Education - House and Senate

Many meeting on education today we've got a couple of really nice presentations some steps I believe you're going to be really interested in in things are very impactful across our state in moving the ball down the field in education where him start with item b the presentation of carrying our saw through the arch satisfor impact fellowship from you of a. I believe they have some presenters here if they'd like to come under the table good morning your come to the table. And ask you each individually if you would to identify yourself for the record and then whoever wants to start the presentation you are recognized. The. Good morning my name is kate my message really i'm the dean of the college of education and health professions. Just making faculty member in the department of education reform in office education policy. Ceremony kensi executive director office for education policy and backup to member the university brand and lucius executive director of the arkansas teacher. The. Sorry executive director of the impact aren't so principal fellows program at the university of arkansas great thank you all for being here and you may begin your presentation good morning again representative evidence senator english and honorable members of the education committee we're very excited to be here today and thank you for extending the invitation and giving us an opportunity to tell you a little bit about the college and also highlight two of our signature programs are these are exciting times so the college of education and how professions were there and new beginnings then a renewed enthusiasm we recently out launched our new strategic plan we care and eh it's an alcohol info wellness and education commitment to arkansas accidents our vision is bald we are committed to a advancing the language mission of the university and it is that plan is guided by three priorities as you can see on on on the slide we are committed to fostering a car in culture that in proud in powers all of our students and faculty and staff a lot nice day colders were committed to advancing impactful research that not only leads to new discoveries the new knowledge but also directly improves people's lives and promotes innovative solutions to education and health care challenges in are concerned beyond but above all we are committed to expanding our service to this wonderful state of arkansas by a providing transformative educational opportunities for our students and engaging in meaningful our partnerships so today's presentation are well talk about two of our signature programs that really are the shining examples of our efforts of how we care for arkansas this is eighty c and impact. And the programs have made a meeting fall and sustained impact on schools and communities across the state so thank you again for this opportunity and without further than I do not pass it on to my wonderful colleagues so that you can hear directly from them thank you so i'm here to state the stage a little bit as I said i'm with office for education policy we partner with the division of elementary and secondary education office of educator effectiveness and license you're to do a bunch of data analysis we produce the teacher work force and shortage report for the learns executive order we produce the analysis for the state and federal short teacher shortage reports annually and we do annual teacher surveys for the department among other things i've got a map up here what you see or school districts and the shading represents the share of teachers are in the each school district that is on a license or waiver this is one of our measures of shortage I show this to you to highlight the areas where we have persistent shortages the darker areas are forty thirty five to forty percent plus teachers share of teachers in that district are on a licensee the darkest districts have had persistent challenges staffing classrooms. Here i've taken that map and put it side by side with measure of childhood poverty you'll notice that the places that we have the hardest time finding license teachers to put in classrooms or the same places where we have the highest concentrations of childhood poverty this is a sensor's measure of childhood poverty this is important because these areas face these communities face a lot of different challenges teaching the teaching work force challenges one of those things that that has been there for a long time and feeds end to a vicious cycle of poverty and it's something that we can address and the programs are we're going to talk about today or targeted to help address. With that i'll hand it over to certain machines. Thank you jash so i'm here to talk about arkansas teacher core which is a program that was started by ridder ten years ago we just celebrated our temp the universally the goal is to partner with school districts to recruit train license and support committed archanians as empowered teachers so the thing that's different about arkansas teacher core from other programs you won't know of like the fa is we find people that are going to stay in the state they want to stay in the state there from the state they have connections in the state and that's been a really valuable addition for us cause they don't just come and do there to your commitment and leave they stay so the red marks there on the graph this is the same map that just just showed you those who the places where we partner with districts for an art teacher fellows are embedded in those districts they we've had two hundred and sixty seven teachers in the eleven cohorts go through and we've partnered with ninety eight schools and forty districts really focused in those areas where we have trouble placing license teachers in schools and nominal pass it off to brand inlitious use of my executive director for architecture record to tell you a little bit more about the program good morning so as air said the arguments are teacher court is a home grown program we're really proud that we are a program of our kansas for our candidates I mean we work really hard to make sure that we're serving all parts of the state as you could see from the previous map around teacher who is also an innovative program we provide differentiated training and holistic support to our fellows as they teach for three years on a high need school district while completing all requirements for a standard license by demonstrating the affecting this in classics throughout the state these innovative practices can be studied and replicated elsewhere so we're not only addressing our local needs but also serving as a model for the nation. There are really four key aspects that I think make the atc program really unique first our fellows complete a six week summer insense of training this is where they learn the foundations of lesson planning instruction on delivery content specific paragraphy and classroom management. Research on our summer training has actually been published and presented nationally including a recent book chapter on how we pivoted during over nineteen to use virtual learning with our fellows. Second each and every eighty fellow is paired with a highly effective coach who is one of our staff members and this person goes and works with them one on one throughout the school year providing over forty hours of professional development and classroom coaching that is specifically targeted to those highlaverage opportunities for increasing classroom performance again are coaching program has been recognized nationally for our virtual coaching strategies that we had to really get innovative and implement during the covered nineteen pandemic. Third we support our fellows in achieving their standard license or by the end of the three years by providing high quality study materials test preparation strategies and one on one practice tutoring atc also pays for each and every single practice exam that fellows have to take throughout their three years so that financial commitment is no barrier to our fellows and lastly one of the things that we've throughout the entire program that and I think it's really a core strength of ours is that we prioritize our fellows wellness we we we care for our fellows so that they intern can care for their students their schools and their communities we do this in several ways from incorporating trump informed teaching strategies to offering optional yoga and wellness classes to providing direct financial assistance for such things as technology needed for virtual learning or even child care that they might need during the in person training. Every year we recruit a cohort of approximately thirty five fellows to teach in a subject or geographic shortage area. Furthermore our fellows are teaching and schools in which over seventy percent of the students qualify for free or reduced price lunch. Since our first co work graduated in twenty sixteen we've had a hundred and seven fellows and eight cohorts complete the program and the majority of them continue working in arkansas public schools ninety two percent of our completers have earned a standard license in one or most of them more continued areas and eighty two percent teach at least a fourth year with many more continuing five six years. In fact some of our alumni continue to be interpret parts of their school community years after the fellowship for example in a district like pine bluff where we've been long term partners we've helped really build up the instructional capacity in the district as our fellows have gone on to serve in various leadership roles after the fellowship for example twenty nineteen followed delicious jones taught high school social studies at dollar way high. She then moved into a position as an instructional facilitator at more head middle school. She has served as an atc summer mentor she supports our fellows with social studies pedagogy and is now preparing for the principles as a fellow in the impact program. Delicious had the great honor as an instructional facilitator to support another fellow dedicross twenty seventeen fellow and middle school social studies teacher there at robert f more who has the distinction of a hundred percent pass rate on the argument sauce cities exam. Dederic completed his masters in educational leadership from up last year and is now an assistant principle at matthews elementary his wife takes across who you can see in this picture with the bright yellow assessories she heard so many great things from dadrick about the program that as he was finishing up in twenty twenty she decided to sign up. So just as the pain to make was starting taking she came on board as a fellow and just graduated this spring. Taking shoes a native of pine bluff and has a really powerful story she almost dropped out in high school after getting pregnant but her high school cap guidance counselor never gave up on her encouraged her to finish high school to go on to believe college and then pursue a successful career in finance. When the mortgage crisis of two thousand eight happens and her life was like yeah through and disarray her guidance counselor now the high school principle at dollar way brought her back to teach business and that's how we got connected with her. Taking her story is really powerful and it's been such an inspiration to sell many and we are just so proud of the work that she dadrick and delicia do for their scholars and pine blood and for all of our fellows doing such impact will work all across the state thank you. So we know that from my carleags that we have a struggle to fill classroom teacher positions across the state we also have struggles in filling leadership rolls across the state there's an obvious link between our ability to recruit develop retain how quality teachers that's the ability to recruit develop retain high quality school leaders you have a clinton school of public service did a a study recently where they interviewed teachers and arkansas asking why they stay on why they leave. And really the number one factor that they identified and and whether a teacher is going to remain in a school is there perceived quality of school leadership. The they pulled a quote which is here on the on the slide which is really powerful teachers don't quit students teachers don't quit schools futures quick principles as a former middle school in high school principle I can only say that really is established heart but it is actual it is what our teachers are telling us they're looking for. So the struggle is even more complicated when we look at the the fact that more than one in five school principles leave their jobs in arkansas every year twenty one percent. When a principle leaves we know the teacher turn over spikes as well we have a thousand fifty eight k twelve public schools in arkansas so if we're having twenty one percent turnover that means we need approximately two hundred and twenty new principles every year. And we don't just need principles we need highly prepared school leaders who are ready to hit the ground running and face the tasks ahead of them when he principles like cindy beaver who's pictured here city beavers in her second year as a principle at average and immediate school in the camden fair view school district. Send you took over a school and a year before they'd had eight hundred student discipline referrals to the office in the first three quarters of the school year sending new that she needed to change that and students needed to have positive interactions at school and they did not need to miss class time and and instruction so she implemented a number of of initiatives including some professional development for her teachers creating smaller communities in the school and in her first year's principle she had reduced that from eight hundred this one referrals to eighty five and almost ninety percent reduction and it wasn't because they weren't enforcing the discipline they were pull your minds you could you pull your mic just sorry thank you okay she's changed the the culture and the environment of the school that she's leading sending the graduate of the impact arkansas principle fellowship program she's one of the graduates that we have who are serving in schools all over the state of arkansas. Impact is an innovative approach to preparing school principles for our state we launched this program and want two thousand fourteen and were focused on schools that serve at least seventy percent of students from economically disadvantaged households and we serve across the state as you can see from the map here every red dot represents a community school district where we have fellows josh was kind enough to overlay our locations with that same poverty map that he showed you earlier and so you can see our goal is to hit more of these poverty areas as we continue with our program are seventh cohort is about to graduate in about a month and our eighth court began their studies this summer so we are serving hundred and forty six aspiring school leaders and school current school leaders in a hundred and twenty four schools eighty eight districts and eight charter schools all over the state we go from decader in northwest arkansas to dermott in south east arkansas from texar counter in southwest arkansas available in northeast arkansas and a lot of points in between the one hundred and fifty school districts in our state that serve high economically disadvantaged populations we currently have a footprint and more than half were in eighty three of those districts. Their generous grant funds from a group of foundations our fellows receive a scholarship which covers eighty percent of the tuition and fees pursuing to pursue a masters of education and educational leadership and all other program fees are covered. So what makes our program different from other principle preparation programs first of all we're a growth your own program which that means that we are working on the ground with school and district leaders in the communities to identify identify a spirit school leaders and partner with them throughout the program. Eighty five percent of our graduated fellows are still working in those hot poverty schools where they were trained and where they've been serving for a number of years. The second piece is that we do a rigorous selection process this as I said we served twenty four a year and so we've had years when we've had as many as two hundred applications for this program so we go through four steps again partner with local school leadership to ensure that our candidates are ready and they're going to be getting opportunities to learn what it means to really be a formal school leader during this program the third piece that really I think is one of the special things about this program as we do it as a collaborative cohort so when we select these twenty fellows they're from all over the state they take all of their courses together in the course of sudan digitally or virtually but we do bring them together four times a year because we want them to form a community we want down to share ideas we want them to to serve a thought partners for one another and II was just in hotspring yesterday speaking with one of our fellows and court seven months of brating and she identified the cohort as being the main component of this program that she felt like was the most powerful because of the networking because they've just built these relationships with other school leaders all over the state who share similar experiences but they can they can bounce ideas off of each other and and serve for to support the force thing it for things are innovative course delivery as I said all of our courses are done virtually but we do them one class at a time so our fellows are only engaged in one content area at a time and those classes usually run for eight weeks and there they only students that are in our sections of these courses are our impact fellows we do individualize coaching so that are fellows throughout the eighteen months are experiencing conversations and feedback from two directors of support and here on the screen your c two of our graduated fellows john osborne and the need to heart mcnayer who were in the jackson the lighthouse charter school with our one of our director support allison through it for a coaching session john in a need are phenomenal they were co principles in a school last year and this year johns the elementary school principle and a needed is the lead principle overseeing all the schools there. And their focused on partnerships not only literal partnerships between them as leaders but partnerships in their community and they're doing great work in the last piece of our program that makes us unique is really the project based internship everyone who's at a pursuing a degree in ad leadership has to complete an internship but our internship is really rigorous it has fourteen embedded projects papers that are all connected to real scenarios we don't just you know give you fake idea of solve this school imaginary school's problem you're working with your leadership on the ground to solve the problems that are occurring in your school and in your district and so they're very valuable to our fellows because they're getting real experiences as leaders. I want to talk to you about two more of our fellows just to give you the perspective of the wide spectrum a fellows were serving the communities were serving first when I talk about jenny palm city jenny is the principle at setup or elementary school and danville and the dandle school district one of our smaller communities very small rural she called it a no stop light town they used to have one stop light they don't anymore so it's a very small rural community seventy five percent of her students qualify for free and reduced lunch more than a quarter or for english a second language learner's she took over a school that was an or but which she saw words the need to focus on continuous improvement so she said reading improving reading across the board for her students was going to be her initiative and everything in her school focuses on getting students engaged in reading I was there in in the spring and they were in the middle of you know we were in the middle of the nca tournament they were doing an in a tournament for books every student in the middle school in the elementary score read the books and then they voted and shows who would win and they were at the final four of their book tournament at that point she has vending machines in the school that don't they'll treats the when you go to the vending machine a student can select out of mining machine it's just a great culture last year and twenty twenty three dinner school her third grade had the highest reading scores on the city aspire in the state then they'll let the state in reading for third grade so those efforts are paying off jenny school was also recently named a blue ribbon school by the us department of education and jenny was one of our cohort five graduates and were really proud of of her work there in in the small community of danville next we have stay super share states who was in our first go order stacy works in an urban school she's here in little rock and the little rock school district she's at wakefield elementary in southwest little rock ninety eight percent for in reduced lunch quarter ell students the highest poverty of any elementary school in the little rock school district when she was in our program several years ago she noticed that her students were struggling with reading their ela scores were low she worked with her coat she worked with her colleagues in her cohort to come up. With several initiatives to see what can we do to improve reading in our building a principle agreed to implement these while she was in the program and i'm proud to say that any stacey school for wakefield has now been recognized as a beating of the odd school for performing above expectations for the past six consecutive years and sell states he was one of our cohort one fellow so these are just a few stories I give you a picture of the types of of schools the types of communities we serve in the types of leaders were hoping to help create that can serve schools all across our state obviously we have many other stories to tell but our our biggest piece is as we move forward with impact I told you we're serving I think fifty three percent of the hour poverty districts in the state our goal is to eventually get to where we're serving one hundred percent of the hot poverty districts in the state and so that's where we're headed with our next efforts. So john mentioned and a word called beating the odds award and these are developed by my office o e p and we send them out once a year after the results of the state tests so these ads aren't for how many of your kids passed the test because we know that those are these awards they are highly complete hold on we these are words don't reward achievement on the state tests like some do these awards reward student growth over the course of the year which is not correlated with student properties so we find the schools in the state that are demonstrating. Way above the average growth in the top ten percent and you can see her the schools that etc and impact partner with that received these awards in this most recent year there's elementary middle schools and high schools on there. And that wraps up our presentation thank you for the time we really appreciate you having us today. Great judge thank you very much and they could do your team in in for the words that you're putting into education and trying to develop strong building administrators that that is the anchor porn of each building across our state and then we know that that's where starts in having strong leaders there help develop stronger teachers and better outcome for our students so it's time to be questions. Senator seller is at you. You recognized thank you mister chair. So I take it from your ear presentation that the one of the biggest and I don't want to say indicators but they kind of line up together as poverty and success in education is that true. I mean they don't just because your poor doesn't mean you're here you're going now be successful that correct. That's right so are as doctor mckenzie mentioned a student achievement tends to be highly correlated with poverty student growth is not all kids can grow and we should be pushing all kids to grow and yeah so it kind of fill up your research group I know it's your title says. Well i'm gonna friend with the fert very first lied that showed up there caring how do you major carrying. That's a great question that are the researchers you're I would think that would be if you're going to tell us your research group and our lead statement is we care do you let me ask a question differently do you have measures of caring other than we have a program in place yes so we the the way that we measure how much we care is by the stats that we put up here so the number of fellows that were placing in schools how long they are persisting we measure a lot of the outcomes of these programs where we're focused on delivering outcomes and that's how we demonstrate that we care is by looking at those outcomes and showing that we're actually placing teachers and school leaders in arkansas public schools that persist in those arkansas public schools and serve the students most are need okay for the act if I experience that down your measuring carrying by the success of the programs. Successful the programs would also the success of the program is dependent on the gym yet if one more question so recently you the chancellor ended all the di programs how is that impacted the education department. Why don't have a direct connection with that at all I think that's a question better ask for university leadership aren't you affiliated with their department arkansas. I am but I am an employee there and I wasn't involved in that discussion. Okay. Um. The. Just last question was to chair so. You're here you have indicators and we hear a lot in the here at the legislature and I talk with the chancellor at who learned in the grant of it minority teachers and I hear many times we need somebody who looks like me are you measuring there yeah we certainly track both the demographics of the students and the demographics of the teachers that's a different question that i'm asking do you sell if in order to be successful I hear people say I need somebody that looks like me in order to be successful do you are you tracking a students who have teachers that look like them and the success of that student we don't have currencies as I said we we look at the demographics of both the students teachers and school leaders we don't have any current projects they're really digging into whether ethnicity matching improves didn't achievement there have been studies that have come out of our department in the past that have looked at that and have found small games so yes we have looked at that to that is that information to the chair please yes I did data thank you thank you mister chair members any other questions for the president representative you're recognized thank you I appreciate your common and share and all this information with this it sounds like it's a really good program it sounds like it is working how do people like i've been here on this committee for four times I have never heard of yale so how how are you getting your name out there how are you letting people know about you since again i've been on this committee for four times then up again never heard this program I really appreciate that question we're trying to remedy that you know we are trying to get our name out there you'll see that there are one pages on eighty c and impact perhaps brandon and john can speak to how they're trying to promote their program statewide brand and you want to take first crack of that. Yeah. Yeah I will say that since we are a growth program a lot of our applicants do come to us through word of mouth and a lot of them do have some sort of connection to the community or school district where they're living or working. Yeah I would say from impacts perspective or join the team formally in april I had been working in schools here in iraq and had served in the consultancy role for a number of years helping with the program on the outside so our goal is doing things like we are today but also working with superintendents mister hernandez is here from aa they allowed us to speak to the superintendents monthly meeting a while back i'm working with coops and though you've got some co op directors coming up after us i'm getting as our word out as far and white as we can't as you could see from the map we're all over the state but they're still a number of communities we need to get into and so but that's been part of my job since I came on board earlier this year is really to to get that word out and to make sure that people in every community across the state are aware because even communities that don't on the surface look like they have a lot of poverty often times there's that one school that has difficulties that does have server half operative poverty population and has to struggle trying to find leadership so yeah we're working on that and in order to to use these different resources and get out into the state thank you I was hoping to hear you say that you were using the co op's some way somehow because I would think that would be the best way to get the word out about what you can offer for our schools in our rural areas thank you. Senator stone you recognized for a question yes I believe you stated annually you have a twenty one percent turnover with principle that correct the outdoor and exit interview with their principles when they leave so from my perspective with our program we I mean that's yesterday question we don't we don't know what i'm not I don't have like capacity to require principles to sit with the reviews of twenty one what we turn over saving like they're problem needs to be investigated I would agree with you I would agree with you so what can we do to determine why they're leaving calls those properties be corrected if it's chronic in that high they're leaving for a reason that we need determined what the reason is right and so as as the you know this one study from the clinton school showed that the teachers say they're leaving because they don't believe that they're in principles i'm not talking about the tasters i'm asking about that right and so I would say that's valuable I know you all have a bureau of legislative research here that sounds like something that could be very valuable to find out what principles perspectives are on that because there's a there's another side of that so what we're doing is working with principle superintendents co ops across the state to try to help them identify the town that can build those jobs well I made that sounds good identified the town it be the same flock you have a leak you want to plug the league I can do that I would agree with you completely back on the legislative legislative research is sent like that exist to do no no we're trying to fill and need hopefully that we know as they're and work will a need there is a problem we need to do it about I agree with you completely I was a school principle to the middle school on the high school I agree completely. Yeah well so at our team at the ubank we do some teacher surveys will talk to the department about potentially doing a principle survey I think these kinds of accident reviews can be incredibly useful i'm not aware of any group in the state that does exit interviews either would teachers who leave or with principles who leave and we could learn a lot from that so we'll make sure to add that to our list I think they'd be a good step in the right direction I think so the problem thank you. Thank you very much for your presentation here today with research being here and taking questions in the information you provided thank you so much members next item see on our agenda is presentation from the arts so educational coproduce this is a respite to the isp presented by representative ubank's. We have several members have co ops here today to come in presents we welcome them. The. All right looks like we've got you all seated in place in the order that you want to be in so if you would want to time please feel identify yourself for the record and then once we have that established you could start with your first presenter during the director of north central color i'm being western under director the coin main court. Dare of your key up your mike please to become dread. The. Nope red start there you go i'm durable extend the directorate northeast at co op. I'm paying caster director college coop brad horn director wilbert emails education service coop kerr came at me and director at cell central service corporate in canada thank you for recognizing yourself and you met again your presentation thank you that thank you for that sir again direct rate if you that might just be closer yes sir thank you again a brad horn director will be emails and bb we want to thank you for this opportunity to come for you until our story I think that's something that we've not done a very good job of in the past so we're very appreciated that also want to say to represent ubank's how much we appreciate him when he introduced house bill eleven ninety two I was a a small group of directors that got to meet with him and he was quick to listen to to what we had to say he also let us know about his his direction he wanted to take that governments bill but he was very good and working with us all man today i'm here with there were they are a select group of directors to provide presentations to you and information that came from the BLR study that was started a little while back we had some discussions about the information that we wanted to present to you so it's I think we're going to start with their blackstone and pamcaster they're going to provide information on fiscal operations and then mister gerald cooper is going to provide information on transparency measures and then current came back my hand will provide a esc staffing information we also want to talk just briefly about the services that we provide were very proud of those services and think we do a lot of good with those at a recent work session we had we created a list of services that we do provide and we we actually have copies of that it wasn't included in your agenda but we're happy to provide that it's important to note that it's a compilation of all of the services they are department provides a directives on some of the things that we do for districts as well as a general assembly in the state board. But we also listen to our districts needs and they identify what they need so we provide those services so for that reason that list of services may look different you know some of the services may be offered a specific co ops and not offered it at the ones so where have been happy to provide that list for you later on there are fifteen device across the state fifteen co operatives we were formed under act three forty nine of nineteen eighty five and the state board actually outlived outlined our boundaries you will notice that that's changed over time due to consolidation there at least we have our smiles co op and number of participating districts is seven and then our largest is twenty seven and again that's due to consolidations of school districts so again and there are three purposes given to us my law I may have to read some of those but the first of those is our our services assist districts and meeting and exceeding a creditation standards the second purpose of the co op is to provide collaboration and effective use of resources by our districts and then the third is a cooperative effort between the department of education our organizations and the cooperatives to meet that the fine needs by the district as well as the state including yourselves the general assembly at this time we're ready to go ahead and start at presentations and I think mister blackstand is next if that please commit good morning gear that's a bread said i'm durable acts in the director with northeast education call up and again it's our pleasure to join you today at this time we would like to provide a how level overview of certain aspects of our financial operations as detailed and examined c one in c two from your precirculated documents. I'd like to start with no review of their five twenty three's revenue in expenditures concluding with information related to operating phone balances while each cooperative's budget is unique to different you need due to different factors the data will present offers a consolidated stakewater summary. Slad three and exhibit c two details are revenue sources excluding internal transfers which are covered in the following slide. Primarily we primarily receive funding from state local and federal sources each contributing about one third of the total revenue received and fy twenty three. Together these form ninety nine point two percent of the total hundred and eighty seven point nine million. Slad four per bad to financial snapshite for each phone focusing on revenues and spending excluding internal transfers state local finances are combined in phone to the operating fine when including interact cost transfers phone toos revenues are passed expenditures for five point three seven million phone threes by four hundred and sixteen thousand and five six is by one point three one million. Slad five outlines our state source revenue to find diverse program areas education cooperatives are crucial in supporting a range of initiatives including early childhood various forms of specialist support distance learning adult education stands reading for in technical education computer science stem programs ell support and other grant funded projects. These programs are primarily financed through grants from the arkansas department developmentary secondary education or other phone in bodies with cooperative being reimbursed post expenditure. The grand determined grant requirements and goals state phones include co base grants of approximately four hundred thousand per co operative. Amount into six point one three five million allocated for general operational cost. Slide six offers and overview of local revenues derived from district support. Approximately sixty four percent of these revenue's phone specific services like early childhood special education developmental therapy speech there being school psychology testing ele supervisors supervisor services staff development immediate services and others. These services are often delivered to partnering districts the consortium agreements optimizing the use of district fines for a greater effectiveness and efficiency. Slide seven and eight offer an overview of operating expenditures categorized by broad function groups excluding internal transfers most of the spending is directed toward facilitating direct interactions between teachers and students and providing essential administrative technical and logistical support to enhance educational services flags nan in tier some rise federal revenue streams in their corresponding expenditures categorized by funding group. These phones primarily primarily supported initiatives under the elementary and secondary education air various pandemic related supports via restricted fairly special education services and career and technical education programs. The fines are regulated by federal state laws insuring the funds are used for their intended purposes and for accurate the county additionally federal guidelines dictate out in the unspent phones or carry over balances or managed. And now i'd like to address quickly the topic of operating phone balances slide twelve categorizes the fact that the FY twenty three operating phone balances into three categories the first been restricted balances which are those designated for specific programs and grant related activities. What we would call funds source of phone twenty three sixty balances are essential operation or the find sources of phone twenty three sixty five or essential operational phones for a cooperative similar to a school districts find source of phones two thousand in two thousand and one fines as you know that funds source of phone two thousand or the matrix fines they provide a financial but to cover expenses before fund in its received ensuring the cooperative operate smoothly without cash flow disruptions this is particularly important in education and nonprofit organizations were funding levels confluctuate. In addition these phones are often used for an anticipated maintenance cost. Discretionary account balances or fine set aside for particular uses decided by cooperative boards such as facility upgrades savings and other targeted projects and slide through thirteen offers a comparative view showing the differences between FY twenty three ending balances in those projected for five twenty four I hope to presentation his brother understanding of our multiple multiple revenue sources the areas they support in the reasoning for our varied fund balances and at this time care and make man will provide information regarding staff in in cooperative. Good morning again i'm care can make me undirector at sell central service cooperative and i'll just be doing an overview of cooperative staffing so i'll be referencing slides. The. So. Common misconception is that we have all of these certified staff. Better inside the cop working to possibly maybe just do professional development so today's presentation is going to give you a better insight into the staffing of each of our fifteen educational cooperatives and so this is just highlight of you you see that we do have the majority of our staff the percentage is certified it makes sense where an educational cooperative and so we're working with our districts to provide solutions to some of their needs if your go to the next one so will get out of that one and get into five. Exhibits five and six just bring your attention to basically we've taken that percentage and we've pulled it out and dispersed it into a parchart for you to see. The certified percentages in each co op and the classified percentages in each co op I would like to remind you that certified is a person that's licensed through eighty they're able to teach anything from pre k all the way up to twelfth grade prospecifically and exhibit five you're going to see that some coops have bigger percentages of certified staff and others and so I want to connect this is the peace where I want to maybe enlighten the group a little bit some of those those differences relate to the different needs of a co op. Several examples i'll just give you three examples one co operative maybe. Producing or a initiating a program that goes state wide such as virtual arkansas another example that you may not be aware of is that many times the department of education will partner with a cooperative to ryan a contract and howls and eighty e. Person a personnel at a local cooperative and that happens a light so that that would also skew this data in that way another example was behavior support specialist at one time a couple of years ago each co operative had one of the fifteen behavior support people in the state and due to efficiency effectiveness and just caught new it of the program the decision was made to run all fifteen of those contracts through one particular cooperative so you see a variety of different scenarios there and we can address those later if we need to and then lastly just what we've done is we've taken and tried to bring to the forefront we have collected the information of all of our cooperatives of anything from a hundred percent on site two hundred percent off site at an educational entity so in exhibit seven you see that this is a hundred percent off site and an educational entity and the majority of our certified staff are actually working on behalf of our districts and they're out in the districts are not necessarily in the brick and mortar building at the cooperative so a couple of three examples there would be our early childhood special education services we partner with our districts to serve that need for them. And so we are hired the staff the early childhood special staff the districts pay into a consortium and those staff are out in the districts they are housed in a district another great example is our early childhood preschool program through the arkansas better chance grant many of us ryan preschool programs in conjunction and collaboration and a partnership with the districts we may hire and oversee that program however those teachers are on sight at a district and some other different scenarios they're going to vary from co op to co op but a prime example in our area is if we have a small rule district and they don't have a need for a full time le supervisor which is a special weight supervisor several small rule districts my partner together. For the sake of efficiency and effectiveness for the district saving the districts money and they may ask for fairness that the co op actually employ that person for fairness right so we would be the person that would hold the contract we would also be the person that would oversee the program and we would also evaluate that person but they would work on behalf of the districts and they would be out in those districts not necessarily inside or cooperative and so the last exhibit is exact and that is just what number of people are actually on site that are certified staff so you see relatively just a small number of the majority of the south that are on site a hundred percent in the brick and mortar building or what we call our support staff or a backbone those are custodians are maintenance people are accounts payable or bookkeepers are pair pros that may be in and out of the building so again I thank you for the opportunity person a little bit more about our staffy and I will now turn it over to gerald cooper. Miss chairman members of the committee that thank you for allowing us to present today i'm on talk about accountability I think the easiest way to do that is compared to the accountability that districts have to coops all of these that am going to mention. At both are the same. So i'm kinda go through him quickly I think we may be run that ten legislative body they do coops and they do districts in its process as you probably know that's this pretty thorough but it is up with the legislative john audit committee in this less the final approval after it goes through the auditors at the field auditors and in the supervisors and then through the the board. So budgets obviously that's a huge part that's that's a. It covers all the revenues and expanded in great detail that also includes a federal. The board has to approve the budget and they also have to approve the annual financial report from the prior year. It submitted to apps again. In cycle one if there's an exemptions are acceptions you have to go back and change those subgrants we have several subgrants from several sources included their those are released to gms with the goals and and the allowance expenditures. We have to that submit our. Budget on the subgrants and then it goes to the various departments in decision. Federal grants are mentioned there are part of the comprehensive budget the only thing that's different is if you reaches threshold of seven hundred and fifty dollars. That revenue seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Then you have it especially that is a whole lot more detail coops very rarely do that most small districts don't do that but in terms lack of it we had money that is rant through the co op that we really didn't. Didn't get keep much of an that's why hours it was inflated at last year two years ago. Local financial accountability and overset all the financial reports that they're approved monthly by the board includes revenues expanded. Check registers. All of the financial reports co op most people don't realize is but coops can be placed on fiscal distress. Just lack of school district. Beating process obviously very important there's a threshold. Of twenty four eight hundred this particular year in that goes up is a consumer press index goes up the one that I think you had to be extremely careful with for historics and coops if you're having construction there's a real detailed process that you have to go through in that would depend down. The cost of the project under fifty. For fifty two hundred hundred thousand two fifty in their above. And there may be some local board requirements down there too board must approve. All of the beards ethics revolut resolution I think maybe that's cross a whole state agencies i'm not sure. If an employee board minimum superintendent director. If they have a financial interest in transaction that the district does then there has to be a resolution by the board approving there if. The amount of that transaction is over. Five thousand then it has to go to the secretary's office for the family approval. Hiring relatives of board members obviously that regulated pretty heavy that the end result of the ideas it has to be approved by the secretary there has to be documents that support why you would hire a relative over some bad ears had to be very limited in unusual circumstances so you said that documents like advertisements resumes applications in other documents at a player that there are some things that are posted on the website that co ups do and districts do I just read though these quickly budget article reports monthly financial reports. All regular in special meeting notifications board meds after more approval board of directors contact information contract information with employed his name salary amount position is outright schedules also that they could season job descriptions. Co op policy procedures are also posted on the website. And any reports they're proved by the board and that think eventually the state board. There are a couple of other things I think to know co op just lacked google districts in another state instead we had to comply with the four year lous and also better board meetings just like school districts though they're recorded and available for a bone request evaluations throughout the day waited. I think that's it michael. Yeah. All right i'm being western once again to director to coin minute co op I will do the closing so enclosing we would like to thank you for allowness to be here today to tell this portion of our coop story. We feel that educational coops are very vital part of the educational process in arkansas. We know that by supporting and serving our districts through our many programs and services and by utilizing our personal and market with superintendents principles teachers and support staff throughout our districts we positively impact students throughout the state. Going forward we feel that we can continue to do this to a clear vision and understanding of the future roles of coops in our state. We would like to extend an invitation to any legislator to engage in conversation and or visit any co op throughout the state. And as previously stated if any additional information is needed don't hesitate to ask. Again we thank you for this opportunity. Thank you all for the presentation very informative and appreciate the work that of co ops do to support schools and students here in the state of arkansas a blue we have a number of questions from members and we'll start with center chesterfield. Mr chair in good morning. We have a total. Tell revenues of a hundred and eighty seven million nine hundred twenty two thousand one hundred sixty seven dollars that's what i'm seeing. How long have you been in existence how long what when did the legislation come about that created you. As go up. How long we have been around you don't know. Nineteen eighty five nineteen eighty five yes ma'am. And your job is to support. Public schools. My question is with this kind of money why is the literacy rate or low. One of the math scores so low and what are you doing. To make a different. Because i'm really really concerned we have abysmal literacy rates we have abysmal mascors and yet were paying you one hundred and eighty seven million almost a hundred and eighty eight million dollars what are you doing to make a difference. So some of the things that were doing it crowled reage is that we have trained. Any teacher at a district that wanted to be trained and take fly which is a reading program. Sometimes associated with this legs yet but it's a very intense to your program on how to teach. And we don't netfree of charge so far we've been able to train fifty six. Different individuals in that program and we made a difference in the scores of these kids which we think that it's going to make a difference in the scores because a we think is more of a more trained people in people with great expertise on instruction get out there that we will be able to see an increase in school worse yes maybe well I guess when my concern you been around as nineteen eighty five. It won't point in this date we had an eighty one percent literacy rate. And now here we are at thirty seven. You are all over this gate. And i'm not seeing a difference. Could she was sure mean that as we continue to support these cops. That you gonna come that you're going to make a more profound difference in your currently making it seems to me in the landscape of our students. Yes I am we're going to give every effort to improve the letter and math an. We also have signs baseless that are working on sir so we're going to do everything possible to see their teachers have the skills to help students in the state. Represent mix. The. Thank you mister chairman so that the question that I had is pretty pretty basic question I saw that you had interest income that you all were getting off your accounts and wondering is that purely through savings accounts or are you investing in bonds and securities and so forth and if you are can you tell us how that is done in what safeguards are put in place. I can answer for northeast co we have a cd account and what we do is we and that's our interest bearing account in what we do with that as we bid that out as the cd matures then we'd be that out to the banks in our area in in make a presentation to a recommend recommendation to our board as to the highest rate that's given to this nokia so these are all going to be generally safe investments and not margin security to stop like that more volta stuff and the green main arguments who are checking to change account not excellent thank you thank you. Next up a believe is representative for. Thank you mister chairman. As the co ops do you not is one of the main functions that you do not to bring in. Specialists that are small school wouldn't be able to afford on their own and by combining your resources and their funds. Yes sir that's. That is what we do. Okay thank you. Senator salvan. Thank you mister chair maybe I misunderstood what you said at no charge I was under the impression that state funded coops do you charge for programs. The. Some coops would have different funding structure where they do charge for some work sharps. Uh. Borrows we bring them in and train them in this take fly with no charge for a materials or for participation in the program to the districts can whoever's leading the group can someone have to chair if they could i'd like to know what that. Put what revenues co ups receive back co op outside of state finding and what that amount is if they can get that out appreciate it yes sir. Thank you. Oh i'm i'm sorry we're a quick question the omen have any revenue from solution to you. No we don't. Not at all okay thank you thank you center of solvent per next we'll go to believe it's purpose of ubank's. The. Thank you mr chair if I remember correctly when I got information from blar a part of it was that each co op businesses pay waited every five years by the state of that correct. I think one of the. I guess concerns it a lot of people had was after looking through how that evaluation takes place that it's very subjective and I think that was one of the things that I put in in that bill was that I think starting next year there's gonna be. A measure of accountability to try to measure what the programs. Affect is having on student achievement and so it's it seems like in the past it's been very subjective and I think I think there's more concern now to actually show which programs are improving student achievement and closing that achievement gap that we that we hear so much about so do you think that's going to be difficult or do you think it's going to cause you to maybe. Change some of the programs you're doing or how you're you know implementing them with the schools II think it's like what's senator chesterfield said you've been the cops have been an existence since nineteen eighty five and we don't seem to be making the progress that we shirt so i. I hate to say it but I think you're going to have to justify your existence as as tried to you know be proactive and and implement the types of programs that are going to get the results that we need with for our students. How would you respond to any of the comments that have dismayed. There are several account accountability measures in the amounts that station by any means but some of the things we look at to know were effective in most people do this bare every program so there there's not in an overall accountability but there's a lot of parts that have accountability here's an example it it nor central. And when they level three at this streets we had. Fab level three districts that had forty percent or more of their students not reading it great level. So we sent in some folks with some pretty intensive at trading and worked with the teachers in the next year for those came out in this protector here we have one left but I expected it for it to be out also the lot of them the programs that we have they have objectives that we meet along with there with long with data. Career techno technical for instance performance scores relative to targets here's what we look at in track industry certifications non traditional concentration post secondary placement core errors of instruction reading language arch graduation rates and go course there are irrelevant death. I guess error. Overall objective would be to increase the certifications. Represent ubank's package I had some of the things that are occurring at northeast and I know we're not the only coop in which this is occurring but. There are conference conversations beginning and regards to with our prek program and what we're doing with children from the ages of three to five in preparation for reading readiness as a inner kindergarten. So that is being done can and a collaboration with the department and resources that they are providing across the state and then when you look at this you're where we have new standards that have come out we cops are working with districts across this day as far as identifying the central standards those that are most critical and not only to grade level instruction but also readiness for the next grade level so we're helping districts in looking at development notice essential standards and then a line in those to how quality instructional materials that are vetered by the state that we're implementing those materials within the classroom and then looking to develop common format of assessments that were to land with the new assessment that's coming that would be an early predictor of success for students on those pieces of legitimate some of the foundation of pieces that were working on now in we also as part of that how called the instructional material initiative in grant it's working with school leaders and the former presentation they talked about principles in other school leaders but working with them and knowing what to look for when they come into a classroom as to where there are how quality instructions material has been utilized in a valid in a reliable way so think those are some of the foundational pieces that were involved in in helping as you're aware going forward trying to determine a calls and effect will be something that won't need to be looked at. Thank you. Representative cabinet. Thank you mister chairman over here my question is going to be probably pretty similar to some that's been offered but is there a report that shows the effectiveness of each co op in what I mean by effectiveness is how what the programs that the coops actually give to the schools are effecting the outcome of the student are there any reports because we always give our schools report cards of how they're doing in relationship of the outcome of the stood it are there any reports that show how affective the co ops are in assisting the schools for the outcome of the student. At this point there's not we do show evidence of accountability during our evaluation each year each five years when we have an evaluation that changes depending on who at the state department would be leading that work so we've just finished a five year cycle and all of our sobs are scored from a a rank of 1-5 um and then that's posted also on our websites but currently there's no effectiveness. Also the other the other piece would be looking at our and your report so each year by law where expected to do an annual report it submitted to the state board for approval and in that will have some data pieces that will show effectiveness of different programs that were actually doing but as a whole there's not a report card grade for a cooperative at this point come what does the wonder file me if someone was to look at that report what does wonderful so there's a rubric and the rubric explains what's a five so it just like any rubber you would start with the three and there's pieces of evidence that we have to have linked in our evaluation that we have to have personnel there to answer the questions regarding those and then you would move up to a four and then a five but so far would be the the the best score that a co op could score on their evaluation get it's target evidence okay in do we know how what how many of the co ops are fibs for three to them once. I think the lowest i'm you know i'm not for sure but I think we had one one co op that scored a four and maybe one that scored a three in the rest were five but I can check and get that back to you if you would thank you. Sooner these. Punch again. Hello over here thank you for being here today just to help me understand a little more about the court system how many total co ops across the state in roughly how many employees. So there's fifteen and. Seventeen hundred and seventy staff okay so of that seventeen hundred would you say the typical makeup is former teachers. Former super tenants. We employ more certified staff. So remember a certified staff would be any person that holds a standard license. That could teach anything from precade a kate to twelve both grade any of those seventeen hundred former solution to reemployees. No. And so okay so we've got seventeen hundred staff. Former principles potentially former superintendents. And so I think the fear I have is is in the previous presentation we've got one in five principles leaving schools every year. It's for some of that leakage could be going to coops. So is how would you assess that some of the potential movement is is caught or are eighteen to some of the shortages for seen and teachers and principles and support its across the state how would you answer that so in the presentation that I presented on staffing as showed that the majority of our staff are working on sight are there a hundred percent off site for the coop bricking mortar they are already currently in the district serving in some capacity. So average salary for co op employee versus versus their previous roles of potential serving in schools how would you compare that. Hmm about the same for the most part. They're not making more money at the co op if that's what you're asking yes that that's what I was trying to know they're not making more cause some of the feedback i've heard in my district is cops or reinviewed there's a retirement plan of of moving towards a different direction I want to understand if that's it's been viewed no sir okay thank you. Representative all thank you mister chair I have a couple of questions yeah we're talking about fifteen different co ops do all those coops actually meet the law like what a co op is how it supposed to be designed are all of those because we've got a report from blr that suggests that there's. Maybe two of on that's out of compliance with the la. Yeah based on brads are introduction through because the law was originated in nineteen eighty five and there were pieces in the law to establish a cooperative surchares a certain number of districts a certain number of mileage they had to have a four year institution in proximity those are the things that are in the law so yeah through consolidation for instance in my cooperative there were at one time twenty two school districts but i'm in the south right do you understand that and so through consolidation though schools have actually consolidated with other districts so the number of students had also declined because of jobs leaving south arkansas and going to other areas of the state so yes there are there are places where we might not necessarily be meeting the letter of the law and miss show if it's ok out ask a couple of more if you've got someone else in the queue i'll get out and get back go ahead. A minute ago you were answering representative ubank says question the gentleman on the end and i'm sorry i'm I can't hear today but I believe you were answering his question a few minutes ago when you kept referring to. This year and this air and this year could you give us the because you didn't say was that and this pascal year two years ago three years ago five years ago ten years ago if that you were being able to show the effectiveness. So an accountability whatever however you want to put it account here any day representative out so you're ahead of me there at the numbers that that I gave the fav within a level through support was twenty one and then they got out in twenty two one okay and then representative. Cabinet ask a question but I don't think that actually heard the answer who actually comes up with your accountability plan is it within your co op you come up with your plan does adam up with your plan who actually comes up with the plan that your accountable they keep you accountable. So you talk about their valuation or just internally entire how to so like each school has an accountability right there accountable for abc deg all the way to the so in and the grants that are running through eighty eight there are accountability measures performance measures that are tied to those grants so derrill talk dare blacks and talked about the money that's flowing from the department to earth giving example the specialists right so in in that big grant they are going to be performance measures for literacy specialist math specialist and sat specialist now as a co op and that would be the same for any cop grant that's being housed at the coop for certain type of a specialist or coordinator many of us do something in addition to that for instance once the school report cards come out we will spend a day we call it a doubt a day digging in the data where we identify where our schools are performing as far as math literacy sites right graduation rate will we'll be looking into the mascal info. And then from there then we'll start to formulate plans or goals for those schools and then we'll deploy and the resources to the school for them to work with us are us to work with them in order to do some of the same things that mr cooper talked about as far as moving those schools out of coordinator support and my final question if that's okay mr chair. Then I want to go back to white senator chest revealed they add whenever she was talking about why are reading it's gone down our math is going down all those things are going down if we have those accountabilities in place. Why the end do our test scores continue to go down and i'm not trying to put it all on co ops don't misunderstand what i'm saying but if you'll are the ones that are looking after all of your school districts in your co op. What have we done in the past five years six years. To help move those test scores up. When we see that they're dropping does that make sense what i'm saying in lack. There had to have been something that was like red flags waving really big and loud and proud hey test scores are really starting to plan it what can we do to help these scores help these teachers move these test or app. Out of that makes sense for night. There may be several of a settle address they are so I think one of the big things and our area is that we have a very high population of non traditional teachers so let's say you've got a sychology degree and you want to teach school so we are supporting those teachers there are not a future program we're also trying to help school our school districts fine staff we still have school districts that don't have they're not fully staffed and here it is november the the seventh correct so we're doing those things then working with the impact that you heard from today and putting high quality instructional leaders that are in the former of principles and coordinating with principles in order to ensure that they have the resources that they need because they can't leave what they don't know right so yesterday we were doing coordinated walks through our school districts where we were going in with the principles to show the arm and model for the and what to be looking for when they're going in their classroom walk through so that they could drive the instruction in their classrooms. Um then the second thing that i'd like to say is just in regard to the test and I you know I think ade particularly they were they would definitely say that this last test it we're looking at and we're reporting that they're not reading at grade level but actually that test was designed to show that that reading level was to show that they would be there on track are not on track to score a twenty two on the act so that's very different than saying they're not reading at grade we know by looking at the data there are some kids that are in that close range that are reading at grade level but it's not the way the data. Was pulled out for the testing does that make sense and there may be some others that will dressed some different things that are going on at. Just a remander also represent about we are not regulatory we are supportive and that is an unissue as well. Sin or dots. Thank you mister chair so i. Right down a few different questions here but. All this information in your presentation here is kind of more global. On the entire. All the courts combined but i'm kind of interested in finding out what individual co op's in various parts of the state and the effectiveness of the programs that are being put on them and are you says you had seventeen hundred and seventy staff. But i'm assuming that state wide amongst all fifteen co ops is that correct yeah okay and um and so. Just like we look at individual districts and canada see their effectiveness and in the various programs that they are doing and and he said most of the the staff are are in the schools in various district capacities helping aid and support. What what percentage of those are. Doing support because eighty eight mandating some type of of initiative that's going on there or vs how many of them are are in the schools because the schools are requesting help or aid in a particular thing to to. You know. Fulfill the student achievement goals. So again depending on the grant there's going to be performance measures for instance if if we're trained we're training rise. Um in the state of arkansas continually and through that risers are coaching aspect in there that that's as part of their train so if you were to come to rise training we would map that out it would be training and then a specialist would come and work with you one on one as part of you being a participant in rise so a lot of things are like that but then also know that we have a lot of schools that will reach out and say hey and I need you to come in currently i've been doing data audits on our d and schools and so I just kind of prefer this way sometimes you're in the work and you're in the weeds or you can't see the force for the trees sometimes you get a little barn blind and by having an outside of coming in and really look into sector data maybe we can pull out some areas where you did then think about some strategies that you could use that you just didn't think about sometimes we just seem to be reminded so those would be some ex- examples in that particular thing that you're saying there with the grant for rise is that a grant that comes to the co op or it is that go to the individual schools and then they say hey can we have help and we're paying the co op for your your service so that is part of being a literacy specialist so that grant runs from the department to the cooperative and we hired the specialist depending on how many that we're allowed and they do that work to them they go out and then they train and go out to the schools to support the schools so so basically just so i'm trying to wrap my head around it you're the contractor at the state is hiring to go into the schools to for that particular grant initiative and appropriate instance that be a percent not really a contractor but liaison would be a better tire I believe okay. So II guess it can goes back because like all this. Fun balances fifty five million that's that's for the entire. All the cold ups total but are they broken out by individual co ops as far as like this one has three million of that and that one has five million and so on that is something that we could get to her instead of her dads and on the year and previous presentation the job earlier will be allowed presented a summary document to you they've got that information for fy twenty two it's on the back page of that somebody broken down and there yesterday and we could provide that for if I twenty three as well if I if needed. And in it that's the fund balances but a funding sources as well as expenditures are all broken down by coop in that yes sir okay now. I'm picturing the document if it had some of that that can be provided but the phone balances were in there and I think it had by color up it had the operating expenditures and the operating revenue if I remember correctly well I think probably just from listening to everybody here one of the. Important things we need to know about. Just as as far as justification for the existence of the coops and whether or not you're actually providing the the services that were requesting or needing with your hundred and eighty seven million dollars annual operating expenses that were were expending is is some detailed outcome. Pro programmatic detailed outcome so a week are we thrown. Millions of dollars at a grant over here that's not having any result and how can we allocate those towards something that's it's really bring the outcomes at the student achievement level on a co op I could basis in the districts that you're you're supporting so yesterday if I could just give you a quick maybe a view of that like our comp and how that works so it would be a a sample kind of a sample size for you we have a bad eighty nine employees in the corp of those approximately forty nine worked in her abc programs per which are we run in the abc program for eight of our fourteen districts because we can do that and we can call up there and do that more effect efficiently for them so of those of those employees there are twenty five we have twenty class rooms so there's twenty classroom teachers and then we have a pair professionals that work in that program as well so some of the staff reclassified staff we have additional five employees that work in the hippie program and that is another early childhood program where they go into homes and their home based educator program so we have five there we have approximately twelve that work in our early childhood special education division and they are for a pre case special education services to but wait we provide that support for our districts or rather than them hiring people individually they cop that into a collectively at a cost savings so that accounts for what would every fifty three about sixty five of our eighty something employees in addition then we have a school site consortium where we have three school sake examiners that are districts co op to do psychological testing of students in the request room exams if different tests that they're required to give in special education services we have an early a supervisor that serves five of our districts those districts co op they are. The. So have risk and sauce jims like that so when you look at the money some of its coming through state revenue streams to for us to help implement the state initiatives but others are coming from local revenue streams where their co op in services together and then we've got the federal sad so you have roughly rough mouth out of your eighty nine employees roughly two thirds fifty three are. Dilling directly with early childhood pre k in our situation in our situation that would be accurate now other cops it moves it could be different depending on blind the needs of their districts in the service is error provided and I think that's the other thing what we're all the same and that we're trying to help support decision and providing services do our school systems through statewide initiatives in at the same time we're trying to meet local needs of our districts to where we can are. Help provide local consortiums in areas that they need at the same time and just just so I can on your particular situation that turkey to drill down a little bit. Are the majority of your word the majority of the funds are they going toward those pre k type programs that you're talking about are in are they coming from local sources state or federal sources I could pull that for yeah i'd rather look at it I don't really just though a number etc and it not be accurate where are grant are abc grant is up until this year it was a million six hundred and twenty two thousand four hundred dollars and that was covering three hundred and twenty sites we were granted an additional to any slights this past year and those grants refunded at about five thousand and seventy dollars per student so that gives you an ad deal with. You matter case students that's pretty that yes sir that those who are there in abc prekate programs and just out of your co up what what you're. Roughly annual budget vs your experience and that you're going to ask that again I will I want to get that to you because it's it's fluctuated in here's why and normally can remember numbers are for that but here that's been changed that that's fluctuated a little bit because of some of the covered phones that we receive through dhs that were your marked for a pre k programs it's gonna be typically somewhere around five million is what our total budget would be but i'll get you the exact alright now thank you very much I appreciate it. Represent wing. Thank you mister chair over here guys i'm looking at slide three just the overall funding which shows roughly a third third third from local funding state funding in federal finding I this is a historical question you may or may not have that answer may be a question more for staff or something that will have to research at the but when the co ops were created back in nineteen eighty five. Was this simply created or funded I should say it was a simply funded from monies that would ordinarily have gone directly to the school district and we just sequestered those funds to be able to create this intermediary to be able to help school districts was was that the original funding for that is money that would have ordinarily gone to directly the school districts. I personally would have not had knowledge of that we could research that for you and get back to you on the habit I wasn't part of the coops at that time. Mister cooper might have been but an and so that would be great I again for either yourselves or for our BLR to look that up and then the follow up question to that would be is if that was the case or whatever that case was has that funding cause i'm sure back in nineteen eighty five the numbers were different but if the uh has the funding state proportional to that original charter or has it grown beyond that so it would be it would be good for us to see kind of the the historical funding of that and to see what the original intent was that's my question thank you. The. Hand representative of grammar. Thank you very much I really just have to two questions you talked a little bit about attracting new teachers and supporting our novice teachers what are you doing to attract new teachers i'm i'm a teacher and my wife is a teacher she's non traditional as well and I work in fort smith which is a pretty large district but we still even struggle finding some of those more niche positions what are you all doing to support our district signing new teachers so I can just tell you what we're doing in self central so we know that teachers pretty much grow up and teach our work within fifty miles of where they were born and raised and went to high school so now and that we're trying to grow our own and it starts with those pair professionals that are in the classrooms right now that. Doing the work and we know that they've gotten great on site training as they've served as a pair professional and we're working with districts to identify those high quality pair professionals and link them up with different universities to put them on a track to get a four year degree and then we're fine in a way to get them lost and and then they then go to work for their district only as I lost in person in addition that we in january january the second we're going to be doing a common educator of where we're going to ask for folks that are interested in being subs for our school districts or maybe they interested in being a pair professional for one of our school districts or their interest in being a loss and teacher and we're gonna have different entities there to help the arm fulfil their dream to enter the the world of education. I appreciate that I know my my wife was a chemist before then beforehand so she would have not fallen in that group at all so I was just curious how you're really you're reaching because it's it's definitely a struggle I mean like you know some of these science positions on these math physicians are going months with know how to qualify teacher so I was just curious and then a second question is once you have these new teacher how how how are you supporting them what's your novice teacher program looking like I from from personal experience it seems like a lot of our new teachers still overwhelmed and some of these programs just seem like another data out of classroom and check in the box and they're not really doing a whole lot so would would you push back against that or. Or I would say first of all it's it's going to be very differentiated because a student that's come out of four year university of arkansas that's had that fifth year as a residency they need less than somebody that's a non traditional and our cooperative area about sixty eight percent of over non traditional teachers that means they had a degree and something totally different and then we got we found a pathway to get him licensed so they need a lot more support and so I remember in program runs through and it's back in law we're going to mince her novice teachers for one to three years. Um and so gradually depending on their needs and where they came from we're going to vary that training throughout the year. And are again in our corporative in its can look different and every cooperate but our superintendence has said we don't want your pulling amount during the school year so we're doing the majority of our training in the summer though different boot camps and then we're doing virtual checking ends and then our novice teacher support staff are going to deal their modeling with the their co planning their cotteaching with them they're collecting data such as uh dok question levels or. Our students on task or off test just things that a new teacher does it think to collect as data work that would actually impact the outcomes that a teacher teacher would see what their students thank you. This. Representative. Thank you mister chair I have a couple of quick questions and some of them are just kind of informative for me just to have some perspective so my freshman is could each of you tell us how long you have been with your co ops or in general with co ops second how often are you all personally within the schools themselves walking the halls and and seeing what's going on regardless in regards to who you're pushing out into the schools and your programs and then the third win. Obviously there's the five of you here are you all here in conjunction coordination with all the rest the coops are you all just basically here for your specific co op and giving a voice to that cause I obviously I mean II understand that people have other obligations at home but I would just like my co op's not here so i'm just kind of curious to have that information as well if you're here collectively on your own self you could answer those i'd appreciate it thank you. This. So I been worth the coop this is mayor net year. And we are here to represent all the coops of the information that I gave you was. That true for all the co ops as for the accountability in a think some of the other information they gave would be for all the coops also. Agree this is my third year as coop director to previously have a super tendent for twenty three years and know this is not my retirement job i'm very passionate about education always have been passionate about children. And feel like we can make a big difference and I feel like it as coops we are making a difference throughout the state. We we get up every morning put her pampson build a work and work or tails off and so whoever ask if it's where we go to retire I don't think they understand the passion and the integrity sitting on this panel appear but we as a co op director we have a lot of challenges like school districts do but we feel like we meet those challenges and we feel like we're a great service to our schools and communities. And this is my fifth year at the north east cop and in regard to your question how often in schools not as much as I would like when I was superintended I was in schools daily directly and gauged with both our stay off who are in schools on a daily basis and also engaged with our school leaders a lot of my term is being in conversing with our superintendents and so that some I would like to be in more and your question is prompted me to i'll answer be able to answer that differently I think the next time. The. This is my sixteen years co op. And as far as being in schools I was in a school friday before last walking the halls and observing teachers in kindergarten and first gray. And then having feedback with one of the literacy coaches that is in that school about how to mobilities and that district. Again I would say like mr blacks then not as often as i'd like to be. So this is my six year as the co op directive director previously I was the teachers in a coordinator so this is my living here a total working with the cooperative as far as you know somebody alluded that you know maybe the super tenants and principles I was a principle and came to the cooperative and II think the biggest impact was as you make that decision to move from a classroom teacher to a principle the biggest thing is you think about how many students you can impact the same is true when you leave a school district and you come to a cooperative now think about the impact that you can impact in your region in all the different schools that you have as far as a how often are you in the schools I was in a school district all day yesterday and I was thinking back the last two weeks i've been in my office about a day and a half and that's yet the rest of time up in in districts working with teachers and principles. Brad horn will remails once again this is my fourth year is called director asking two years as a superintendent five years is a principle math white director before yet in this role I still got quite a bit left in the tank so I want to keep going to answer your question about are we here for all co op directors and where with sounds their phone cause we're getting daying pretty heads wait feel kind of like a student in the classroom not one look at my phone but but we are representing everyone and and I agree with care and as far as the impact that i'm able to make when I was in a classroom I could hit hundred and fifty kids right that was my impact as I made steps through leadership that that footprint has grown substantially now I can impact thirty two thousand kids on farther from the chalk board now to have that impact but I can impact a lot more kids in the position I mean so hope that answers on your question thank you follow up please. Thank you mister chair and so i'm just cut it along the lines of what some others have said here thank you guys for a small for your work in education it is I think one of the most important jobs that we have and also the one that we have to get right and when the concerns that I have is that it doesn't seem like we're measuring very well what our achievement is and had to take a page for my dad's playbook you can't manage what you don't measure. So there has to be some mechanically piece on this and the only measurement piece that we see largely is and the most important one is what it can our kids read and my concern since nineteen eighty five. I'm very curious about the statistics that center chester will talk about the eighty one percent i've said this a few times on school where we should be teaching like our hairs on fire especially literacy and the sense of urgency it concerns me I don't feel like there's the same sense of urgency cause. We can't talk about next year another kidding euro graduates they can't read it can't be two years down the room it has to be today it has to be this year so would you agree I guess is my question that we should be addressing these problems like our hair is on fire because our hair is on fire we can not continue to graduate kids like this out the state of arkansas were not doing best for the kids. So we would agree that a reading is critical and certainly our passion I think I can speak for every one that says we're concerned about reading we know that we're a transactioning away from the three queuing system that was implemented all over the state of arkansas and did a disservice to our children. Now we're focused on the sites of reading. So far we've trained almost six thousand teachers in ras state initiative for the sites of reading now we're pushing in two not just the theory and how the theory works but how actually practice works in the classroom. With coaches I think that we are on the right track with a lining are standards and with looking at everything in terms of individual practice of the teacher and how it impacts kids especially with literacy so I think we are on the right payout then we do feel the urgency to get it done yesterday. We have three more people in accuse in our daughters are going to be first and then represent the narrow reps and long after that. The. Thank you chair in this is just kind of a follow up on what the but I was asking I think mr blackstone before just a breakdown I was curious about the rest of your co ops I know not everybody's here today but we've got a pretty decent sampling of a third of the coops would you say in and you could pray go through this fairly quickly your total number of staff and how many of them are directly involved in early childhood. Programs can like mr blacks and in in your individual co ops. The. And if you don't know all those numbers off the top of your head if you could get them get them to you get them to a step that that might actually be a little bit faster but that's. Want to see if there's a a consistent thing across all the co ops in there I have fifty six employees and twenty two of the early childhood specially and also abc. So I think roughly a third or so reactually just done. Co op staff not not necessarily pre pre k or early chartered specially okay and i'm sorry I don't have those numbers in front of me but I do have those numbers but we have a hundred and forty five point five employees and about two that we have the largest pre k problem in the state we have. A fourteen sites than forty eight clash rooms and the large portion maybe two thirds are abc or happy or spare employees that support the abc problem. So it's a significant portion of involved in early childhood and we say and we say certification she mentioned being certified are certifications of basically pretty those are precase certified so they are not showed fad for k twelve they're so advantaged precase there okay thank you. Representative yes thank you miss chair a lot of the talked is about the money which is extremely important understand that and and I know you all can't enter this without research and there might not be a accurate answer. But if we get away with all the colors. N there was that money. How many try the individual school districts. Need for bounding on a increase for the thing that you do my other mother question are great. You know accountability is extremely important. What i've said for some of the co ops do you all not be involved at a lot of other issues to help families and children. That might not have actually affect that grade. But their life I mean that's that's just what i've seen but like I said I don't I don't know how we would gauge that but if if we did away with a coats the time that you're all doing the schools are not going to do that for nothing. So that that that found it got to come from somewhere so we just need to keep everything and perspective thing thank you. Represent long. Thank you and forgive me if you covered it in the appreciation earlier and I may have missed it but i'm the approximately hundred and eighty eight million dollars you're revenues are projected to be for twenty twenty three I was worning could you tell me about what percentage of those were going to salaries versus overhead fixed up cost. We don't we didn't pull that we can pull that though and get it get it to here. They could be pulled. And I would really appreciate that in if if you want to that trouble if you wouldn't man if I could break it down also maybe ban by co op i'd like to see maybe how much is going for salaries for prosper administrative versus the the folks were actually doing the teaching thank you. Represent our thank you mr I just have a quick question and and that is about funding just to clarify for myself the coops get the same amount of funding no matter how many students. Is that correct. So the larger coops. Get the same amount of money as the smaller co ops is at. Is that true or you talk about the base funding that we are see yes yes the base funding we were sustained so i'm just wondering how that affects obviously the larger disk the larger. Co ops. But I just want to make sure that was correct so the base funding is the same for all co ops great thank you very much and I believe that was written in law when they were phone. See another question from members thank you for your time thank you for being here. And members will move to item d which is other business I believe that represent meeks has something forced. Thank you mister the department will come to the table I have a question for them please. The. I can't see behind the columns and area from the department. The. If you would please just introduce yourself for the record and then we'll take representative exclusi. According to salis for greg rogers primary education thank you both for being here and the question i'm about to ask II don't necessarily expect you to have an answer for a day um this might be a subject for a whole meeting but my question that I have is this on this last week I saw a article that said in the next thirty five years that a eye could potentially replace thirty to forty percent of all jobs that are out there and then last night it was kind of prompted this evening further as I saw an article that a chinese factory in the next two years is expected to start pumping out humanoid robots at a rate of thousands per year and every day there's an american company that is on the verge of doing the same thing again we're looking at more job eliminations and so my question is do you have somebody in your department who is looking at these emerging technologies and the impact they're going to have on the further future work for sale but we're you know we had some good discussion yesterday about programs but I think it's you know probably safe to say in the next three to five years that you know a lot of factory jobs are going to go away automation same thing you drive through your bank or fast food those are going to be replaced by a I robot and so my first question is do you have somebody looking at that in the impact that house of that we are preparing our kids for that future that's coming and then secondly you know for my family high school student and i've been given an assignment to do research on who doctor benjamin russia laws you know I can go to you know chat g to pay your google's bart and in less than you know two minutes i've got my thousand pages are thousand word s say to turn in tomorrow on that and i've never actually done any of the work myself so. How are the schools preparing you know how are we keeping kids from cheating using this technology see what i'm saying and so if you have some insight today that's great if you need to research it for a future meeting I think that's something that definitely we need to be preparing for martin our students and of course our facility to be able to to handle. Thank you set representative makes an so yes are computer science specialist and that or a grants to the co ops are looking at that as well as our state board recently attended some trainings on aa and how it is impacting education in schools and so don't have a lot of information to share other than that it is certainly something that's on our radar something that we're looking into and will continue to research and be studying and providing information on okay so I know this is a lot lot of new territory for for all of us but and maybe at some point in the future with you know the approval of the chairs be interesting to have a presentation for me all about what steps if any are being taken at this point thank you. That you represent it makes any other questions for the department. Saying none thank you greg according thank you very much. So you know other business before the committee we are journed.