Education Committee - Senate and House
Video
Transcript
6 documents
Machine transcript
May contain errors. Verify important quotations against the official video.
About transcript accuracy
- Source
- SliQ live captions
- Model
- SliQ live ASR
- Processing date
- October 2, 2026
Senator Jane English
Unverified
5:31
Good afternoon and welcome to the house and Senate Education Committee and we have a busy day here today our thing first thing on the agenda is a motion to approve our minutes from ebruary 20 ebruary 2nd and February3 do I hear a motion Thank you all in favor all opposed thank you very much ok we have ISp request here
an interim study proposal so umpresentative Vauugt are you going to present this
Speaker 6
6:34
Ma'am I have some guests mayy they please come to the table? that'd be fine.
Speaker 9
6:47
Oh they come out here got it can I get one more chair? I have to have this every time
Senator Jane English
Unverified
7:14
So if you all would identify yourselves you will be
Speaker 18
7:21
recognized Bryan Marrish Goodwill Industries of Arkansas president CEO. Eie Suwart,
Speaker 19
7:26
chief mission officer, senior vice president Goodwill Industries of Arkansas. Sarah Thomas, senior director
Speaker 23
7:32
of the excels International officefice with goodwill Education initiatives. Hi, I'm Rachel Fulcherdawson. I'm at the lab
Speaker 24
7:39
for Economic oppportunities Leo at the University of Notre Dame. I
serve as the managing director and head of
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
7:48
impact. deanvoug District 87 and I'm setting in forresentative Lee Johnson today he had some business where he couldn't get away from it so he asked me to please present this and if it's ok ma'am, I'm gonna go ahead and let them speak to the ISP. chair members
Speaker 20
8:08
of the committee thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about
Arkansas's adult education landscape and the urgent
Speaker 32
8:17
need to expand viable pathways Arkansas continues to face a significant statewide education barrier approximately 10 to11% of our Kansans over the age of 19 do not have a high school diploma or GED. a rate that places our sta our state among the lowest nationally in simpler terms, more than300,000 Arkansans approx approximately the combined population of Fayetteville Springdale, Rogers
and Bentonville combined lacked a high school diploma or GED? the consequences are well documented lower workforce participation lower lifetime earnings and an increased strain on families and communities adults without a diploma face major barriers to stable employment and economic mobility. These challenges compound a statewide workforce problem that impacts our competitiveness and economic growth
while the GEd attainment remains an opportunity. It is not a solution that works for everyone. a test alone cannot make up for years of interrupted learning and for many that simply isn't a realistic path Arkansas needs multiple pathways to adult high school completion and one of the most promising proven solutions is already here the excelenter little history on the excelenter it is operated by Goodwill Industries of Arkansas is the
state's first and only public adult charter made possible after Arkansas passed legislation in 2015 enabling adults 19en years and older the opportunity to earn a high school diploma the first excelent opened inoctober in LittleRock offering adults an alternative path to relying solely on a GD option. this model was desi designed specifically for adults whose life circumstances learning needs or prior educational
experiences made the GED pathway insufficient or unattainable, especially due to low literacy rates. since opening the excelent has graduated more than350 adults. with Arkansas state certified high school diploma in 2013 we expanded to include a second location in Springdale increasing the capacity for goodwill to serve ourkansans in northwest Arkansas there are51 excel centers across the nation and49 operate through
a combination of state education funding adult appropriation education appropriations and workforce dollars Arkansas's two schools stand alone. the excelenter in arkansas is not state funded and relies entirely on goodwill industries of Arkansas to operate expansion into additional high schools in high ne regions of the state with high concentrations of adults without a high school diploma is not possible under the current funding constraints
Goodwill Arkansas funds 100% of the operating costs which includes licensed teachers and facilities. Our wrapparound services that include child care, life coaching staff and transportation assistance career services Arkansas workforce challenges require a range of adult education options the excelenter is a proven outcomesdriven model that strengthens families economically, supports employer demand for credentialed
workforce and reduces dependency burdens on public assistance and breaks intergenerational poverty cycles the excelenter is not the only solution but it is a critical one. It it compliments GD programs serving ourkansans who need different learning model, more support, greater flexibility to succeed. It offers a roadm map that transforms lives, strengthens households and bolsters the workforce
Speaker 20
12:21
that Arkansas needs. Eiestewart will now share more
Speaker 19
12:25
about the two excel centers good afternoon wanted to tell you a little bit more about the excelenter charter high school here in Arkansas. it provides yearround accelerated eweek terms free on site childcare, life coaches, tutoring and transportation support. These services are specifically designed to remove barriers that hinder adults from completing their high school education Today Arkansas's two excelents,
Springdale and LittleRock stand as the only accredited public charter high schools in the state designed exclusively for adults 19 and above. the excelenter provides a diplomabas model which is often a better fit for adult learners who be benefit from inperson classroom instruction. The GED is a test-based credential and success requires a 9th through 1elth grade reading level. However, many of our excelenter students come to us with only 1/4 to fifth grade reading level.
More than50% of our graduates become the first in their families to earn a high school diploma. breaking the cycle of low educational attainment Children of graduates are less likely to drop out of high school and are50% more likely to be proficient in reading and math. Many students moved directly from high school completion into industry recognizecogd certifications at the at the academy of goodwill building a direct pipeline into Arkansas's high demand fields. Recent Excelenter reporting
shows high retention at 86%.rong academic credit completion with nearly4,500 credits earned last year growing enrollment from 185 and2018 to a record675 in2025. and a few demographics to touch on77% of our students are female. Many with children.49% are Hispanic,33% African American,15% white with a median age of34.
to clarify, Arkansas Exxcllentertwork is a public charter high school that falls into the jurisdiction of the Arkansas Department of Education. Arkansasell is an active participant in the national Exceltwork comprised of51 excel centers across the US and in fact we are thrilled to have been asked to host the Excelenter national conference right here in LittleRock in May. Again adults unable to pass the GED are for those that a testcented model is not
effective. The excelenter offers a full academic environment with licensed teachers including special education teachers and ESL. also providing high intensity tutoring and support that leads to a true high school diploma. We follow all state regulations including the recent bell to bell noell Act. I'd like to close by telling y'all about a recent excelenter graduate named Caitlin. Caitlin's story began like far too many others in our state she dropped out of high school
at 16 when she became pregnant for more than a decade, Caitlin worked hard to provide for her family but every opportunity she pursued required a high school diploma At28, after yet another job rejection she knew it wasn't about her ability but rather it was the lack of a high school diploma and it was then that she walked through the doors of the excelenter. There every barrier that had held her back previously was removed. She had free childcare
for her kiddos. She had bus passes to get her to and from home and school. She had a life coach that believed in her even when she did not believe in herself. Caitlin earned her diploma She rediscovered her confidence and her purpose. she had always dreamed of working in healthcare and with the help of her life coach at the excelenter, she enrolled in the certified clinical medical assistantgrame at the academy at Goodwill. as with every excelenter student who wants to pursue a certification
she received a scholarship where every single expense curriculum, scrubs, all of her exam fees were fully covered. She passed with flying colors with the aid of goodwill's career services she was offered a medical assistant position at Arkansas Children's Hospital. Caitly didn't stop there though. She recently completed a pediatric ophthalmology certification through Children's hospitalspital and earned a promotion today she is building a career that she once thought
impossible and her children are watching a new cycle of achievement and hope take root. Caitlin's story is not an exception it is an example of what becomes possible when adult learners are given a real supported pathway to a diploma and a career The excelent's not just granting diplomas it is rewriting family trajectories and strengthening Arkansas's workforce in the process. thank you all so much for your time and I'd like to now turn it over to Racheldawson with the University of Notre Dame.
Speaker 24
17:41
Committee members thank you all for having me here today. I'm honored to be able to share with you about my lab's research and our work with the goodwill Excelenters Leo, our lab works across the country to find promising programs we conduct the most rigorous research on the impact of these programs and then we take those results and get them used by providers by policymakers like yourselves and other key stakeholders across the country. we currently work with over 120 partners in over30 states
sometimes our research shows that a program works and that can lead to scale up and broad impact sometimes our research shows that a program is not effective and that can lead to program improvement or reallocation of resources. Either way we publish what we find committed to understanding program impact and getting that information used to help improve lives and reduce poverty. we do not charge for our
services and because of this we remain independent evaluators our researchers conducted a study of the goodwill excelenter in central Indiana beginning in 2018 Our study looked at the impact of the program on students who completed the program so they graduated from an excel center with a high school diploma compared to students who were offered the program and didn't enroll or didn't complete it what we found was significant positive impact in the following ways
excelenter graduates are 12% more likely to be employed graduates have higher earnings they see a38% increase in earnings. gra du ate s have more career opportunities. They are50% over50% more likely to be employed in the healthcare sector and retail pharmacy. allowing them for greater upward mobility graduates are also43% more likely to earn certificates than their peers and 21% more likely to earn college credits
more recently we were able to extend our analysis to look at the impact of the excelents on criminal justice outcomes and we found that participants saw a49% decline in criminal charges in the first year and this persists for at least5 years after graduation. These results frankly speaking, were not expected and are quite impressive. One way to demonstrate this is to look at the return on investment of excelents
Here we find that when you just look at the employment outcomes for every $1 spent we see over $20 in benefits when you add in these criminal justice outcomes, the benefits become even higher so for every $1 spent on the excelent we see60 dollars in benefits. The market doesn't do these kind of returns by the way so how does this compare to other workforce programs using the marginal value of public funds or MVPf methodology which
is kind of a mouthful but essentially means dividing the benefits that a policy provides to its recipients so in this case excelenter students by the policies's net cost to the government things like increased taxes paid by recipients because they have higher earnings again we look at the excelent's return on investment of 20 to 1 compared to a typical MvPf or return on investment for a typical job training program
which is0.44, less than one. so usually you get less than a dollar return for these kinds of programs but excelenter we're seeing $20 unemployment insurance returns are also less than 1 at.61. on average when we add in the criminal justice benefits which include things like the reduced the cost the reduced costs of court contact and the reduced cost social cost of crime usually to crime victims. The excelenter ROI further dwarfs these comparisons with the60 dollars
benefit for every $1 invested. from our perspective at Leo the excelenter has proven impact to their program on employment on earnings and criminal justice involvement and has a comparatively high ROI. I thank you for your time and welcome questions. Good afternoon committee members. thank you so much
Speaker 23
22:09
for having me here. I am thrilled to see Arkansas leaders considering how to expand upon the already great work of the excelenter happening here in
your state the excelent strengthens communities by ensuring adults who want to work have a clear and efficient path to finish their education and reenter the local economy at full strength. as a public high school model backed by research the excelenter turns persistence and hard work into measurable community results. Graduates boost local economies reli could is it possible you move your chair up just a
Senator Jane English
Unverified
22:43
little bit a little bit closer to your
Speaker 23
22:48
microphone yes is that better that's better thank you graduates boost local economies they rely less on public assistance and they inspire the next generation to aim higher. The excelent is an investment in family well-being and community excellence where opportunity, effort and dignity work together to build lasting prosperity in our graduate's homes and their communities. the excels Internationaltwork comprises51 campuses across 13 states and Washington DC Last
year 87% of graduates from our schools earned not only their high school diploma but alsory certifications and dual college credit. our ultimate goal at the excelenter is for students to land good jobs filling workforce demands and earning benefits and opportunities for growth. Every state where we operate the excelenter every I I'll be quick I promise every state where we operate the excelenter provides funding to
support the school except for the state of Arkansas. despite that the two campuses here are some of our highest performing across the network they perform well in retention, attendance and college and career readiness. The certifications offered to students in Arkansas have some of the highest quality in our network. Students have options like pharmacy technician welding certified medical assistant. you heard Rachel talking about the studies that have been done we see our students moving out of the service industry and into higher paying fields such as healthcare
this is definitely playing out here in Arkansas as members of the nationalwork the educators who work at your schools here have access to high quality professional development from our network that includes learnaring labs positional huddles where they can work with their peers across the country to share best practices and problem solve and our national conference as you heard we'll be here in Mayh hosting our national conference right here in littlettleRock and we're excited for our educators across the country to come learn from what the work that's happening here in Arkansas
Every diploma earned through the excelenter strengthens the household a workplace and a hometown. So I strongly urge you to consider supporting the excelenter in expansion attempts across the state. I'm gonna pass back to you and and
Speaker 32
25:07
to wrap up there's a critical need for adult education in our state. This is not a small scale issue it is statewide challenge as stated more than300,000 adults in the state of Arkansas do not have a high school diploma. People working hard to provide
for their families but too often locked out of higher paying jobs and training programs many of these arekansans left high school because life got in the way teen pregnancy, financial strain, unstable home environments frequent moves or legal troubles some have tried to earn a GED but found the process too difficult. Roughly half the students who walk through the doors of the goodwill excelenter have already tried and failed the GED exam.
several times a test alone cannot make up for years of interrupted learning and for many it's simply not a realistic path. a state certified high school diploma is different it's the same credential traditional high school students earn. issued by the Arkansas Department of Education. it carries more weight with employers and postsecondary institutions and as you've heard from Rachel University of Notre Dame's lab forconomic
opportunities shows that people with a diploma earn significantly more than those without one or even with a GED. as we shape the future of adult education in Arkansas. we cannot afford to limit the potential of our people we must champion multiple pathways including diploma granting high schools so every Arkansan has the opportunity to finish their education uplift their family and drive our state's prosperity toward forward to ignite
financial transformation. thank you for your attention and your commitment to Arkansas's adult learners. thank you very much
Senator Jane English
Unverified
27:06
so senatorulllivan you know I'm sitting back here and I'm a little
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
27:13
I take issue with some of the things you say. you started your comments
out by Arkansas is one of the worst in the nation if not the worst.umber one I think you said I don't have the exact statement when we are right in
the middle of some of the most progressive innovative programs in the nation with access and learns the example and I I'm kind of wondering how much of this is the fault of the state and how much of that responsibility falls to the individual the the que the point you made about an individual you said had all these learning prob or problems and you said life gets in the way. you know that is not the fault of the state that life
gets from the way necessarily but by your opening statement it seems to like that we are really at fault when again we are one of the most progressive forward moving states in the nation. I think teacher pay was one of them. some of the things with learns and access so I'm not opposed to your study at all. I think it's really necessary and a good thing. I think you close with every Arkansan has an opportunity
every Arkansan does have an opportunity now this is not new and again I think we've made huge progress in that so I'm a little I don't know what I am. I'm not very happy with the fact that we start out asking the legislature to approve a program when you tell us we're last and worst in the nation So what
when when these life gets in the way
how much of the problems that we're having in adult education are due to the state and due to shortcomings
Speaker 20
29:16
thank you senatorlulllivan, I appreciate that the point I made was just a statement of the number of adults without a high school diploma as a portion of
Speaker 32
29:24
our adult population well you can I'm telling you what I
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
29:28
understood you to say that's the way I took it. you can say it
however you want to say it. I'm kind of tired of people coming in front of this body and telling us how bad we are or how bad the state is so and then you go on to explain and your group goes on to explain how you can help the people who have according to your last statement missed the opportunity the opportun's there would you agree with the state the opportunity is there
Speaker 32
29:59
the opportunity for these adults who did not gain their high
Speaker 20
30:04
school diploma by age 19 and have have gone beyond that have very limited opportunities for an education and to attain a high school diploma in the state. The one opportunity they have for a high school diploma is the good is the goodwill celenter that is the opportunity they have the other opportunity that they have is the GED which is an equivalency diploma which is just a test but they don't read at a grade point level that allows them to pass that test that was
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
30:34
the statement I was making so the again if the key word there is opportunity if the opportunity is there at the state I mean right now we're holding students back to third grade to get them to read. we're working at the very things you're talking about and I just again it's concerning to me that we talk about the these things without recognizing the critical events that are happening in the state of Arkansas and with that I closed thank you madam chairir.
Representative David Ray
Unverified
31:07
thank you uhpresentativeRay thank you thank you madam chairir. So, um, I have just a couple of questions and and comments maybe to piggyback on the presentation. the first thing is I I was shot this is an area that I've done some work in previously and so I'm always shocked when I hear this number that there's300,000 adults in the state of Arkansas that don't have a high school diploma and if you if you think about that
sometimes when we look at ho numbers we don't see it in context but if you look at our population as a state what we're saying is basically one out of every 10 Arkansans is an adult that does not have the most basic education credential required to compete in the workplace. and that is striking to me so one of the things that you know, I've noticed as I've tried to learn a little bit more about this field is that you know we
we invest as a state we spend a lot of money on adult edd I think it's like $20 million a year but one of the things that I love about what you guys do at the xcelent and others is that you know y'all are not a governmentrun entity. you're a nonprofit and so your mission your your your missionfocused and your your vision focused and there's for profit companies that operate in this space too and they obviously have profit motive and and there are a lot of
incentives that lead to better outcomes when you have competition. So I'm wondering if you can speak if one of you could speak to the role that the mission and vision of of
Speaker 20
32:55
goodwill plays in in what you do. thank you uhpresentativeRay goodwill's mission, our mission statement is changing lives through education training and employment. The foundation for that is education we believe that with an education and the
proper tools and the the access to the opportunity individuals can then set their own path and so goodwill we are a nonprofit we're one of 140 goodwills in the US only 15 goodwills are all of a state so we are blessed and also slightly burdened by our organization is responsible for serving the state of Arkansas we're working to identify opportunities to offer the
excelenterperience and that opportunity to people across the state right now we're limited on that to the two campuses that we operate but it is it is absolutely about connect ing people with those opportunities so that they can change that pathway yeah thank you for that. The other
Representative David Ray
Unverified
34:00
thing I wanted to ask you about as you mentioned some of the wrapparound services that you provide
and I think this gets to the point that I made about the distinction between having just sort of a staterun one size fits
all model and sort of unique providers that are in the nonprofit or forprofit space in addition to what the state provides you mentioned specifically child care and transportation can you just elaborate a little bit on
Speaker 19
34:34
so much for that one of the things that does set the excelent apart is that piece of free childcare. We know that childcare is you know a barrier for many individuals in
our state whether it's to go to school or to go to work and we have done our best to remove as many barriers as possible and that includes the big one of childcare. So we do offer free childcare for all students on both campuses we offer transportation vouchers I mentioned in talking about the student Caitlin our recent graduate that was a game changer for her because she, you know, had bus passes to get back and forth to campus. other wrapround services that we provide are
that career piece because as as Bryan mentioned our mission is changing lives through education training and employment. So our goal is employment and entry into the workforce so those wrapround services are provided that include you know resume creation mock interviews in the field that they've chosen those types of things in order to get them that job that they or career that they're dreaming of. OK thank you. I I
Representative David Ray
Unverified
35:51
appreciate your answer there and and just to close out on Senator Sullivan's comments. I agree with a lot of what he said and I am in agreement with him on the transformative nature of what we're doing with learns and with with access and all of that I just wanna just kind of point out just for the benefit of the committee that the population group that that you guys are focused on serving are adults these are people who for whatever reason whether it was a a teenage pregnancy whether it was a high school kid that
had to be a caregiver in their home. they didn't make it through the system. Maybe they were in a bad, they were maybe they were in a completely dysfunctional school district when they were going through high school and you guys are trying to come back along and attack this workforce problem from the other end of the spectrum so I appreciate what y'all do thank you.
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
36:53
Senator flowers yes this is a proposed interim study
proposal and I would think we want to adopt the ISp before going forward with all this testimony and I would make a motion to adopt Do I hear a second second all in favor all opposed
Speaker 65
37:39
will consider this redo it Senator Love
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
37:58
You know what, I'm not on the committee and so I think you all need to redo that vote
Speaker 70
38:07
just just a point of order. I'm sorry. thank Umpresentative Brown well if we're going to redo it I still have
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
38:17
a question so I've wanted to get in line. Well I think that's the purpose of the
Senator Jane English
Unverified
38:26
interim study so we can ask ask all these questions and and begin to look at it as a proposal for the just was curious about
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
38:33
some of the numbers that's all that's ok I'm sure there'll be a discussion about that p re
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
38:49
s ent ative Duke thank you madam Chair. I guess I have a question in when we're doing the interim study proposal and they present and we're gonna
vote on whether we're going to move forward with a proposal or not but we don't get to ask a question that might help clarify how we
Senator Jane English
Unverified
39:08
want to vote on that normally we don't normally we don't have a huge great huge discussion is is worthwhile discussion but we don't usually have a diss this kind of a discussion it goes into the interim proposal and that discussion around that OK it just seems a little interesting that
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
39:23
we vote on something but we can't ask questions about it before we vote on it to decide if maybe we
would support it. The assumption is that we're going to support it which I mean is fine I guess it just I had a question that was a little bit relevant to me on I mean it was there's just a numbers question but was not afforded the opportunity to ask that question might not have changed my vote but it might have. I mean, I might actually vote no which wouldn't surprise any of my house members that I might vote no on something but you know I just don't really understand what just happened here. I think I'm gonna have a few other members who feel the same way.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
40:06
00 Representative beatty would like to hear what the representative's question
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
40:20
was now go ahead well it wasn't anything earth shattering thank you madam chair but I just was wanting some insight on what
adult programs and funding we already currently have and are doing as that that study occurred so that was an and RepresentativeRay had answered a little bit of that when he talked about the the
money that I think he has said $20 million that was already out there but I was curious on a little bit more hard numbers of what the state was currently doing as we study whether we want to do
Senator Jane English
Unverified
40:49
more or shift money somewhere else. think probably your your point is well taken and I think that it would be really important for us to take a look at what we're doing with adult education and and we're and we have a couple of other programs that are in that same arena that are not part of state government but our
private sector type things so I think your your point is and as part of this whole study we need to know exactly what we're doing and how successful we are with the GedD program adult education that we've got right now so you have a good point I'll make a point but it's probably not something that we can answer today because we don't have anybody here that can come up with all those answers that makes sense thank
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
41:36
you'll just make one additional point to in the
hopes of endeavoring to not lose the forest for the trees that the proposal itself was that the ALC committee referred back to us a report that includes without limitations a study of just without being specific to the excelent or goodwill GEd tests high school diplomas inperson adult education charter schools and the allocation of fundings for those so the ISp does look at it from a larger perspective. I also think I agree that we kind of took a motion I wanna say in order out of order nevertheless the motion
was taken it passed. I would say if anyone hasn't had the opportunity to yet, I would encourage you to make contact with Bryan and his team following this to either get a tour of in northwest Arkansas the excelenter or here in LittleRock you this is a a great discussion the work that they do is very worthy that the the decision making or the value that we place on funding x y and z we'll leave that for a different day as the study comes back it it brings truth to reality when you go and tour it. so I would encourage everybody here to reach out to Brian and his team.
I'm I'm sure he'll take all of us one by one or in a big field trip or something to see it
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
43:01
in real life. thank you Representative Brown, thank you madam Chair. this is not to quibble but it was a little confusing if if our population is3300,000 would
represent more than 10% of our adults you know because300,000 would be 10% of the entire population so300,000 represents more than 10% of the adults then the other thing I wanted to point out our questo concern of40 there was a statement that49% decrease in criminal charges. I was curious is that49% of the people who already had criminal charges
or just a general decrease over the population And
if I'm responding to what the question I was allowed to ask to just identify my questions that's all I'm doing. I'm not waiting for answers and I
was wondering if Excelents are only available through Goodwill and That ought to do it thank you if y'all could just address that
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
44:14
later thank you real quick if you so you're you're stating that in the record so that staff could follow up with the goodwill industries
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
44:23
of Arkansas pleaseon thank you Senator flowers thank you madam
chair you know as I read the the proposal that we have now adopted for interim study it appears that the further work on this study is going to go
through the houseittee onducation and so I don't think it's appropriate that we have all these questions at this meeting when we're we've got adequacy and we've almost spent a whole hour on an interim study proposal that we had not even adopted so I would ask that we end the discussion on the interim study proposal and leave it for scheduling with the house committee on education
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
45:18
iss there what is your point of order? just move on oh ok understood. I mean but I think it's ok to have discussion that's the point it's on our agenda today. People came from all over the state so I understand what your point it's not meritless though I think we should have discussion if it's on an agenda it's been set out for over a week I understand you made your point we made the motion that's it's proposed but if you want to if you want to make a motion to end debate I think you should have done that but you made a motion to adopt the proposal we're still just
having some discussion they're speaking into the record so that staff can follow up with you with Goodwill Arkansas Goodwill Industries of Arkansas. I don't think that's totally meritless in the discussion
Unknown speaker
46:40
Waste is your word. if is there a time you want us to leave by?
Speaker 1
47:30
Thank you. OK moving right along So our next next presentation
Senator Jane English
Unverified
47:42
is going to be by Adrian beck and Katie Walden no we're not to do that we're gonna talk about the adequacy funding
Speaker 114
48:36
Yes Good afternoon ladies thank you for
Senator Jane English
Unverified
48:55
being here and if you will identify yourself she'll be recognized thank you madam chairman and good afternoon members Katie
Speaker 120
49:06
Walden Blr fiscal division Adrianne beck also with the bureau thank you
Speaker 125
50:04
just one second I think the computer is not quite connected right? So just one moment.
Speaker 129
51:04
go ahead Good afternoon. I'm Adrian beck with the bureau and we're going to be going over the funding overview as part of
Speaker 131
51:25
the adequacy study so we're gonna start with a look at adequacy statute requirements on this topic.
Speaker 129
51:31
so the continuing adequacy evaluation Act of 2004
requires the education committees to review and monitor the amount of funding provided by the state based on need to provide an adequate educational system not based on available funding it also requires the committees to make funding recommendations each biennial. and this is all to be done using evidencebased research to recalibrate as needed. So in today's presentation we're
Speaker 131
52:06
gonna start with some national research on K-12 education funding models before we dig into
Speaker 129
52:12
Arkansasc specific information and as we dig into Arkansas's K12 public education funding model we'll start with revenues including a discussion of what these are how they're collected and how they're distributed at the state level and then we'll talk about how these revenues are then distributed to the districts and charters in the form of foundation categorical supplemental and additional funding.
Speaker 131
52:40
With that we'll start with some national information. First, we have some information from the national commission national
Speaker 129
52:47
conference of State Legislatures known as NCSl so they define the state education a state finance education system as one representing a comprehensive framework that governs how educational resources are raised allocated
Speaker 131
52:58
and managed across multiple levels of government d d ition ally in 2023
Speaker 129
53:04
according to the most recently available data from NCSs the National Center for Educational Statistics
state funds make up the largest portion of K12 public education revenues at45% across all states with local sources making up42% and the remaining 12%13% coming from federal sources. so NCSl also updated their principles for a sound education finance system in 2025 so we're gonna go over these briefly so we have the lodar and they refer
to this as meaning a sound finance education system begins with and supports the overarching vision and supports the using the overarching vision and mission of the entire educational system equity which means that the system adjusts fors student needs school district characteristics and local economic capacity to ensure resources are proportional to need then we have adequacy which means that a sound education finance system provides
sufficient resources across the system to achieve reasonable and manageable goals of the statewide education system efficiency which means that the system aligns resource allocations at every level to the goals of the statewide education system while enabling flexible decisions closest to students where the impact is greatest c co un t ability which means that the system promotes accountability through transparency and includes the ability to link financial decisions to the goals of the
statewide educational system and then finally stability meaning that a sound education finance system should deliver stable funds for schools and school systems by relying on a mix of revenue sources that behave predictably over time. so another set of principles was released by theucation commission of the states or ECS in2025 and we're gonna go over those briefly as well and you'll see an overlap here with some of NCSL's principals
but their first one is transparency so this means that the state so state aid is allocated using a formula that is simple, logical, clearly articulated and informed by students families, teachers and school leaders. The next one is
Speaker 131
55:31
studentcented this means that funding is allocated based on
Speaker 129
55:36
learning needs of students with a focus on improving outcomes hi rd one is also adequate as
mentioned in NCSL so they refer to adequate as providing sufficient resources to provide a high quality education for all students and to meet state achievement goals for student learning. fairy is the next one and this means that resources are prioritized to schools where students have the most complex learning needs in districts where local resources are most limited. and then our last one is sustainable meaning schools have a dependable level of state
resources that allows district leaders to plan multiple years in advance and invest in services with confidence going forward So a quick look at some other funding models in other states so ECsducation commissioner of the states did a 50 state comparison in 2025 of state K12 funding models and identified four models used so this includes a studentbas model meaning districts receive a base amount per student with
Speaker 131
56:49
additional money or weights to address other needs then we have a resourcebased model meaning districts receive sufficient funding to pay for bishop funding to pay for minimum required services like staffing or programs and then we have a hybrid system
Speaker 129
57:07
which is a combination of these two unique to the state and then 1/4 model identified as other essentially any kind of other system not identified here and there were only a handful of
states across the country and that had this model and specifically for a regional perspective we're gonna identify use the SEB states the southern Regional Education Board of states and identify their funding models as identified by as defined by ECS so there were several states, most of those S3B states were identified as having a student's space studentba model which includes Arkansas
then five other states had a resource based system and then one other state had the hybrid model and none of
Speaker 137
57:56
the SEB states had the other model a defined by ECS. So
Speaker 129
58:04
that's going to bring us into where we're gonna spend most of our time today which is discussing Arkansas's education funding model so as I mentioned earlier we're going to begin with revenues received to fund public K-12 education in Arkansas.
in 2025 K12 public education state and local revenues total6.6 billion dollars and I will first explain what sources of funds are included in that6.6 billion then Katty is going to go over how these revenues are collected and distributed at the state level and then we'll conclude with a review of how these revenues are then distributed at the district level. So we'll start with our revenue sources you'll see here state
and local revenues over the past five school years in 20253.1 billion of that total6.6 billion or47% came from state sources with local funds making up3 billion or45% and that remaining500 million comes from missile or other funds that we'll talk over in future slides but you'll see this pattern for this makeup from state and local funds has changed a little bit over the
past few years so in the 21 school year state funds made up53% of total revenues with local funds making up44% so you'll see that local funds are now making up more of total revenues and state funds are making up less. and as a note you'll notice that federal funds are not included here since they're not a part of adequacy but I will provide you some details about federal funding later in the presentation for additional context and with that I will pass it over to Katty
Speaker 120
59:56
thank you members so building off of that bar chart that you all just
Speaker 146
1:00:01
saw I'm going to kind of go over the different funding types that go into creating an equitable education for districts the first piece that I want to identify are the other funds you'll see that makes up 8% of the funds that go to districts these are classified as other by Department of Education in the annual statistical report and these are districtscific sources of
funding and they include they're outside of tax revenues so that includes debt taken on by the districts it includes proceeds from the sales of bonds and fixed assets any balances that they have as well as indirect cost reimbursements so I just want to name that those are district decisions they're districtific sources of funds but we do record and report them annually so moving on to our state funding I'm going to spend the most of my time talking about this section you'll see that we have general
revenue and we also have dedicated general or dedicated tax revenue resources for our education here. First beginning with general
Speaker 120
1:01:10
revenue each year the governor allocates and you all fund a general
Speaker 146
1:01:14
revenue amount for the public school fund for the division of elementary and secondary education. desi, which I'll also interchangeably refer to it. they receive the largest share of general revenues of any
Speaker 120
1:01:32
agency each year and Fy2025 they received2.4 billion dollars for K-12 education for this allocation and this total award each year is calculated considering several factors first it is including
Speaker 146
1:01:47
all historically it is including recommendations by the educational adequacy study it also includes calculated projections in local property revenue growth to accurately fund state foundation funding for traditional public schools as well as charter
Speaker 120
1:02:04
schools. They also include considerations for projected movement in public schools for example if they are anticipating or have seen declining enrollment or growth in districts also increased eligibility reduced eligibility for certain categorical
Speaker 146
1:02:16
expenditures. all this is taken into consideration when ADE is putting together the budget and when the governor presents her balanced budget to you all and also any other needs that are identified by the department of Education or any member bills that are passed during
legislative session anything that's appropriated by law that needs to be funded any new program that is created it is all accounted for when they consider this general revenue budget amount. so ADE tabulates their budget request and they present it to you all during budget hearings. accommodating all of these considerations and then we as staff are directed to draft the bill depending on what joint budget committee indicates that we do and then that bill is introduced
and it is integrated during the regular session and ultimately changed or not changed and then passed into law for the next fiscal year. As I stated before the desi public school fund received $2.4 billion in general revenue funding by this allocation and it was enacted in Act 1014 of2025. so that's the general revenue. Now I'm going to dig down into dedicated revenue streams also provided for education each year.
and before I before I leave this behind I want to mention there's one revenue that is not on this slide it is about $2 million in transit taxes and you'll see it mentioned in the budget manual if you look this was passed in 2006 but it is it's so small that it didn't get a a a face on the slide but there was in 2006 there was an increase in rental vehicle taxes that was passed and it goes straight into the public school fund to help fund salaries for teachers so that is also included in this dedicated
stream. but the two major funds that I want to mention today are the educational excellence Trust Fund and theducational adequacyund. First the educational excellence Trustund is funded with an a quote off the top deduction from gross general revenues and this amount is distributed or the amount distributed is 14% of prior year sales and use tax collections. so we know at the beginning of the year that 14% of the tax collections is going to go to Department of Ed and institutions of higher education
as directed in law to help find the educational excellencerustund. it was created in 1991 to provide additional funding for teacher salaries and to support other programs of educational opportunity. In2025 32 $0 million was transferred from the educational excellence Trustund and this represents60% growth in the annual distribution when compared to the distribution that happened in 2015. so this fund continues
to grow consistently as our tax revenues grow as the economy grows. and these funds are used by Desi to provide a portion of the state foundation funding aid distributed to public school districts and it is supposed to be used for teacher salaries. Next I
Speaker 152
1:05:33
want to discuss with you the educational adequacy
Speaker 146
1:05:36
fun. This was created to fund adequacy after the Lakeview decision and it derives its funding from a seven8 cents sales tax increase the expansion
of sales taxes to some services vending machine decal fees and an increased minimum corporate franchise tax. as well as some a portion of dyed diesel tax revenue. also want to mention that the educational adequacy fund revenues are a little bit different because they are held at the department of finance anddministration and each month revenue
from these taxes come in and they're held and those funds continue to collect and the department of Education draws those funds down upon request atdFNA so each year at the beginning of the year they certify their total need that they think they will need to fund adequacy and they write a letter to the department of financedministration saying we need this much and then that money will flow as the revenues become available. it's also available if the Department of Education has an emergency or
needs to come back to that fund at any time if there is a balance they can write another letter asking for more money to be drawn down so it's kind of a safety net to continue to fund adequacy as needed. and the purpose of this fund I want to mention in code it just states that it is to fulfill the financial obligation of the state to provide an adequate educational system as authorized by law so it's for adequacy OK, so those are all the state
funds that we dedicate annually to education. I just want to touch quickly on the local sources of funding as well local revenues are the funds that build the the the building block for foundation. so these are the property taxes and tax relief, tax accruals delinquent taxes, excess commissions and all these funds are collected by the counties and then they are transmitted to the state treasurer counted certified and then returned to the counties to be distributed for the district
so this is the local portion of the foundation funds when we're talking about the local funding and you can see they come from a variety of sources it's the tax revenue and there's also miscellaneous funds like rental income, donations, sales, vending machine revenues. it's the catchall. those are all the miscellaneous funds so those are the local funds Next I'm going to talk about the collection and distribution at the state level of funding
Speaker 120
1:08:20
for the public school fund the department of Education operations appropriation and the facilitiesartnership programme. For the public
Speaker 146
1:08:29
school fund you'll see this is the primary account used to to distribute state funds to traditional public schools and open enrollment public charter schools. As I mentioned before they had their set general revenue allocation that is proposed by the governor and ultimately decided upon by you all. there's also the off the top transfer
from the educational excellence Trust Fund and also transfers from the educational adequacy fun as requested by the department of Education. all three of those allocations go into the public school fund on top of any balances that are already there. to create the full public school fund allocation for the year. The Department of Education can then use their appropriations to pay the districts and charters for their foundation amounts for categorical spending for all the supplemental items and any other
items that are appropriated or under their watch that are appropriated in the public school fund so that's how the money kind of goes in and comes back out for the public school fund Next we'll look at the department of Education oh I'm sorry. so here is the summary for the last 5 years that you'll see and as I mentioned for 2025 you'll see 2.44 billion in general revenue the educational excellence in blue at321 million and the educational adequacy fund transfer and for the last
three years the department of edd has requested594 million to be transferred at the beginning of each year so you can kind of see the trends there Next we'll talk about the department of Education operations The Department of Education also received general revenue educational excellencerust fund and the educational adequacy funding to provide for the implementation of statewide programs provided in law. This is their staff, their
operations, their accountability programs for the districts similar to the public school fund ADE receives annual funding from general revenue EETF and theducational adequacy Fund. all three of those allocations go into the desi fundc account and then that money is spent on staff programming and initiatives of the department And here is the funding bar chart for Desie 18.3 million in general revenue
1.6 million in educational excellence trust funds and their educational adequacy fund transfer has been flat for the last many years. it's been4.3 million The last section I want to remember I want to mention just briefly are the educational facilities partnership
Speaker 120
1:11:15
funds the educational facilitiesartnershipundc account is the account used for the distribution of aid for programs providing academic school
Speaker 146
1:11:25
facility and transportation assistance to public school districts. This account consists of general revenues and monies transferred from a restricted reserve funds set aside they also receive bonded debt assistance savings from the public school fund each year so that is considered a transfer it's not considered new money and so we have the same kind of flow chart you'll see they have their designated state revenue which many years ago it was an allocation from general revenue
but now there is a restricted reserve fund set aside that the education department has access to to draw down on and then also the bonded debt assistants savings those monies are combined and put into the partnership fund account and that money sits there to be used as needed for eligible projects with school districts for the facility's partnership program Looking at the chart you'll see
we from 2021 to2023, these were all general revenue allocations, new money provided to the facilities'artnership programme. then in 2024 you all set aside500 million dollars in a restricted reserve fund set aside for the facilities partnership program to use each year to annual to fund their projects each year. I want to mention that you'll see a big spike in 2024. that's because ADE actually funded two years of projects. there was one transfer in July of 2023 for $83
million and that was to cover the Fy24 projects. then there was another transfer in April of 2024 and that was kind of anticipating the 2025 project. so they covered two years of funding in one year NFy2 4 so you'll see in fy 25 there were zero transfers and then I'll mention also an Fy26 we have transferred60 million for the partnership program. and that leaves the balance of that restricted reserve funds set aside at 292 million so we
still have 292 million left to live off of. So though that's my summary of the local state and other funding as well as the collection and distribution of funding to districts and for ADE and the
Speaker 148
1:13:41
partnership programme. thank you members So I'll
Speaker 131
1:13:48
take back over and we're gonna get into
Speaker 129
1:13:51
Arkansas's education funding model and focus on how those revenues are distributed to the districts and charters so they received these funds in
four primary ways we have foundation categorical supplemental and additional funds and as romanda broke being strictly at state and local funds we're not going to this will not include federal so foundation funds make up56% of total funds received by districts and charters in the 25 school year and additional funds made up35% categorical made up five and then the remaining4% came from supplemental and in a response to a
question that came up in our last adequacy meeting foundation funding is unrestricted categoricals are restricted supplementals are mostly unrestricted and then additional are mix and we'll get into more of those today and then tomorrow's presentation about spending so we're going to dig into each of these groups starting with foundation funds which is where I'm going to spend the most of this time at. So foundation funds are made up of four primary components. First we
have local funds this refers to the uniform rate of tax or URT and this is the 1st 25 mils of milllage money that's received from local property taxes and then our 2nd and 3rd sources are both from the state but they are distinct from each other so we have the 98% adjustment this is provided to ensure that 98% of a local district's property taxes are met if collections fall short then we have the state foundation aid and this is the state's portion to offset
foundation funds that are not covered by the URT and then finally we have miscellaneous fines and these are districtific and include the following so these are primarily like some federal funds federal forest reserves grazing rights mineral rights and you can see how that list continues there and yeah yeah like I said these are an assortment of primarily federal funds so there is a mix there So I want to dig into the
proportion of how those funds kind of settle out so in $20253.7 billion in was distributed in foundation funds to districts and charters over half of those funds came through state foundation aid with43% coming from local URT funds with a 98% adjustment and then miscellaneous funds each making up 1% respectively though it is important to note it is to a difference in the distribution between districts and charters so with districts steps split is
primarily happening with traditional districts and then with charters because they don't have a traditional tax base like traditional districts do their foundation funds are 100% state funded. and this is showing you how that has played out for the last few school years so you'll see the amount of state funds used in foundation funding has slightly decreased from almost60% in the22 school year with almost up to almost55% in the25 school
year with a corresponding increase in use of local funds and so we're going to dig into that trend a little bit more here in the next few slides. So in Arkansas we have what are referred to often as URT distri c t s or high URT districts and these are districts that are not receiving state foundation aid in any particular individual school year because their local revenues are covering all of their foundation funding needs so in 2025 we had eight of these districts shown here
and for context with some additional data the 2025 perudentoundation funding amount was7,771 dollars and we'll discuss how that amount is calculated and a a little bit later in this presentation but for now you can see the total per student amount raised through each district's property taxes and then how that compares to the foundation funding amount so you'll see that the amount above what they needed in foundation funds range from400
dollars per student up to $8000 per student which is nearly which is more than double what the foundation funding amount was and this came to $19 million in 2025. So to help illustrate this phenomenon the following table includes details on two districts that have regularly been you a URT district in past years so that's armorel and Fountain Lake and then two districts that became one for the first time in the 25 school
year and that's Marvil Olane in Pulaski Countypecial school district. so you'll see a range of funding amounts generated in local taxes as well as in miscellaneous fines and those are used to determine the amount of state aid so they're combined with local funds to determine how much state foundation funding aid is needed so you'll see for armorre for example received more than $2 million in pulaski in miscellaneous funds in Pulaski County received almost $93 million in their local tax collection.
and you'll also see a range of average daily membership or ADMs and this is what's used to determine foundation funding but this is so you'll see a range of district sizes that this is impacting or this is occurring at and I'll dig into a couple of these new ones to the marvellane in Pulaski County school district since they are new to becoming to this phenomenon so we're going to dig into those two districts and some of their
data for the past few years. So starting with Marvill Olane so you'll see their local tax revenue increased by 15% points between 22 and25. and though they're miscellaneous funds decreased by7 percentage points during that time but overall increase of local and miscellaneous funds and then you'll notice they ADM their prior year three quarter Am this is a specific enrollment count that's used to determine foundation funding you'll see that has been decreasing during
that same time. So in short as our local revenues are increasing their and their AdM is decreasing there is more local revenue available per student and eventually s ur pa s s ed the foundation funding amount in the 25 school year. and then the next district that we'll go over this is the Pulaski Countypecial school district so a slightly different scenario but you'll see an overall increase in local and miscellaneous funds 27% overall though there was a larger increase in miscellaneous funds
during that time but you'll see that they're ADM remain relatively steady in comparison to marvillelane. but you'll see in short the same phenomenon is happening where the local revenues increased and eventually generated more per student in then their foundation funding amount needed. and for historical component on the ADm overall for the state we're going to look at how
that's changed in the past few school years so as a reminder this is foundation funding is distributed to traditional districts and charters based on prior year ADM and though this is a little bit different for open enrollment charter schools with they're in their first year adding grade levels expanding enrollment caps they have they'll use a current year count but otherwise it's all prior year but in 2025 foundation funding was provided
based on469,791 students so that drops statewide by less than a percentage point over the past couple of school years though that same ADM increased particularly in charter schools by 16% points so it is increasing decreasing statewide but increasing amongst open enrollment public charters. and as a enough to think this came up
Speaker 131
1:22:11
in our last adequacy meeting the AdM has been in use since the 203 so the ADA
Speaker 129
1:22:17
hasn't been used at least in the
last 20 years or the average daily attendance I should say so we're going to go over the matrix. this is the mechanism that's used to determine the amount of foundation funding and again this is unrestricted and you'll hear that if you haven't already but that this is a funding model not a spending model so that's where this comes into play but the matrix calculates a per student funding rate based on the cost of personnel and other resources for operating a K12
prototypical school of500 students so that500 student model evolved from the prevailing research back in 2003 that showed that schools not districts with500 students operate at most efficiently and produced the best results in terms of academic achievement. Arkansas legislators took an educational consultants on Nius who converted he used a p per school funding approach and the state converted that to
a per pupil funding approach using500 students as the basis. therefore it takes500 students to fully fund each resource listed in the matrix. and of the 259 districts and charters 21% had an average daily membership of below500 with open enrollment public charter schools, a48% of those having an AdM below500 in the25 school year.
of those500 students the matrixxxxsumes an enrollment of 8% students for kindergarten 23% in firstt through third grades and69% of those in fourth through 12th grades and you'll see those ratios here with the number of classroom teachers funded based on the class size and student to teacher ratios so noncore teachers also referred to as specialist teachers or pm as you see in the matrix these are funded based on 20% of the total core teachers.
So in all 24.94 core and noncore classroom full time equivalent or FTE teachers are included in the matrixx for every500 students. in
Speaker 131
1:24:39
addition the to the in addition to this teachers and student support personnel
Speaker 129
1:24:44
the matrixx also calculates funding for one principal and one secretary for every500 students so the staffing ratios that are included in the matrixx are not necessarily the same ones required in the rules governing the standards for accreditation
or rules governing class size and teaching load. and these are so in short these are the school staff positions that are identified as necessary for an adequate education. So the the matrixx calculates funding needed for the total reading for the number of FTE staff listed here for every500 students using salary and benefit amounts that will go over in the next sli so the matrixx includes the base salary insurance and benefit amounts for teaching positions
principals and secretaries as adopted by the general assembly. and as a note the teacher's salary and benefit amount applies to all schoolle staffing positions we've covered in the last slide so all of these are converted to a per student amount in the following way. so you'll take the total FEs the ones we noted in the last slide and multiply that by the respective salary and benefits amount and then we'll divide that by500 students which is the basis of the matrix. so for
example you would take the total33.6 9 classroom teachers and pupil support staff and multiplied that by the76,022 dollars benefit and salaries amount divide that by500 and you arrive at the5,122 amount and all of that to explain is these are going to get com combined to make help make up that total7,771 dollars per student amount. the next part of the matrixx
covers school and district level resources including technology instructional materials operations and maintenance and student transportation along with a few others and these are all funded using a flat per student amount that's adopted by the general assembly and the per student amounts provide for schoolle personnel, schoolle resources as well as districtle resources and these are all combined to get a total per student amount and along
with the staffing schoolle staffing p persu amounts to get that total7,771 dollars for the 25 school year. Additionally in the 27 school year upcoming the health insurance contribution rate noted here is the all other personnel healthal insurance line will no longer be calculated as the overall per student per pupil foundation funding rate. So this shows how that per student foundation funding
amount has changed in the last 10 years overall with a few exceptions individual line amounts haven't changed that much over time but there has been a steady increase in the total per student amount that's been distributed in the last several So our next group of funds that districts and charters received is in form of our categorical funding so we have four of these as shown here and these are funds that have been created to address additional educational
needs they are restricted in use to meet the intent of each respective fund. However, they can be transferred within each other to meet needs at the district level. So ALEe which is our alternative learning environment categorical fund this is designed to to eliminate traditional barriers to learning for students then we have English learnarer or EL funds and these are used to overcome language barriers that impede equal participation by students in instructional program
s enhanced student achievement or ESA formerly renown as the national school lunch program this is used to improve instruction and increase academic achievement of students who qualify for the national free and reduced price lunch programme and then finally professional development which is designed to or has the intent of improving teaching and learning to facilitate individual schoolwide and systemwide improvements to ensure that students participate
or demonstrate proficiency on state academic standards. so these are the p per student funded amounts for the 25 school year and the corresponding total funded amounts for that same school year. so for ALE the alternative learningvi fun these students generate5,086 dollars per student coming to 2 just 28 approximately 28 million for the 25 school year English learnarer students generate366 dollars per student or 16 million in 25.
ESA students generate three different amounts depending on the concentration of free or reduced price lunch students at the district and then finally for pd or professional development all students generate41 dollars per student though while these other three funds are distributed to a specific student population professor in development funds are distributed to the entire student population so all students would generate a professional development funding
amount for each school perspective district though you'll see an asterisx and this is because these funds are distributed out and two other ways that the categorical other categorical funds do not so we're gonna get into this a little bit more but in short districts receive37 dollars50 cents and the other portions of that41 dollars go to two other mechanism or entities here so in 2025 professional development funds were first
directed towards professional learning grants in the amount of $16.5 million so this is making up45% of total professional development categorical funds and we'll get into more of the details about how this program operates tomorrow's presentation but the next group after the professional learning grants funds is for Arkansas ideas within AETN Arkansas Educational television Network and this is in the amount of
$2.7 million or7% of all professional development categorical funds and then the remaining $17.7 million goes to districts and charters through that37 dollars50 cents per student amount and this makes up uh45% of48% of
Speaker 137
1:31:27
all professional development categorical funds so that takes us to our supplemental fund category and there were
Speaker 129
1:31:36
8 of these and these are all designed where they were
all created with the intention of meeting additional specific needs that districts may have not already met by the matrixx or categoricals so the first one is enhanced transportation which is provided to help districts and charters cov cover transportation costs that are above what is covered in foundation funding then we have our ESA or enhanced student achievement matching grants the support schools and charters that use specific researchbas practices to help
students who qualify for free or reduced price lunches then we have our special education high cost occurrences which is a reimbursement me funding mechanism for districts and charters for eligible costs that are unduly expensive extraordinary or beyond the normal in routine special education and related services and then isolated funds these are provided to districts with low enrollment or geographic challenges
then we also have a teacher salary equalization funds which are provided to support districts and charters with teacher salaries below the with the below the teacher average teacher salary and then declining enrollment which is of course provided to districts with declining enrollment. Lawren's teacher salary funds are provided to districts to meet requirements set in Act237 of2023 to be made that minimum base salary of50,000
dollars and then finally suiting growth funding which is provided to districts and charters experiencing growth and then then these are the total funding amounts for each of these funds for the 25 school year and then finally additional funds for the 25 school year so that came to3.1 billion dollars for 2025 you'll see those across a few different categories of funds
Speaker 131
1:33:39
there but that takes care that's our final piece of the
Speaker 128
1:33:46
funding model for Arkansas we're happy to take any questions you may have. Thank you
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:34:02
very much. We have some questions here. Representative gonzalez thank you madam Chair.
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
1:34:19
on the matrix on slide37. this is in regard to student support staff. I wanted to can you elaborate what that might include that's a good question. So there's not for any of these lines
Speaker 131
1:34:34
because they're not in statute there's no clear definition for what that is it can include an assortment of positions I don't have that right off the top of my head but I can get those to you but there's no
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
1:34:50
clear definition for each of those. the reason, OK, so that's that's one and it's kind of related to let me see the salaries for ok now going to slide42 the esa or enhanced student achievement to improve instruction and increase academic achievement
Speaker 131
1:35:21
so what would that include so um, in short there's a variety of uses
Speaker 129
1:35:30
that are allowed for the ESA program and our report tomorrow we're going to cover the spending in that report so we're going to get into details about all the
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
1:35:40
different expenditures included there. OK, and then and then in the categorical, I know that you have the ALE alternative learningvi and then the English learnarer
that's slide43 English learnarer students and I guess my questions they they're all kind of related to these different categories. for for example without a clear definition of students support staff in the matrix, instructional assistance or paraprofessionals might that be included in that and and if not then to
what about ESA funds would that for for that group of individual staff support staff, paraprofessionals instructional assistants and then I know that it is spelled out in the categorical funds for English learnarer enter categorical and that would be English learners so I guess I'm just wondering because if because there is such a need right now for positions in the area of instructional assistance and
support academic support and I just wondered I'm I'm new at this but I'm just wondering how that how that works a follow up is I know that we have students who are in special ed they're English learners and they they're also in the ALE and you know when you have you know kind of they're they're in all of these different categories you know how how are they how are we providing that
access to the curriculum for example, within these different categories So so I
Speaker 131
1:37:35
want to go back to the first question and make sure I got it right was about the instructional aids and prepared professionals so in short one we will be getting into that more like a broker record here but some of that will be covered in our spending report tomorrow but I do want to know that instructional aids is one that has been a common it
is often a a use of these categorical funds though we also see them come
Speaker 129
1:38:03
up in other ways that we'll cover tomorrow as well so they but there is quite a bit of expenditures that do
Speaker 73
1:38:16
go towards instructional aid. oh Representative Emmett Thank you madam chairir.
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:38:23
I have a question about the categor categorial
the funny that we're talking about right now one question is special education high cost occurrences can you give me some examples of what is unduly expensive or extraordinary or is that a question for the district I mean for the department I can explain that a little bit and again it'll be a
Speaker 131
1:38:51
broken record that will cover that more in some of the spending in that tomorrow but I will say
that the way those funds work is I don't have these specific examples of
Speaker 129
1:39:05
what those actual expenditures look like but I can tell you that the 1st $15,000 per student will be covered by the district so anything above 15,000 per student. so these are typically I
Speaker 131
1:39:14
think in I could have Desi explain a little bit further if we if needed but these are typically I think any kind of like high nursing needs that might be that might be an example
Speaker 137
1:39:27
of that I don't have the specific types of
expenditures but it's typically above $15,000 that would generate those kind of
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:39:36
claims. OK I have a
second question if I may with the ALE population is at5,00085086 dollars per student on top of of the the foundation funding that's correct. OK so and when does that funding start like once they get placed is it
Speaker 132
1:40:02
like30 days after they are in this setting.
Speaker 131
1:40:07
I don't have it with me but there is a threshold of days that they're in the program before they generate
Speaker 168
1:40:12
funding. um, but we'll cover that a little
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:40:18
bit more as tomorrow as well for that.
Speaker 182
1:40:21
OK, thank you. representative painter thank you madam
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:40:23
chairir. just two quick questions slide49 it says other state local funds include4.5 million for the excelentermind me of the excelent again.
Speaker 131
1:40:35
y s te m so that's typically exclude them because they are not funded the same way as the K12 charter schools
Speaker 129
1:40:41
and for somebody that finishes we just weren't able to pull them out like we normally do so that's why we want to make a note that
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:40:48
they are included in that that's that's included in that4.5 million just want to make sure I do my math right is included in the 1.5 billion ok thank you thank you madam chair. uhpresentativeke thank you madam
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:41:02
chairir. thank you all for your presentation. I always enjoy it
very much I could talk education for a few hours so my question has to do with teacher salary equalization, dollars and I don't know if that's a question for today or if you're going to cover this tomorrow but I'm gonna go ahead and lay it out there so that wherever you need to answer it it's fine with me and so my question is how many districts let me get my glasses back on so I can read my handwriting. how many districts still fall fall in that area of need I think maybe it was 24 or so at one point my number may be off on that and then since the institution of the raising
of the50,000 because I know it was those teachers in that moment of time how has that changed? how many districts do we have that now need that additional because they've increased staff and so the district's having to make up that50,000 because it's not coming from that other bucket of money is my understanding is correct. So has that increased over since we initially since Lawrence initially passed and also has it dropped? I mean have there been districts who have dropped out because their attendance is
dropped and so they haven't needed they've had to maybe do reduction in forces or something like that and so they aren may not in need. so what is
what does that look like now because there's so many moving parts in this space absolutely so I know for sure we're going
Speaker 131
1:42:23
to cover the number of districts that receive that in the tomorrow's presentation and I know we can get you the information about the change if it's not already included in that presentation tomorrow
Speaker 137
1:42:30
we'll absolutely get you the historical but I don't have that with me offhand. OK yeah and and as far as just the movement and
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:42:39
everything that's happened to and all those different districts will you have a list of the districts as well? I don't know if we have it in the presentation but I know we have that that we could absolutely give you. I think that would be just great just because it's I mean I would think most members know if they're they have districts that that receive those funds or are may in need of those funds now who didn't receive them in the past and so I think that would be helpful so thank you very much appreciate it. but representative innnett
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:43:10
you come on thank you ma'am chairir have one more quick question about the alternative learning environment why is there an additional funding attached to the foundational funding make sure I understand the question like
Speaker 132
1:43:29
why is there funding for students in alternative learning pot of money for that
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:43:34
I don't know the history quite
Speaker 131
1:43:37
off the top of my head but essentially there are students
Speaker 129
1:43:42
that require additional services there may not be doing performing as well in the traditional classroom and so it's a lot of schools are required to or have been required to in the past to have alternative learning environment programs to help
Speaker 131
1:43:53
students in those particular situations so that's why that amount had was generated at the time and I don't know if you can
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:44:00
answer this is there a breakdown of some of those services we could get that to
Speaker 131
1:44:05
you I think we that should be able to
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:44:08
and how many of these ALEs are in the
Speaker 131
1:44:12
state of Arkansas. If I remember correctly all districts are required to have them. I'm not 100% sure how big they might vary district to district but I know they're all required to or at least in the past they have been required to
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:44:27
provide those services thank you that looks like
all the questions we have here just just a little brief update here on the agenda it says that the department will give us an update they don't really have anything to give us an update on but at last
meeting we had a number of questions in the group and nobody really had the answers to it so the department has agreed to come and be here in case we have questions
and only they know the answers to so that there is no update but they have been very kind to come and sit so that when we have questions then there is somebody who actually has the answers so seeing no further questions thank you
very much ladies we will look forward to seeing you
tomorrow and if there's no further business the meeting is adjourned.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration of a Motion to Approve the February 2, 2026, and the February 3, 2026, Meeting Minutes [Exhibits B1-B2]
C. Consideration for Adoption of Interim Study Proposal (ISP) [Exhibit C]
D. Update from the Arkansas Department of Education
E. 2026 Adequacy Study: Funding Overview [Exhibits E1-E2]
F. Other Business
G. Adjournment
Documents
Speakers
Senator Jane English
Unverified
Speaker 6
Speaker 9
Speaker 18
Speaker 19
Speaker 23
Speaker 24
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
Speaker 20
Speaker 32
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
Speaker 30
Representative David Ray
Unverified
Speaker 55
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
Speaker 65
Speaker 67
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
Speaker 70
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
Speaker 1
Speaker 114
Speaker 120
Speaker 125
Speaker 129
Speaker 131
Speaker 137
Speaker 146
Speaker 152
Speaker 148
Speaker 128
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
Speaker 73
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
Speaker 132
Speaker 168
Speaker 182
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified