the schools. Did not appear to be one best weight to staff of school some schools relied on instructional facilitators some schools utilized para professionals to do some of that direct instruction and then some school the lesser specials teachers to really perform some interactions during this. In many schools that tended to be small and in those smaller schools they're also able to take house prices would seem to seem to be six. So for the school schedule. Majority of the schools had delete blocks of construction up to ninety minutes or more in all of the schools have some form and that it's time for intervention and enrichment with a very large against. Response to intervention. One school had to be days per week of construction wage to lead for a flag schedule so they focus purely on the core instruction in this state and in a lot more the intervention changes to the middle and high schools started each day with intervention work. The other big thing that was built into the schedule and most schools with common planning time. Court and you know that kind of planning to whom was harder to implement in some of those smaller location elementary schools tended to be by grade level for the common planning time and secondary schools tended to be by content area for their comments. Going to curriculum and instruction. So some of the school year is community college in Fiji ET questions to make sure that they were able to ride clear and college coursework for their students in some of the other smaller settings they also use virtual Arkansas to make sure that they are able to provide the same number of courses some of the thanks to be able to at. Our focus on soft skills in character element across all grades and all of the school and then there's that sense and many schools on the whole child incident when a blank centered learning to make sure that the student needs are being addressed and they have the adequate services at. All of our schools these data to identify struggling students some of the schools that adjuster instruction to address students deficiencies there was in many schools of focus on skill deficiency versus content and to make sure that students learn the skills that we needed to learn current and future contact. He is the initial assessment and data rooms and walls which was used to monitoring targeting adjusting instruction determines or is also provided a location for students to use their progress in comparison to others and FOR teachers to see where this. Extra help strategies for struggling students so many schools use before and after school education. It was it many schools attempted to try to make it convenient for families funds a school when and leader in order to have after school programming and around ten parents are getting off work other schools are able to provide transportation. There was some schools that we interview that were unable to offer before after school because the transportation challenges of there was one school that had two buses which allow them to do after school programming. And then most importantly that was strong RG ACT support there are TI support provided each year one. General Christian instruction. The small group and push an inspection and then cheers three pull out where they really got that one on one we're any is that they are missing. There's also a very strong emphasis on personal relationships each teacher packed for or in one school second in one school each teacher. Page forty five students a year to track amend chart in another school we saw a lot of advise repairing it in seven to twelve to really get that strong personal relationship. What was mentioned violence the every student can name one or two adults they know well in school and that really created that personal relationship for that student. And then lastly there was high expectations of all students one school program called heroes aren't possible or is that where it students were required to finish their homework if they did not do it at home to do it during the lunch rush. To make sure they are. So for professional development all of the school. It's training inventions. Another big thing that was mentioned in schools and schools with collaboration. Once will the lower grade level teachers help that class rosters next year to ensure and mix of students by level. In in a school these are real emphasis on culture planning procedures would go in and to each classroom. And learn from what the other teacher was doing. There is the strong emphasis is on schools and professional learning communities other schools were an able to implement that but wanted to implement that. The schools are teachers let decisions on professional development There are there was a school where teachers let the professional development at the beginning of the act another one another few schools mentions that they got to choose the professional development that really that they're learning goals and so many different from the other teacher. Student support services many schools have instituted social emotional support one school rumor students could go to the T. contrast. The school use capturing hearts curriculum and implemented into all of their core classes. There is translators in one school that met with with kids every day every week and all that. In any school year and some schools there's a health clinic to help increase student intended. And and if you schools we saw the mental health support beams are provided from community partners through Medicaid. Additional monetary and non monetary support so most schools had a strong community support they ran close knit multi generational community is my staff and have been there and the families that there for awhile. There's one here service being performed more hours for being conformed elementary school. And then we saw donations so some schools have donations for fit programs back programs and these dimensions from local churches clubs and leaves a business sense and some schools we thought tractor sets the business of the local colleges to help really true eight that creare course. School clothes. So schools are really like a family everyone is willing to page and and rest multiple. there is distributed leadership model their principles she teachers as professionals and we give them a tiny and the Speaker input I'm decisions acting the school. Many youths of the smaller schools had abated with the bank and to the extent that that. There's a strong relationship across many of the schools well students families and staff and then all the schools really have a culture at the back and relax. Are there any questions I look forward to answering thank you. Okay thank you so. The city I don't see any questions here anybody have questions but we have one. Senator Elliott. Thank you madam chair I just want to get some clarification on trying to get to my notes but it's about our teachers choosing students from mentor I'm just wondering how does that get operationalized and I do students have any choice about who they're meant to be is in on that kind of thing. How does that work. Center this is Justin Silverstein that was one one school and and I want to be clear that the examples were pulling out we're trying to kind of example find the the the larger patterns and I think this is really pattern of students being down and and data usage that would really help with all hi my understanding and we can go back into the notes is that what they were the schools are looking for is students were right on the edge of kind proficiency and so they were able to target students who they knew they could get moving kind of across some of those performance levels and the teachers made the choice to then tracked those students and work with the students in that in that case I think one of the key things we want to say from all the case studies is that what is clear is there are common themes about what schools are doing with those schools are doing whatever schools doing it a little different right so there's no perfect one way to do it but this was a good example of data used to strike out of I tunes and then the ability to make sure students are no. Okay. To that another example of around that advise the piece was they had an advisory period built into the schedule and then it in this example that I'm thinking of the teachers had the same students in their class from middle school through high school so that and just kind of cycling through with them two just as my about really building relationships so it was not really operationalized in a few different ways I thank all right thanks manager. Thank you so I have a question to what the scores of culture of data so. Expand on that a little bit. Absolutely I think what was Really red throughout is that schools are using to get to know Is to get to know their students and then to understand how to set up the small the small group instruction and so there's a and really that are TI leveling party I think every school he's talked to had within their schedule some piece that was really specific for small group individualized learning that's more true really in a course elementary and middle school but even within the high schools it's really understanding students and targeting students and so that data and the constant use of data so it's not just using you know some of us you know and if you're sustenance it's constant assessment throughout the year so that students can move in and out of that year two and three and that students can move across the skills that they might need I mean that was another piece that really came through across a you know not every school but again it was a common theme across schools that when folks are using data that they are not targeting content they're turning skills so they're looking for what those gaps in skills are for students and insuring that their interventions are targeting skills and not just on. Along with the professional earning communities. Would they be connected. Absolutely and also so either the professional learning communities and or just that collaborative time that time is often spent to review student data to talk about students across either within a great or if you. US content areas and figure out what the right into interventions are for kids so it's it's a whole package of of using time wisely really because you you have the data to to to build the right instruction to build the rate groups to be able to talk about the data when you're together all of those things center. I see senator Chesterfield. Thank you madam chair. One of the most successful programs we've had here in turning schools with children of color in a very poor around has been if it's been paramount and associates if you encounter any of their work as you want around during your case studies. Because as lately as this year they have move lake village Germont from and after school to a C. school and doesn't go mental when a recognized nationally so I'm trying to find out if their work was encountered in any of your studies. Thank you senator we did encounter their work the example that comes to mind immediately is lakeside high where they really feel like that I believe it's thirty days of support they get from betterment assistance is what has really helps they said really helped drive their improvement in their school and so we did hear extensively at least that one school about how helpful there there's a sense of what I think that's important because we talked about PLC's in here but there are other entities that are also helping to turn schools around so I think it's instructive for us to look at all of those that are making a huge difference because lake lake village there might is all black it's all poor they don't have access to internet and yet they have movement F. school to a C. school so that that's the kind of stuff I'm looking for what do we do the PLC's of working but we need to see what else is working because they're not going to be in every school and in thirty days if we can turn that around and change that culture it will make a difference in what we do would you agree absent. I think Senator in just as I can about overview and it probably is my fault for not putting it in the the very beginning at this fork the other way we selected our teams here that we had to see it from multiple generally even a majority of school sports any kind of specificity we did not happen to call out that piece as a as a specific example but there will be a write up for every school and that would definitely be and not right thank you so much thank you madam chair. Hi. I think that's all the questions. So we can move right along. Okay to amend the brown. Figure this out again so next is going to be a you can panels. Next we Kerry would be educator panels and the educator panels really want to that means that used to engage stakeholders around state. We'll start off that presentation by talking about the innocent spouse in the selection and then you do you think heating served each of the topic areas that we discussed of educators including lodging career readiness economically disadvantaged. Staffing traction retention and then the funding the checks and other categorical sat in the chair. We can be number twenty different educator panels remotely this included ten district in charter system cables and held to per region to it to try to see if their regional variations and what we're hearing within commuting to the CFO and business manager panels for school administrative Amazon six teacher panel. The nominees were is listed by asking all superintendents and charter system administrators in the state and all professional associations to nominate interests we really try to make sure everyone has the opportunity to have their representation on the panel. Senate by districts charters and professional associations are invited to speak so we didn't excluding the nominees on we did find that it is difficult to get school of participation was this been a very challenging year in a very challenging all for your schools and FOR educators so it's not surprising that it is hard to find time to them in all we had about a hundred twenty five educators to participate in the panels of those eighty five or district in charter system ministers or CFO's and business manager I mean participation from operations in the state. We held the panels on a variety of different times and dates to really make it as easy as possible thanks to purchase. The back was college encouragement Leding what does it mean to be college and career ready in the state the definition of culture creating this let action include and how well the current expectations in the state are lined with that definition. Two years really strongly emphasized was should be not just college readiness but career ready. They had some great talks about how. They felt it it's really been the question has been to get all students to go to college for the past gates but there's other students were going to career will be the best option for them so and they even noted that all students are working towards a career even if college is there to get so you need to really strongly being concise and career reading. This suggestions for how to do so included including demonstrations and skills as you think about Ernest first unit having more flexibility in current standards and graduation requirements and then including more speech he or current Roland courses those apprenticeships internships for students. Their whole educators really felt that every student should leave high school with the next step in a plan to get there so regardless of whatever pack that is B. at college technical program military service or an entry level career position again and concerns in career or we're just finding it shall. They felt that there was ways that you could ensure this planter including having career options advisors or counselors. Exposing students to careers and younger grades each of them possible pass in discussion and the next steps and then also ensuring that students have the option the need for certificates or any credit designation so you can see that they're making progress towards whatever that passed be. Educators also development academic content knowledge has been well addressed they also need to be a strong focus on behaviors capabilities and skills that that included showing up on time management she shall thinking perseverance problem solving add Senator an initial literacy in reading and writing for professional or technical things not just Mechanix. Some states have worked directly industries to identify the skills that are needed and creative success really considering of their communities and thinking about what they're graduate should look like. Any other topic Kerry we talked about staff attraction and retention. So we asked their districts face new challenges recruiting or retaining staff. What factors positively negatively impacted staffer traction and retention what to to support them and also whether any staffing positions there particularly hard to fill her distaff. So educators on the panel is really noted that salaries is their main issue under traction retention described large salary disparities across state particularly for small and rural districts districts often noted that they computed not only within the state for teachers but with outside this state of the state. And then there's some discussion of the minimum salary increase including but how it districts to raise their salaries that receive funding but had some concerns about the sustainability since it is only at I believe the for your windows funding. And then first districts that did not receive that funding their concern was that they were no longer as competitive as district did receive funding so getting some Inequities there for districts that are targeted those resources just starting salary. Other issues that were noted on were access to amenities Johnson stances housing availability and teacher burnout workload so if you does a kind of a side of the education system all teachers are at work is an issue for education. I just positions included special education. The secondary math and science teachers strippers and concerning and there's is for IT different conditions both competitiveness the salaries can not then also the number of teachers available to be hired so he noted that they're not as many teachers going to special education or getting those higher level math or science certification the set different challenges to. But I will state most of the conversations tended beer and special education classrooms that seems to be a very large area of need for the state. The offered a number of suggestions to resolve shortage that includes grow your efforts so the thought the teachers from the community were more like the state so that there should be supports in place for existing teachers prepare professionals to get the education and licensure to take early is hard to stop problems. Related with visiting licensure requirements for example reciprocity teachers licenses from their state. Consider loan forgiveness programs or courage teachers sickly minority teachers to go into the profession. We just finished. We wanted to know what impact is being economically disadvantaged at and what supports and services are most effective in serving the student. Concentration of poverty in the school. We. A lot of distance from the first had it meets in physical and emotional needs for the project education will to be done about higher keep means really addressing this basic things around was this is like clothing and food and health. And then building relationships so once those those basic means commitment focused in on the academic. And the thought that would be addressed through strong tier one instructional divisional are TI support for two years. so that's good general instruction in the classroom that due to your one many provided additional interventions the students have additional small group instruction a lot intervention during after school so many of those things that we talked about it the last presentation in effectiveness is poverty funds and active service. Another suggestion was to just really provide experiences deprived of the right of the students and the teams they might not otherwise have. Decisions continue to recruiting universal preschool. Just the lack of access to the technology that many of the same time. And I will say that technology and broadband wifi conversations come a lot of a lot this year. Coleman so. That is an area that is mentioned He also said that he's really focused on career exploration and career readiness for the students as a means of breaking the poverty cycle broadening students horizons getting them excited about what the next steps were. The next area that was researched in the sending the checks including are there any service areas they're not currently address that should be. Are there any research Syrian mentions that should be modified in some way judges increasing or decreasing and then at the bottom is just that no not every educator has the matrix member. So we included. Summary chart of it well we had our discussions everyone's on the same page what was in the matrix. General feedback was educators wanted to stress that. Opening model and not expenditure so it's a means of determining how much funding should go out to schools and districts but not a blueprint for how they should spend it may felt like sometimes if it's being used as. Manager model. Funded mandate an issue that takes away from funding it's just through the matrix and we tracks from those intended purposes example of that was just a few requirements it they are required to provide services in this area but it's not funded item. There is not addressed in the training matrix data should be were school resource officers and school safety. Total hell. There is also areas within the matrix adoption be adjusted first being that there's a couple positions that are not willing to credit engine requirement so the first thing that Justin principals at required to be at halftime and fifty in a school five hundred the librarian is this me full time but funded at zero point five. It is also in the school secretary underfunded at home we know this to school to. You mean staff members in the office one point wasn't traditionally addressing this need. The other area that was talked a bit about what is the. Resources for teachers in the matrix in the class and the sense heated. I wasn't really around those were to hire to. But more that they needed to be some questioning our surrounding as in some instances the funded amount ratio was very similar to the maximum ratio. The example that you have coming up this kindergarten where they're sensual staying in that students don't come in packages like that so if you have if it's twenty to one and you have forty four students the maximum is also twenty you have to hire a third teacher to make sure your within just a little disconnect and some question if it were something that could be done to allow for that flexibility and recognition of different schools. There is a came up during salaries They noted that prince one secretary salaries have not increased for the past three years. Much of any reasons are going to offsetting insurance costs. Other major areas that were desperate technology and then the amount for substitute supervisory eighteens and maintenance not since you're being revisited in light of the fact the minimum wage is increased but the amounts for those not gonna similarly. Some concerns around the region and transportation Note that even though it does have the major extraordinary costs for units not transfer they're not sure how those resources will. If there are any feedback they'd like to share on. The court was outside the matrix so that yes thank funding English learner funding catastrophic or high cost specialists Aliy ET capital or if there is a purpose that wasn't currently dressed with a shot that should be. Yes. Today reported that in many districts yes the funds are being used or other scene groups or to fill in the data dismissing matrix pieces right yes Sir or mental health and technology resources from student or transferring to other categories of schools listeners or AMD or providing services for special education yes that the customer funding system can be an issue. Funding is tiered seven districts that are rated the customer tear really struggle with the difference of having one or two more students and to bring them into different pending here category. They they really talk about the challenges inequities heard because of that did your sister and also the date often didn't feel the difference in need for each students was at the same scale as the differences and finding. Special education they describe that this amount is really fixed amount that's been divided by the number of applications so it's not time to the actual cost of students used. so as a result it's not predictable and it doesn't necessarily cost the cover the cost of serving student one district the Senate a covered about forty percent of their cost. However special education services are required by an eight piece and federal maintenance of effort requirements so if you don't receive the funding to address them they have to again pulled from. General education matrix dollars or. They're categorical and finally English learners is another and at the center having to pull their funds to provide. Payment was also noted is not fully funded. Payments for twenty days of continuous service were difficulty. Capital is the last area and generally feeling that there wasn't a billable funding to address all the capital needs of the state the overall spending in the only has not changed significantly costs increase. This state shifting priorities for more than thank you John King construction resulted. Air decision sometime districts in her mother's and not districts department of justice to provide capital services capital funding themselves. Keep things from our educator panels and now we really look for to question things okay in the state senator Chesterfield. Thank you madam chair we know that transfer getting kids back and forth this is key to to being successful in one of the one of the obstacles I think and free K. is transportation itself because we have a number of private providers for pre K.. And yet there's no money in the pre K. budget that will allow them to purchase vans automobiles that will get those kids to and fro when you have desert of transportation it shall find that to be the case nobody is here in little rock they are number of people just don't have the transportation and therefore can't couldn't get their key it's to a pre K. program. What suggestions do you have for us to address that particular need. Thank you that's a great question it come up specifically related to preschool we did hear it quite a bit and you when you think about before and after school program programming or summer programs that if you're not able to provide the transportation is very difficult to get families and students to then be able to participate in the program and I believe it came up when we did the districts survey that only about a third of schools were able to provide transportation to their programs so we recognize that A transportation outside of the normal school day is an issue but it like I said it did not come up specifically around preschool. What could you tell me if the funding that we placed in the matrix for transportation is translating or is being utilized fully for the purpose of fully transporting key. Or is that being utilized for something else is this flexibility throughout the matrix. Then they came of this part of the educator panels so part of today's discussion but it's something we can discuss at the next meeting on the matrix line item. We can technology transportation more than my final question were there any community school programs that you ran into as you were looking at a at schools because the wraparound services they come from community schools sometimes make such a huge difference A we've seen other places and and. Do we have any community schools at all that were a part of our steady. You know where the school can provide ability for the parents to pay you know what I'm speaking in it exactly and I'm gonna turn to Justin and Jennifer they can think of a community school sample I do know a couple or at least if you're recognized eighties did provide health services on state so they were doing a live around the wraparound services but I don't know if they were to Carol to get a community school model. But they were changed or child just. Now I think to amend this point we do not have anyone he specifically mentioned being a community school but we had a number of the elements of committee schools basically every school we talked you talked about the whole child and needing to serve the whole child and not not just academic needs and then to amend this point every school also talked about those additional kind of specially mental health resources that they're able to get from partnerships with private organizations and and leveraging Medicaid and then another thing to do but I do not believe we had had any of the fifteen schools I don't think any of them happen to be community schools that that I can. That did they have reach out I'm outreach to parents in particular that would allow those parents to better be able to meet the needs of their students of the students. The strong community contact was very important I think there were also times with the schools where you're trying to meet the needs of the student knowing that families had some other barriers I'm going on so it's it's trying to do both and it is full trying to get as parents is involved as possible and when there are some struggles to to to leverage that finding other ways to ensure the students have the the resources they need thank you Mr chair thank you all. Thank you the. By Representative D. Meeks. Thank you manager I have a two questions might my first one is a as most of my colleagues know before the whole pandemic thing hit I have a portable planetarium science museum that I take the schools around the state and that was getting a lot of great feedback on that so I'm glad that that came up and and your discussions and kind of leads me to something that I think I may have soft under the surface and want to see if you could expound on a little bit in the discussion with the teachers I think there's a point where you seemed indicated that there might have been a either shift or an interest instead of teaching for teaching sake fax information of trying to make that information more practical in all of us in school we learned math. But are we seeing a shift where state just learning math for math say that teachers are wanting to apply it to practical situations everybody in this room probably set at one point one of my or going to use this for right I took to calculus classes last time I saw in use calculus was when I was in those calculus classes so it do you do you see a trend or do you see the teachers wanting to push more in that direction as you talk to them and if so how is that something that we might could. help with per se and then after that all gets my second question. Yeah not sure we heard as much of the that that's specificity it almost was in a little bit inverted but I think very much along the same line but we did hear from. School district administrators is the ability for students to show proficiency and eight in a skill that maybe isn't traditionally academic and so one kind of very specific line I remember is them that's the student struggling in geometry and in walks into the welding course I can do amazing types of geometry and so how do you allow students to show proficiency and concepts and skills maybe not purely through course work you know just in math but in some other areas so I think there's some alignment there and I think we are also going back to what we heard from the case study schools is that ensuring students no skills and not just contents are not that they don't need contact but that you're really targeting skills because of skills are what allow students to bring in content and so you know really focusing on skills gaps and not just content not contact. Right and and that kind of the just where I was going with that. Okay and obviously you do need both but it sounds like that those practical applications the second one is a kind of a follow up to what my colleague over here was asking about about families it did in your discussions. What emphasis word the schools putting on family support both with families that have current needs to make sure that those needs are met any you know for example parenting skills financial skills things to support the family so those children internals high risk families Can succeed academically and then also was there any discussion of what on the cycle of poverty usually is a generation after generation about schools teaching soft skills to the next generation on in awe how do you become a successful parent you know relationship skills things like that that would help to better you know enable them for for their future. Just making the head on this one. I think you raised a lot of good points the seller Speaker in many of the case the schools the real emphasis on engaging parents so there's a lot of talk about you know hosting at night and getting families in the schools and then I'm goin tools to be in constant communication with them and. There was at least a couple examples where they were doing particular parent education classes so we did see some examples I would say that was everywhere but there were some institution in sentences where they're trying to bring in families both to to provide support for all those areas that you were talking about And then. A now I think blanking on your next question the jazz there's a couple of pieces to it yeah you want to it was the the the current you know what we don't support the current family and then what are we doing to train up the next generation. And we did see a lot of emphasis on the soft skills on both providing that social emotional learning curriculum so that that relationship building and helping them at engages with their peers better gauge of their families and provide all of those examples of skills that the time management and importance that of jobs that. Persisting that they might not be experiencing in the home they might not be seeing as much emphasis on areas that they were trying to model a lot of those experiences and the other piece was on Writing at a robust set of career exploration when you're young they can see more than just what a jobs their family make hands but really a larger focus on trying them all the crews out there and all the possibilities so the idea of trying to break that multi generational poverty cycle came up quite a bit during the conversation and and this be my final question kind of along those lines and and you may not have dug into this but in the schools that were emphasizing in doing those programs were you seeing results and if so what kind of results. So just sourcing on the case study schools you know the results really are and how we we selected the schools right that we we we're seeing those outcomes I think you with the educator I am. Handles it was more folks talk about what they feel is really working but we don't have an of the quantitative data task the impacts are thank you thank you manager. Thank you the senator Elliott. Thank you madam chair I my first question has to do with the number of educators of that participated in the panels and I know I totally appreciate that it was it was problematic to with all that on but if I'm looking at this correctly when you said there are out of the hundred twenty five folks who participated eighty five of them were administrative or CFO types leaving forty to be teachers that we're talking raw numbers here right that's just wrong numbers with that in mind and and mine did not it at all intended to be a criticism but how comfortable do you feel that you've got a good representation of what the. Sharks really are do you think it would behoove us to do some further digging. I think that's a great question and again it we didn't have as much participation on the educator panels is as we would like to in in a typical year and then it was a little more predominantly district focused which is why we will think about taking these findings and what will present an axe presentation on the stakeholder survey that out of proper reach and a larger number of teachers for example participating in the survey and thinking about it together. Yeah that that's fine I but I just if I find it significantly important to get a great deal more information from both the folks who are the largest number so I can I appreciate that the other question I have has to do with the discussion about career ready and college ready announced there were some interesting input about hope what is to be called and everything else and I and I do think that will be when it comes to start again adequacy we certainly I think I've done a good thing by including career ready and what we're doing But I I'm trying to determine if you could extrapolate from your discussions if people if teachers and other educators send tend to see this as an either or kind of proposition as opposed to both because it almost feels we talk about them is is either this towards that. What what are your thoughts about what you heard I agree and and I think one of the most powerful things that eight personally think we heard during the educator panels is the idea of theirs it should not be college and career readiness that it should just be career ready everyone is required in college ACT to get to a career which is not the end result yeah so I I think there is a lot of concern that it feels like that either for your college or your career but they really. There is a to have the same everyone is trying to get to that the next phase I'm so placing either equal emphasis on both the really again thinking about it AS crew readiness the different paths I would I think help decrease some of that they caught me I think this such an important point because even if you're in college you're you're on your way to some career somewhere and is one of the problems I think we have been trying to distill what adequacy is all about we use of words but somehow we forget that going to college is also about getting ready for career same thing when it's career tech so I think it kind of dilute so creates a fiction and what we are determining as opposed to seeing these two things as you know synchronous because. And and you know they overlap at times and I just want to share with my colleagues are quickly because of such and I think this is so important that we get this right because not as to chamber of commerce about including college degrees and over a career a college are the on degrees and career readiness it was just mom as if that didn't count and I've had these discussions I think is important adequacy discussion the this is what you know the center on business and economic research at the university of Arkansas says about the four year degrees for which we see act as if we are really preparing paid up to to people for and then we have all this discussion about remediation I think all this is related. One but twenty seven is it's really a major economic development problem talking about are not having four year degrees I think as soon as we can absorb that we can begin to see which is not a competition here and when we start talking about adequacy I hope we can think about it and you know in that regard Arkansas has this is twenty eighteen data Arkansas has twenty two percent for your degrees and the country is that like but thirty point nine percent and we have to decide we're going to do this full spectrum I think from what we call career tech all the way through professional degrees and we're going to get adequacy quite get our kids prepared And Madam chair I I have a last question but if if you want me to just get a Q. and come back and I'll do that because at the get everything sure can I can I just pick up a one thread I thank the bill's office Amanda was talking about and and what the senators is causing. Within that called you reading this discussion there was a lot of talk about the soft skills and that there are set of skills that if you were going through if you're going immediately into the work force or you're going into the military or if you're going to college. If you have the set of skills that stick to run this inability to finish we'll get you not only a job or through college or you don't do well in the military but will get you promotions or or have you do well in college I there's a step of skills that no matter what direction you're going to need to have as you leave high school in order to be successful in whatever path you. And they're harder to measure and that was one of things we kept asking every panel how do you measure soft skills but it came up in every panel and is talked about you know how you get kids to be successful and maybe not need remediation and other things is to not only be focused on the outcome after high school but the skills you need to be successful when you get to those those other pass when I get back to the conversation everything that's important is not measureable we thank thee the tend to just pay attention those things that I measureable but just what you said they're not measureable but they certainly are observable with another person can stand in front of a class or in front of a group and make a presentation you know that kind of thing madam chair I as I said I'll I'll wait for my third question if you want to go to somebody else and come back to me okay thank you all just put me to keep for that question please of Representative back. Thank you madam chair. I was wondering if the I'm looking for something a little bit maybe between the lines here a one section we were talking about I believe the I don't know if it was administrator teacher sever saying that to make sure that the matrix is a revenue mom not expenditure model I certainly understand that that's not the first time that this committee has heard that but that that that was one point but I found it interesting that later on there were some references made with certain programs that they were the funds for those programs are being used for other expenditures for other things so it seems like you're kind of you know if it were the same person you say well you just contradicted yourself so I understand was pride different people so my question is this did you see that the teachers were the ones concerned about funds being moved from from one area the matrix to another are was it all right in possibly was did Mr sever warning the flexibility to detect these revenues and use them as a a software. I would say it is coming from funding were predominantly at the district level and teachers are really less familiar with the intricacies of how many as provided to be able to speak on that they can talk about you know the the amount of money they received for materials or what supports they have in the classroom but the actual flow of funds is really. Thank level or CFO conversation Making the similar point is that the one flexibility in how they use their matrix dollars and then flexibility within the categorical some of those around staff I think they can seem like they're a bit at odds but they're really coming back to that same point of. The desire to have as much flexibility to put the dollars where they think they're needed as possible. And I think building a one point something we talked about last Tuesday and I think it's a little bit that you've heard from the off road also I think one of the points many the administrators and CFO's were making is that there are categories of funding that have to be utilized to backfill kind of other categories of funding and so your you're taking kind of from one point to another it's good to have the flexibility but I think there's an underlying question of if lots of folks are using X. resource to pay for why resource just a question no perhaps we should have funding for that other resource and I came up love S. arose in mental health just that they have to find the dollars somewhere in the started the pot anywhere right now so it's great that the flexibility but it also means you know especially thank yes eight dollars dollars being pulled out of the pot to go to some other resource areas and we mention that last week and I think dealers mention that too in just their look at yes so flexibility is good but not always going to have to take from one to to get to fund the. If I'm a manager the question Paul the so that that seems to be the question I thank you great response to the. The question is is how are these funds because I I'm the one and FOR giving them the the flexibility to move the revenue around but the interest that the point that part of this committee needs to hear is. Is there a certain schools certain demographic schools with certain demographics that are moving funds from maybe this category to that category that typed in because that's how we properly fund schools if we could find out you know if the larger schools are the funds in this character that current where the other ones are you yeah there's multiple things but that's the that's the crutch of the questions of how you fund these schools properly and so they're moving things between the different areas in the matrix and I had sent we have the capability of doing that but the finding out how they're moving amend why they're moving on gives us a better insight as to how we should be funding the schools. And I guess my question is is there any more data that you guys collect or do you see anything that would support that as far as. How the different schools are moving different funds. And and we will when we we talk next about the matrix I think we're gonna have some specificity there on areas that A little bit more into this again I think it's kind of a two fold peace and I actually agree and we try to bring some of this last meeting looking at yes a fund specifically about where those dollars are going kind of and how they're being spent but you know we are not being asked is tell you all the level of funding needed but I think from these panels and and I think it will even come here in a minute from the survey there are certain areas where folks are saying there is no funding but we're spending dollars on these areas so I think that's your point we could we could find you know you could find that in the financial data we have not told that specifically but I think we can talk to cochairs about trying to figure out where that is and then the second your point and B. O. R. has been some cross walk in revenues versus where those hours expended just trying to look at where dollars from one funding stream being used kind of the fun something else and again we we looked at that a little bit with yes a if we have to get back with the alarm to see how much what level specificity we can get into ins the more that can demographic lands a difference I schools are different area things like that. Now this one demographic point I was going to add is around sites around school size I think we were hearing a lot more in a staffing similar to the matrix and larger school settings but that small schools are often having to move dollars around to I think our example earlier to provide that extra kindergarten teacher when they don't have the staff so I think there's a size element as well to having the dollars. Thank you. Thank you eighty three. Your manager of funding the major bills coups a very important as to notice no that in the state of Arkansas the major reflects that there is a shortage of teachers in our state did just thirty identify into the barriers of the calls is why there is a shortage of teachers in the state of Arkansas. So the educator panels talked to quite a bit and you'll see it in the survey to about particular areas that these the shortages and their biggest examples where special education I kind of your dance math and science can you secondary level CTP teachers and then some additional classified but around your teacher started status we heard some reasons being both the salaries and competitiveness both to other industries to other districts or other state but then just a real focus on the shortage of teachers in the pipeline so that there wasn't as many graduates coming of the teacher prep program there have been both the room for all and then in particular area so I I think we've heard both again about the salary and being the two areas creating a shortage. And Representative thank you know way back which feels like four years ago in twenty you know because we are living through twenty twenty but back in I think April or may my Griffith for presentation on can teachers generally and look at that pipeline situation nationally and this is not unique to the state there are they just your teacher having produced and are really needed and then that gets compounded for your really hard to staff positions like special ed or your higher can requirements not really hired requirements but just less folks who are getting their undergraduate degrees in math and science if you were then eligible to teach in those areas. Follows are you mention requirements of do you think that in the state of Arkansas that we have. To meet the requirements of. Hi four teachers in our state. Something we specifically dug into ourselves but we did hear a bit about the special education teacher requirements been particularly stringent in the state and then Some challenges with reciprocity where a teacher could teach take their teacher lies since from Arkansas to another state but districts reporting that it was more difficult to have teacher licenses from other states recognized so I I don't have much to add beyond what we were hearing anecdotally from those folks we've not take into the license requirements ourselves thank. Representative capital. Thank you madam chair going back to the career reading this we see in the study were talking about that they said it should be addressed earlier is there a time frame that they thought it should be addressed versus how we're addressing it now. He's just as early as possible for career exploration so in your elementary grades start having the conversations about what crews are out there and then as far as really incorporating kind of career education there's a lot of conversation of moving that to the middle school level and even that Perkins dollars cannot be used at the middle school so just bringing back it as early as possible this to different points us talking about so actually we can actually started as far as elementary school getting them to understand what pass might be available for them and then they can start trying to choose some pass may be in the middle school going into high school so when you get to high school is not just decision they have to make it something you've been preparing for all along was that just in that they hate. Exactly we were hearing a lot that by the time you get to high school students perspectives of barring narrow so much as to what the range of possibilities I mark that it's important to have a conversations to nurture a broader path for. Refinished. Thank you. Representative Lowery. Thank you Mr chairman. The a a while ago you you referenced in the educator panels the discussion of areas that are outside of the matrix an outside a categorical which would be funding warm safe and dry facilities I I guess my main question gears towards the overall discussion of the matrix and to ask you if you have encountered in your research and in other states. Where superintendents are just not bound to spend the money that is sent to them on the kids We passed legislation in two thousand seventeen to place a cap. On how much money can be put into fund balances and we gave school districts five years to spend down to twenty percent of Rev annual revenue since then since two thousand seventeen the total of fund balance and construction fund balance has grown. From one point six billion to two billion dollars statewide. And that's just I'm I'm just going to be as crass as possible that's taking money that's taking. Resources away from kids to keep building up bank accounts. And I just wonder if you run into this because I'm getting tired of our conversations like will mark you know this is a finding matrix not is spending matrix. We've got to do something to make superintendent spend the money on the kids. And I just want. What I ask for your input I mean that's what you're providing is what can we do to make sure all this time that we're spending on adequacy hands and trying to figure out how much money should be sent to this to the eight to each school that would that we know that it is being spent and not just put away for. You know what they'd ineffectually call a rainy day. Representative so I think two things here one. I think with with and we talk about that it in again so intentional eat that this is not the first time you've heard at the eight the concept that this is a funding majors not expenditure matrix we're really talking about a line item level support if a district is funded for seventeen point two kindergarten teachers there would be an expectation that seventeen going to kindergarten teachers but that that you know they need the ability based on their student counts to and and those kind of tipping points related to the maximum set that to. Budget the way they need to budget I think what you're bringing up in my mind probably takes the next step which is the actual amount of total dollars being spent or saved in any given year we as part of this have not dug into that specifically and and but we thought we had opinions right now I wouldn't want to bring. Just just kind of our opinions right here and can look around the screens I don't see anyone else on the team is jumping to to to answer that one but let us talk to the cochairs about you know that is that the type of scan you can do around state policy in that area. Just you know quickly generally what you will hear socially districts is a Recommendation of a minimum amount of. Fund balance in order to insure just physical security right and so what we often here's to an two to three months of the kind of your costs and then that way things worked at to get in trouble you have a number of months funded but. And I don't have any specificity right now for you on kind of maximum fund balance that would be either required by states or kind of best practice but we can talk to the cochairs to see if that's something we we can spend a little bit more time digging it well the specificity that we established with the seven two thousand seventeen legislation was twenty percent of annual revenues which comes out to about two three months and unfortunately I got conned. I'm just I got conned into allowing is spend down to be shifting money to construction fund balance and so construction fund balance in that period of time has doubled. And yet we're still being expected to put more and more money into the partnership program without looking at all. And how much to school districts are putting into the construction fund balance so it you know it really just gets me to at the point exasperation if you can't tell that the matrix isn't it's never going to be effective and till we. Put a lot of these categories into categorical funding where they have to spend it on that category and they can't just take the line item monies and go well we're gonna save year and we're gonna sock the rest of the way into A fund balance. Thank you thank you madam chair. Seeing no further questions I guess we will move along. I'm sorry your next presentation is the stakeholders which one that of senator Elliott I have a. Thank you on. Thank. Okay thank you so much madam chair provided me get back into the queue my my third question is is along this line that we were talking about unfunded mandate and I am not sure this is so much for it by Penniman chairs and might be for us I noticed that one of the examples given that was as an unfunded mandate is the dyslexia requirements and this is something directly related to kids being able to read and the fact that that's you know who is is in a category saying it's an unfunded mandate is is really concerning to me and and for two reasons one is for me first passed this law we all worked at it together administrators and legislate orders and what the reason we passed a law as a wise without additional money we were told that there was money that is embedded in the budget that we could actually do this and let's just say that's not turn out to be the case I'm fine with that because all of us have the right to be wrong but what I would what I would want us to consider it is something that is as important as the kids right to read or to be able to read what I'd like to have happen madam chair and maybe it somewhere you know in our in and be a lark I would like for the administrators teachers or somebody maybe the A. E. A. can give us a list of what they consider to be on funded mandates because if we hear about it later after we finished adequacy is not going to be helpful so my request is that is madam chair I guess this is us it is already somewhere in the alarm company find it if it's not somebody needs to talk to us before we find this thing again to know what it is that. Unfunded so we can get it right because it is totally unacceptable that a child might not get dyslexia interventions and not learn how to read because somebody deems that and unfunded mandate. That's that's my statement and request madam chair I don't have a question for the group but there okay thank you thank you. All right will make noted that. All right so now we will be moving on to the next topic. so Amanda brown is that you again talk about stakeholders surveys. Presentation area will be the stakeholder Sir this is the second A did you have been used to engage the colder J. will be presenting our initial personal. So the presentation will start with a describing the survey and distribution and and then of respondent amend initial findings for the areas that is contemporaneous stuff attraction retention perceptions of the funding system in areas of concern related to the educational resources state and finally ages reviewing what the next steps of this information will be. So this was an online survey it was available to all educators and community members it is open from September third through eighteen and that we closed it formally on the twenty first to ensure that it is the intent on a little extra time they needed to to complete their survey. To publicize the survey distributed a notice to all superintendents and charter system directors the state asked them to take the survey and then to share it with their staff and their committee and we also shared it with all the education profession so seasons in the state and ask them to share with their membership and then provided the notice to all newspapers and state using immediate contact list provided by ET and we did a couple different follow ups and to make sure that people knew that the survey when it was going to be closing soon and to encourage them to participate. There were two versions of the service the first was more detailed version intended for educators in a more streamlined community service that would be a little more accessible to. She colors that might not be as familiar familiar with the intricacies of funding in the state. You'll see that the different question areas that we asked about including if it was included in the educator serving a community survey and then what that looks like you'll see we had quite a few open response when. Tions survey which are particularly easy to some rates quickly to share findings with you will you know within a couple weeks of the closing the I really good for making sure stakeholders have the opportunity to share all feedback would feel very included in the process so they're not strangers to our particular Senate questions but contract any feedback that you feel very strongly about. In thousand individuals participate in certain this is roughly split between educators and community members we had participants from over a hundred seventy different districts and charter system this charges shows you the split participants again for educators. Quarter appearance in in a seventeen percent per student six percent for committee members. Educators process to identify their rule when you see about half the educators the party Speaker teachers and then there were. Eleven percent distributor system ministers again from a hundred seventy different districts in the state. In their instructional staff members one ministry and the other school level staff to participate in service so we had quite a few different. Educators within the system participant. I want to share a little bit the responsiveness of the and Representative Mister Mister we really think about that the sequel or survey is an opportunity for broad stakeholder engagement much like you would get to public testimony here if we have been able to hold on public open listening sessions so the intent with this piece is not to a person representation or statistical significance sample but to get feedback from those that are interested and willing to purchase we didn't want to constrain artist. But at the same time we do want to look at dissipated to try to understand how did that influence the results we stock. When we look to educator results we need to be more from learn your urban districts in the central region not overwhelmingly little. All represented in that area so the final report will be looking at how to the responses of urban districts compared were all knowing that rural are built to be smaller and more decentralized state. Well look in the final report to see if you see some very each in their. The community responses will be used only looked at it um where. Students can from her parents came from we saw that there was a high level of participation in about ten different district and one charter system in particular who did an excellent job of getting the serving their community and really we had about fifty percent of our parent and student responses coming from that single chapter system which is great we're very excited that the participate we also need to to look at how did that influence the results of the survey so we for each question that we talk to build results within without that particular Turner system that had happened responses to see if it shifted the results of all. If the results in a little bit by a parent's versus students versus committee members so try to touch on what that looked like for each question. Today's initial results of the lessee share again they can be fairly high level is the circuit closed about a week and a half before we meet this video so you'll see minimal inclusion of open response question will continue to look at larger themes Reese's individual responses. For each survey question that asked will be reviewed and the whole also highly which ones will be sharing or sold for two days for those sites see from here on out all other questions for all those of the responses are going to be. G.. Review this culture of reading and the questions of the Speaker serving are very similar to the question that we had you can also use the easier for that presentation. The question will be talking about today is what should be included in the state commission college and. And you can results and they were asking whether Senate component should be in the definition all respond all potential definition amend were positively supported you can see when you take that strongly agree on plus the agreed column hello this you get to is about seventy percent of responses to present a cream and that all of these pieces should be considered as part of the definition but it's interesting to note how highly rated behavioral skills and learning capabilities for. This state eighty one percent. Educators strongly agreed the paper us concerning that and seventy five percent of the critical skills would it very strongly so again because of the high instead of what is possible green it for all those teams the lowest. Agreements would be including assessment that tracks against deposited just last from. Community mental stress the same question and well the the grievance from educators it's a very similar ranking of. Hello April skills and capabilities being the highest reading with assessments being the lowest with only twenty one percent of community members only agreeing fifty percent on green so the overall percentage is very similar to educators just less intensity Celestron treatment versus a general agreement. Transaction retention the question will be high in today are what factors possible you negatively impact their school or district building contracting team staff mentor during staffing positions are areas there particularly difficult to define. These questions were only asked educators the once the difference for the community members the fact that the haze percent of educators that positively influence attraction were. Relationship in proximity to teacher prep programs. Which name insuring and working conditions are workload he spent in class sizes tractors that had the highest percentage budget you're saying thank you Mr traction work salary related so starting salaries salaries in relationships need receipts and potential for some Each of the air and just to some race but this charters religion wing it's up our representing the whole hundred percent of responses with the green portion of our the darker portion of based on what your credit looks like on the left being positive or somewhat positive impact of those factors and then the for this rate portion of the column in the in color in your pronounce should be admitted ever somewhat negative C. and and there were you can see that disk of the perceptions of the actors. Looking at factors that influenced retention the deposited factors included department construction leadership available PD available coaching and mentoring in working condition. So can someone similar to the factors that influence attraction and also the doctors that negatively influence retention first alert related to. The ship to the professions are industries neighboring states and potential for salary Thank you. Sir churches all of the actors and how the responses to pass. In their perception. The next question what what positions that are hard to fill in districts in special education math and science came up again and we're to the educator panels special education was the highest and. Session it's difficult and you'll see on the percentages of educators that thought the other positions for her to well. There is also the opportunity to write in any other categories that we can include on the list. Pleaded bus drivers parents each there has simply teachers. Next question quiz perspectives on defending systems so we get a mysterious of statements to agree or disagree with regarding the equity responsiveness flexibility entrance parents with the funding system and how law schools and districts in those resources effectively. The system was responsive to different means a student groups but at the same time they disagree that injured similar educational opportunities responded to the needs of the district School district student differences or equitably distributed the funding to schools and what you'll see here is the two columns are strongly agree agree versus strongly disagree disagree and appointed or wants to have more than fifty percent of educators about one way or the other. Any contest of those community responses they tend to be more positive than educator responses. And this is an area where we first can look to see if that one charter system was having and to influence their sponsor responses and we found across the bed it didn't really change that image if the percentage is just plain never change the overall pattern so we included those responses from that one charter system throughout this presentation. We did also look at the differences between that the type of community member that was responding to what we found is if you look at all community responses to sell one set of results if you excluded Stevens date he shifted a bit of responses tended to be much more positive when they're excluded. The perceptions of the community that strongly agreed agreed decreased. If. Russians perspective that we also ask that this is educators on his first and then community and educators agreed that schools and districts and resources efficiently all disagreeing that we're seeing the did not determine the quality of their education the taxpayers are treated equally that is easy easy to understand how funding is determined and allocate so again you see that the balance of responses that strongly agree and agree for system just agreeing and disagreeing with the bolded being about fifty percent. Community responses. Once you excluded student responses in generally soon responses to the much more positive with the exception that their perceptions of. School and district spending resources efficiently were morning if someone is removed this became a more positive and then these results were consistent with educator sponsor wants to responses were excluded that interesting. The end of the survey educators and members were asked. Absent wood related issues for the current school year what other topics the date like to provide feedback so we keep a mysterious. It is intended to be fairly exhaustive different education resources or funding. Areas in this state and then asked within like to provide feedback. Any option the selected they have the option to fill out a responsible by any feedback the lake in which of those areas and also there's a category for other so we missed something they still have the chance to share back. This is each of those areas we asked about in the percentage of respondents that chose to provide additional back. Educators this being the deciding about educators the highest areas that they talked about were educator salary experience class sizes to the board Parker specifics in groups and instruction resources and you can see the percentage that chose respond about each. The next couple lines will take those top three areas provide examples of what some of those open responsible thank. Related to educators experiences. Or experience responses over over focused on the need to increase teachers salaries for reasons including the growing workload requirements and stress of the job competition competitiveness to other professions or to other states and districts. And not just starting salaries and looking at the entirety of the salary schedule so will additional salary related to advanced degrees or additional years of experience as well as where teachers talked out or capped out at the end of the salary schedule. The. Discrepancies across the state between districts particularly in small and rural districts so this is that similarity we heard in the educator panels salary expectancies. The next year yes that was a top area of feedback was class that isn't. Was primarily that last as it should be reduced particularly for the lowest grade. Educators and that this will lead to better outcomes for students more personalization more one on one support more manageable class answer teachers. It was a top areas additional feedback was June supports and nearly all of the educators sponsors were about needing additional mental health support for all students many suggested this is a real growth over the past ten years decade. He suggested a variety of different ways to provide that service for more counselors to social workers and then specialist or therapists. Number of responses were also concerns for educator mental health again particularly in light of this year's. Community members were asked the same or given the same opportunity to print by feedback any provided feedback in the same areas as teachers. But the highest percentage of community members just read about a school safety ten support support for specific student groups education opportunities amend salary experience the little different order but overlapping in place this plant educator sponsor. So some examples of what those of the responses look like from community members for school safety ferried feedback first it was related to health and safety features related to cope and. The need for schools to be safer generally. The lack of security in specifically in some buildings need for us our rose came up frequently and then feedback regarding activity shooter situations from this is the entrails and the stress and trauma of the two prevention security. Twenty two can have gun control and will work. Little split respective. Student support resources another area that was touched on she was put on the about meeting where mental health support as well as full time nurse. And specific concerns raised about mental health drink of it and with remote construction. The sources outside of funding me checks of both within and without absent a categorical Ste Educators rest with their any resources that are not currently dressed in the matrix the the believe should be they are also given the opportunity right specific feedback on the components of the funding the checks will be stating that. Mission to provide in the next presentation. And then they also the option to talk about any categorical so again will will be does that the future you. Noted resources the educator dot should be in the matrix that weren't question mental health school resource officers and school safety and security. Thanks for the again we heard these in the panels and they were confirms PS survey as a creates that many educators are concerned about. other areas that were noted by multiple responses included assistant principals gifted interventionists preschool special education and support staff and technology. Next steps of information given that this was the first look at this data at the highest level teams and trends that we were speaking we'll be looking at that feedback on specific matrix areas and categorical so as part of the October meeting. Then in the report will be doing a detailed review of all the US open response and and then additional desegregation of responses looking at within the educator category impact the approval of the. An educational had so perhaps administrators and teachers at different responses look at that and enrolled versus urban suburban responses is there some sort of variations of cow district. Your question thank you okay let me say do we have questions I don't see any on the board here. Anybody have any questions. All right thank you very much okay limit without one hold on. Representative Deffenbaugh. It is on thank you madam chair one thing that caught my. Was under years of. The breakdown of the education educator rolls and and Saddam may not even be read that right now are you on the teacher part that was of what kind of zeroed in on a. Is that mean there only one working with the students fifty one percent of the time is that what that is that the way that reads. I know that is of the respondents that we had fifty of the educator sponsors fifty one percent were teachers. Fifty one percent about on this eight hundred teachers okay okay I appreciate you saying that that's what I didn't look it look different to move thank you. No thank you. That is it we're gonna get going on the final two presentations here senator John to do a little reminder these two presentations that were actually part of last Tuesday but we just thought time wise is going to get too long so when we see some survey information I realize this is we're going to see what can get confusing as this survey information is back to the district survey from the spring it is not the stakeholder survey that we've been talking about otherwise today as a start off on school size poles. Sounds good. Looking at school size policies and the input we received from the district survey. When we talk about school size policies here we really talking about two different things they the really explicit school moment sizes and Those policies that states and in the districts have and then also the class size policies in certain situations and caseloads that districts have I'm in both cases we're gonna start with looking at what we presented earlier in the year about what other states do or information that we presented previously and then we're gonna look at the respondent the responses from the districts. When we look at school size policies across the country we didn't find as you might remember many explicit policies I we have a handful that we did identify in this case it's actual only four states but and six different sets of numbers and that's because in Florida the policies range from different for new schools persons existing schools in North Carolina the difference is based on either looking for better school climate in that case the Carolina recommends at small size is worker focused more on the efficiency that in fiscal efficiency that the economic efficiency we're looking at larger schools both cases there's eighty a recognition that there would be a range in size you probably know very much dependent on district size but they're saying you know based at different standards based on different can desired outcomes in building the schools and then in Kentucky they really the minimum and maximum size again ranged often related to districts. The destruction charters if they they themselves have a specific policy what you'll see out of the hundred eighty one respondents to this question only thirty cents enrollment size posting about half of those respondents are from the charter system from charter systems what is interesting is we also ask them for these thirty to identify their minimum maximum and ideal size schools now again because there's so few respondents were not going to look. Dig deep into those but what is clear is that even with the ideal size there's a large range for example the range elementary ideal across these respondents was three hundred seven hundred and for high schools between four hundred and twelve hundred of likely link to district size or or in the case of charters kind of what they feel is the most efficient sites. One of the questions in the RFP also estimate how did the public providing feedback when districts or charter set these involvement sizes again very few respondents in this area I'm thirty four eleven of those thirty four Senator really is no input provided so could be set by the district of the charter themselves a handful using something like a survey or other public hearings that you look at the next two lines eight of the respondents reusing planning committee and and six others a couple of those responses were basically that they were sending it based on state policy and that the state policy level there would there have been public input. Switching from the school size to. Focusing on the. Jules serving students we're looking at things like class size and student teacher ratios so just a reminder that there are really two different lenses for that here in Arkansas what are the class size went once and so there's a maximum rule of twenty to one for kindergarten a Max of twenty five and one three three with an average of twenty two students a Max of twenty eight in four through six with an average of twenty five and then a Max of thirty for classroom in this state and seventh grade through twelfth grade. The funding side of this funds at twenty to one which matches up very well on the class size piece but and then we have twenty three to one funding for a first or third twenty five to one funding for poor through twelve and then there's elected simple. House so twenty percent more teachers I based on your classroom teachers at her classroom teacher funding. We. The destruction charter system that they had specific policies or guidelines and class size majority of respondents and just all the state rules as is in this thing they're doing separately for the handful of districts are more than a handful but that the limited number districts to get respond. If they did respond they are likely to have them again there's a wide range in class sizes we asked again about minimum maximum. And I deal and even in the ideal you can have a difference of AT the elementary middle levels you know ten or fifteen students per class size difference in the ideal that was recorded at the high school I think it was closer to twenty student difference in ideal so there wasn't a specific number I'm coming out of that information. The other hand we have better information on the case loads policies that districts and charters were setting around some of their support staff and those include counselors nurses as you can see in some other areas the counselors nurses special ed teachers in bowl self contained in resource programs speak in speech therapist over half of the respondents have some sort of case load policies that that is not the number of students that they would really at a maximum of one eight teacher or sorry any educator serving in these areas you can see there are. Other categories where there's less likely to be eight is one level including any of the classified in the support staff or other instructional staff or the reading and math specials. We spoke again for on. Their their actual caseload figures are not the minimum maximum kind of a deal but more but but they actually use if they have a policy you see a wide range across the Personal categories we'll see on the right is the mode so the most frequent number identified. Sellers that no. Fifty very much in line with with the state accreditation guidelines we don't have nurses at seven fifty the reading and math specialist word five hundred to the mode which seems a little bit higher than we might have expected but again that was the most frequent answer the special education teacher in the full day self contained setting fifteen the one on the in the resource room forty five to one speech therapist forty five to one also an assistant principals right around that five hundred. We've included a number of excellence which actually provide more background on some the class size to ginger ratio information we presented earlier just to get contacts for those S. R. A. B. in Massachusetts so those are here and then otherwise we'll take questions. Okay. Representative Deffenbaugh are you still up for review. All right we have no questions anybody have questions. Okay you've done a great job of answering everything that we possibly wanted to know about this so let's move right on. we also made a tired everybody yeah so it's one of the two I think we are lessons in your capital funding I do want to mention one of the hard things what happens recorded verses interacting there in person which we will get to do it you know here soon they're gonna there we are on Capitol and I just want to mention with represented Lowery couple of the points you brought up earlier that that I think you struggle with are gonna come up here and so we're happy to talk about once we get through the presentation five. For this presentation we're gonna look at the types of capital funding programs nationally I reviewed the academic facilities partnership program here in Arkansas. Review the approaches the SRT the states in Massachusetts he is for capital funding and then take a look at the district responses around capital funding from the district service. You know that almost all states provide some sort of support for capital construction That level there is widely summer had very small targeted programs for very specific purposes others have much more robust funding systems as we look across state funding systems that we think they tend to fall into the kind of three buckets on the decisions that they're making so the first is how or if support districts the second is if they are when they're supporting districts how the German what projects to fund so kind of what is needed and then finally how do they actually determine their state level of support. When we think about what is to support districts again and some states make decision of they don't support capital funding. Any use qualified projects so the streets are funding projects that meets specific state criteria that often and we'll talk about it here you know in Arkansas would have to be part of like a district facilities plan. But when they do have these qualified projects state usually are really apartment process so they're providing specific guidance on remarks about what they would accept within a project so can what the support and what can be built. Other states really just support death and so when they do that they're less likely to be part of the design process but they will still and we'll talk about prioritize those projects. I'm states there's the flat amount provided either through the base or through some other mechanism it could be that they're supporting both projects in providing the flat amount but in those cases extremely in equal amount per student to all districts. Once the state's assented to provide support in some of those categories and not as much on the planet finding but in those other categories any determine how they're going to decide what projects the Porter really what what we'll check need State unlimited funds to support capital projects so that's why they prioritize. A lot of the states look at health and safety needs first I would say that in the ticket passed me districts to meet capital needs into account and in that prioritization also and then they might include other things like enrollment growth so districts are growing that current capacity buildings the condition of buildings or just individual needs of districts. Finally it's what is that state local sport there are a few states to fund basically all of approved projects Wyoming generally what we'll do that there is the more traditionally causation approach so they're looking they will equalize don't find something for all districts based on some sort of wealth equalization. Also number states use what they call power equalization so they're only going to fund districts whose wealth people's really below the wealthiest districts really never received any funding for capital and then districts act that will level equalization willful or below have a sliding scale of reimbursement. There's some other calculations of need after a. Soon we're looking at the answering the states in Massachusetts I'm not gonna walk through all of these but what you will tend to see is that there are number of the states to use qualified projects as their basis of eight they are you know partner in developing the project in improving those projects determining need a lot of that is on again that safety needs but it's also on growth and and new construction on and then there's a mix but there's a lot of well the collision in here there's also some power equalization if you look down the taxes and when you see that and a it's across the board is because that state does not provide any funding or like the case of Tennessee it's a flat funding amounts of they're not needing to determine the need for state level of support. Capital. Of the academic facilities partnership program as provided almost ninety two million on average annually sense way five. He pays for projects that are part of the district's master plan the project you have to meet requirements and then there are ranks and then the bill will funding is what. Determines how many of those range projects will be fine. Districts are expected that provide a local share here or what we might think of as a match that determine that they need to provide is based on their facilities wealth index and not measurement is a how much one dollar raise. What is going on in in this is the right to be for an appeal are report is that the income what the district is not highly correlated to the property will to district so you might have districts who are expected to have pretty high on local contribution to a project. But you think of them as a as a less wealthy income district. That often is because they have high property wealth and perhaps you students so their wealth per student is high. There are four categories. Projects the in the system so the warm safe and dry which has been split up between systems in space for a replacement will talk about those combining. Facilities add ons or conversions and then the consolidation annexation projects I don't believe anything it's been funded at this point in the consolidation or annexation projects. The rules are based on prioritization by area and then the areas are also prioritized and there's a number of creature that looked at and so again the highest ranking projects are more likely to be funded based on how much of it will be giving you. So the prioritization has shifted a little bit over time as you can see our warm safe and dry so again can that safety concern has been at the top in the most recent of prioritization one and then consolidation is always been at the bottom. Facilities. An adult versions are actually moving up in the most recent. Then we want to take a look at the use of funds between two thousand nineteen and twenty one hi eight and then how those related to different district characteristics of this first look is at partnership program by wealth and so you'll see that the lowest well districts have eight. About thirty percent of all the students in the state received about eighteen percent of the funding to the partnership program in this. In this time spent what you also see that was that the highest well so that is you know so they are receiving a lower share of the overall funding than their student population might suggest that's also true the high school district so they're receiving only six percent of overall funding well they have about twelve percent students you see that the wealth cartel to switch the second lowest wealth and then the man. Median wealth here the most of the middle wealth or that Senate districts who received a higher percentage of the overall funding it again and this time period compared to their student population. We can also look at this for free distress lunch as a proxy for the need of the districts well you'll see here there's a lot of variation between the percent of funding districts again to the court task at and the percentage of students in that population the lowest. Quartile and FOR rental which would mean so that the least eighty has twenty eight percent funding but has about thirty three percent of the population on the highest need. Is received a little bit more funding as a percentage of the and its student population with the second highest me actually saving quite a bit more funding as a percent then it's student population. Rules in men's make up about a fifty fifty split a student population and are making up not quite fifty fifty split but pretty close to fifty fifty split of the That partnership program. And then when we look at size not really surprising that the largest districts and received the highest percent of funding but not quite the percent of their students likely those destruction growing you know they just have more more kids more dollars generally and then the second. Or just also received a good chunk. quartile to which is the second smallest is also received about fifteen percent almost double as a percentage its student population. There's some changes to the partnership program coming up for the twenty three twenty five funding cycle. Consulting and the warm safe and dry programs they'll be fully funded and then the state priority needs list for each category allow for privatization to address the severity of district facility conditions and design adequacy so the balance between state driven because all these plans and district. projects will be ranging each list based again upon the district's device of the facilities wealth index the condition of facilities and other factors such as moment tracts. So we did districts about their ability to meet their capital needs editor destruction charters what you'll see is that for the most part respondents felt that they had the Dollars and other resources to. Should fill their required in you'll meet its needs and most of those just through their existing funds little bit your partnership program little **** the bonds. Deferred maintenance again majority districts all that they have those. Dollars break in their existing funds or were also leveraging some other Another the revenue sources. Systems replacement surgery in a little bit more towards using some the partnership program funds almost half have the three existing funds we are also seeing about a fifth of all district saying they don't have the funds for that system replacement. The major renovations and new construction. But will the much heavier reliance on either the partnership program or local bonds and then also you're getting you know thirty percent about thirty percent in each case saying they just don't have the funds to to get that done. We didn't want to look at those major renovations of by wealth and so what you'll see here is that lower well districts are. The to you to report that they really have to land the partnership program so in part what it's trying to do trying to leverage on dollars for will work well capacity districts were in then the wealthier districts are more likely to do it on their own local bond measures. Then the middle court I will districts are the ones who are the most likely to say they just don't have the capacity to meet their major innovations thank makes it a little bit and a whole That as far as being able to generate wealth and or leverage the partnership program and we see a similar pattern there for the. New construction. Anything else you'd like to share about the capital needs for their districts and some of the themes in the open response thinking through here is that Districts are you know start to stroll to be able to for their needed me to capital projects as the buildings age so as the cost of ownership goes up to those buildings they really start to struggle. Really highlighted that the partnership program is cheaper than in being able to address their their larger scale capital needs of the some districts will you know that they did not qualify for this partnership funding and then the other side team if they did they they really struggle to get the local required match. There's no that the amount of funding in you'll is not enough to address all the capital needs or part of think that's why they might not qualifies that they're they're projects don't hits on the priority list. In in other districts mention that the sum of the carry over limits hinder the ability to save up for capital projects over time. We'll take questions. Have Lowery. IBM. Thank you Mr chairman Justin thank you for referencing that these provide answers to some of the questions I posed earlier and and I actually pose the question earlier because I was just curious what the educator panels were saying about the issues related to you know. Their wealth and you know whether they. Are saving money up for some of these building projects but I but I noted on the I guess it slide. Page twelve slide twelve With frankly with concern that the lowest. Quinn two. Quintiles is getting the. Close to other than the highest to getting a pretty low percent of funding related to their percentage of student population. I mean I I have information district by district that tells me how much they have in their building funds their construction fund balances. And I would almost bet that the the ones that have a lot of fun balance or not in that lowest quintiles so. Do you do you make any suggestions of how to equalize this based on wealth or you just providing as what the Daddy is currently at least this to do. Representative this this is the current data and I wanted to things that I you know really on my and failed to to put as county outs as we look at this data one it's it's only one window of time and so with capital of course you have to have project need in order for there to be at a new funding needs and so that it's not always the case that you know by Quintel what whatever Clint our looking at you had you had equal representation of need and so we you know and I'm kinda looking at a man but we'll go back and see if we can do a little bit this analysis for earlier group being you know years also to see if there's any similar patterns. The the other piece here is this is I think in part why some states and and I'm looking to mark also the little here use some of the power equalization where they almost over equalize for your your least wealthy I mean they do little to nothing for their their most wealthy because of what they're trying to do is really target the dollars as many of the dollars they can't to the the least wealthy districts in this case hoping because whenever you have kind of a match requirements but you know the judge really incentivize local communities to go out and put that additional local burden on themselves to get to get the get state. And I would add that. The Justin presented the side of kind of changes that are coming to the capital program they seem to be moving in the right direction of considering the well and then creating that statewide list of all projects because there's also a bill the limit of districts who maybe no they can't raise the match not going in for that the state program so you'll have a full range of what the need is in every place so I think those two pieces Senate our perspective would be moving in the right direction of how to ensure that equity as. Capital. What one of the things that I tried to get the partnership program to incorporate. Is in stat wishing wealth index to not just look at property valuation and millage but to also it should be factored in how much they've put into fund balances That the you know it just seemed and I remember asking of staff from BLR that you know why isn't that something that we're looking at in terms of their their participation the partnership program and the quick the answer was well because the legislatures never required it. And I tried to require it then was asked to back off of that aspect of it because it was going to be incorporated into the changes in looking at your summary of the changes I don't see anything. like that that actually looks at a school district in terms of assessing schools will also looks at how much they have in the bank. Is that a reasonable standard that should be looked at in terms of establishing under wealth equalization how much the school district is set aside from there. They're funding from year to year for building projects. Is that what we have all the consulting Bob shock who who you all heard from I believe in June who's really at one of our leads on some the capitol work and I I just want to run that by him before right given answer your any time you set a kind of a new rule based on behavior that that didn't have those incentives or or or disincentives earlier on it creates some you just create some issues because post planned one way and now they're being measured another way so let me just dig in a little bit more with him before we bring back. Okay thank you thank you madam chair. Thank you very much any. Any further questions. Well folks we thank you again for your all your presentations. Then very very Interesting for all of us take a look at these. I'm nice to have some different eyes on some of the things we talk about every day so I appreciate that so much so then we you are coming here in November. Yes and then we believe we also have those couple presentations on the night he I am that will still be most of the remote for those in and at least Amanda and I believe should be there in a. Okay very good very good anybody else have any questions at all before we. Say goodbye to you for the afternoon thank you very much appreciate your bridge thank you all thank you okay. Do you have anything further for the good of the order I would do would remind everybody Stephen said Representative makes. Go ahead thank you madam chair while we're here I just learned that two police officers were shot inclined bill off in and one of which is critical condition so me and I'm per for for that family for that incidents all. Thank you very much. Just just for announcement today tomorrow we will be working on the matrix you will be presented with a draft of of the matrix tomorrow morning and we will work on the matrix more trying to make sure we're going to finalize that as close as we can we have some. Work to do more so come prepared. For work okay last thing is everybody please pick up your bottles and coffee cups and trash whatever you have and put in the trash cans so our staff doesn't have to do that. No. They don't. Thank you.