Education- House and Senate

An I have a motion to approve the minutes from the last meeting so moved second all those in favor say aye and oppose ayes have it does minutes will be approved approved. All rights. We will move to item T. missed by everyone and everybody's at the table so hi if you guys will just introduce yourself for the record and then we'll get started and move to the systematically thank you. All questions of the held till the end of the agenda. Okay. Like she already has a question. All right if you'll just introduce yourself for the record thank you sure Julie how Legislative Research Adrian back also if the bureau story Boeing bureau legislative research. Great so what and get started we're gonna be looking at the equity in public school funding and expenditures report you should have both that hand slides and the power for the powerpoint slides in the report in front of you that should be handouts D. one and D. two AM as a reminder going back to our adequacy report checklist this is the equity port down the very bottom here that were crossing off today. But with that wedding get started. So where to start briefly by providing some historical context so Elizabeth Ann Taylor address this back at the beginning of this in January so we won't go too deep here but as a reminder equity has been a key component of achieving and maintaining a constitutionally sound system of funding education Arkansas going back to nineteen eighty three so does call for his final order back in two thousand one declare the current school funding system to be unconstitutional on the Twin grounds of an adequacy under the education article and in equity under the equality provisions of the Arkansas constitution so in order to achieve a constitutional system this state must address both the adequate adequacy and equity provisions embedded within the Arkansas constitution. So the court acknowledged the equity is not simply a matter of equal distribution of dollars for each child rather this state must take into account disparities that impact a child's ability to receive an an equal opportunity for an adequate education. So to measure these disparities the court notes that the focus must be on actual expenditures in the past the court is focused on and has relied on the federal range ratio and to a lesser extent the coefficient of variation in the Gini coefficient to measure disparities and determined equity. So equity in public school funding has been measured using three different approaches this includes horizontal equity fiscal neutrality and vertical equity measures and these oppose it protists and the very statistical measures within each are all consistent with past added adequacy equity reports. Julian I will first go over the horizontal equity measures in these measure the degree to which districts receive equal resources on variables such as foundation funding Julie will then look at the fiscal neutrality measures and these measure inequities between districts that may arise from differences in property wealth. And then we will close it out by going over vertical equity measures and these are used to assess the equity of spending according to key district characteristics you will examine per people expenditures we think other cat categories of other variables such as a percentage of students receiving free or reduced price lunch average daily membership racial ethnic demographic information or announcmenet of property wealth property wealth excuse me in for each of these sections will give you an overview of the terminology used within each of those before presenting the analysis results so for the purposes of today's presentation we won't go to we the deep in the weeds of the mass but they will be included in your report but will give you a broad overview of each of those what they those measures and what they represent. With that and some terminology you'll see referenced thought presentation particularly within the horizontal and fiscal neutrality measure sections cities the two types of revenues that will be used as a basis of those two analyses so we have the first one just foundation funding and property taxes per student so as you can see that foundation funding not property taxes ninety eight percent of the uniform rate of tax R. U. R. T. N. miscellaneous fines and a second revenue type includes all of that plus our categorical find such as that you know that you would bless language learner finds alternative learning environment professional development enhance student achievement and the supplemental funds that includes your isolated growth declining specification high cost occurrences yes a matching and enhance transportation. Well that we'll get started with our horizontal equity measures we're going to split these up into two different parts so I'm gonna first go over the measures of central tendency and measures of dispersion and then Julie will go over the McLoone index the Gini coefficient. So we'll start by defining what the measures of central tendency and dispersion are so the measures of central tendency are ways of showing the center point of the data or the typical values. And then the measures of dispersion are showing how values will vary across the districts to how they compare against each other in terms of funding. So those measures of central tendency that will use today this is the median after or average and the median so average we if we use that frequently this is a way of characterizing the typical or expected values. And then the median is the middle funding value if all values were arranged lowest to highest or vice versa so both of these measure again tennis your location but the median is sometimes more appropriate if there are more extreme values in your data. So looking at our measures of dispersion one half four of these that will include today the first one is the restricted range so think of a range that's our difference between your Lois and your highest value if you were to separate that into a hundred people percentiles and that only show the difference between your fifth and ninety fifth that would be your restricted range another way of saying that would be if you were to show the range of values if you excluded the out liars in your data so that would be restricted range. Next we'll have the federal range ratio so this is using that restricted range and dividing it by your fifth percentile of data so this is a another way of interpreting the spread of your the data to the higher this ratio is going to be the more data the data is spread which suggests what less equity and the rule of thumb for this is that the preferred by you is less than what no more than two point two five and we'll go over that but Arkansas's is here shortly. And a final two measures I have of this version includes standard deviation and the coefficient of variation. And these look at how values deviate from the average or that mean value I'm simply House spread out are they from the average. So Instagram was of that in addition here's a visual way of kind of thinking about how they might be real clustered close together on average are more spread out. And a standard deviation is the extent to which funding values deviate from the average value so a smaller standard deviation would indicate that the data tends to be close to their average which indicates a more equitable distribution a higher standard deviation would indicate greater value bility or less equity in distribution. And finally the coefficient of variation is just showing the extent of the variation and funding values with respect me. So with that we'll show our first set of numbers I mean for following along in the report the power point this is on slide twelve Page four of your power point handout or page two of the report depending on where you're following along there. But these are the horizontal equity measures by revenue type and we'll start with that first revenue topic and this is just Foundation and property taxes. So you'll see that in twenty twenty one districts receive on average eight thousand one hundred and forty five dollars per student this has increased over the past few years and tools you'll see the trend for these measures for both revenue types. The median amount received was seven thousand nine hundred eighty eight dollars per student. For that restricted range this was two thousand eight hundred eighty nine his main two thousand eight hundred ninety seven dollars. The Federal range ratio was point four two and twenty twenty one. The standard deviation was one thousand two hundred and twenty three so that means on average each district's funding value deviated from the average by about twelve hundred dollars. And finally the coefficient of variation or the average variation is with point one five or fifteen percent so that suggests that overall variability in the funding values across districts is quite stable and doesn't exceed fifteen percent of the means and all year. And then our second revenue type. Again this is all Foundation property taxes plus categorical since supplemental funds. You'll see here the numbers are generally higher than the first revenue type so for this funding this type of revenue districts receive on average nine thousand one hundred and forty two dollars per student that median amount was eight thousand nine hundred and fifty the restricted range was three thousand seven hundred eighty two dollars. Our federal range ratios at point five zero the standard deviation was one thousand three hundred and five and finally the coefficient of variation was point one for a fourteen percent against the dressing at the founding values across districts is stable and that I will pass it over to Julie. So the next two measures were looking out we're still looking at revenues for students but these are two index numbers and what an index number does is really boil a lot of data down into one number so you can get some meaning out of it so the first summer looking at is called the McLean index and this is something the courts have referred to in the Lake View decisions and this basically looks at the lower distribution lower half of the distribution school districts so as Adrian and talk about that median if you lined all the school districts that by the revenue per student value that one in the very middle would be the median so the McLean is gonna look at all of the district's below that it will produce a value that ranges from zero to one and that if we get closer to one that means we've got more equality C. span. So it helps me to think of it in terms of this question so how does the some of the revenue values in the bottom half of districts compared to a hypothetical world where each district in the bottom half would have bending equal to the district at the meeting. So we can look at a hypothetical Senate districts this is our hypothetical world with seven districts so the median district there for this three districts above it but we're not worried about them here. And the median district has a revenue per student of a thousand dollars and if you look at the three behind it see why next they also have a thousand dollars per student so that were the case you get a McLean value of one. So now look at Arkansas. Any can see within we again look at those two different sets of revenue streams that we're getting values very very close to one so we can feel like the revenue per student in that lower part lower half and school districts is barely quite equal. The next we're gonna move to the genco fission of any quality and this one looks that considers all the values for all the school districts and importantly it measures and it works with cumulative values it also produces a number from zero to one in the back this time if you're closer to zero of your more equal. So if you grasp this out a lot of times when you hear about the genco vision it's talking about income inequality but it's also been used in Lake View and throughout educational literature to look at equity among revenues so and we've done that with pass revenues I mean past past equity reports and so we're replicating that here but the way to think about it is every and every person in this room representative school district and we all had the same revenue per student then you could take this ten percent of people over here add up all their revenue for students in you would end up on. On the line with This line of equality because ten percent of the school districts would of I need to sorry thank you to click. would represent ten percent of all the revenue that's represented any would keep on going at. So that you twenty percent of the school districts but account for twenty percent of the revenue on up to seventy percent. As we know That kind of equality doesn't happen that often if you're going to the next ride you get when you grab that out you see factory where I'm sorry what's called the Lawrence cars in here you see that on this particular Lorenz curve ten percent of the school districts would account for two percent of the revenues for students so we're going to the next slide you can see how that can range so you can start over here with in diagram number one you've got that perfect line of equality were every every district has the same amount of revenue per student as he made to the right it gets less equal unless the quill until that one on the very right represents complete inequality where nobody has any revenue per student except for that district that's over there in the hundred percent top. So he doesn't mind and we're gonna look at what's happening with Arkansas. And again were led using those two revenue streams of our first one foundation funding and property tax for student you can see that our values are very close to zero so very close to a quality and again you can see that blue line that represents your Lawrence Carr how closely it hugs your red line of a quality so we can feel that they're so on the next slide will add in those other revenue streams for adequacy and you can see while an the. And any quality maybe inches up just a little bit it's still very equal and you can see that both represented in the coefficient number and on the grass in those graphs or on page four the report and the Tabular data is in the same time Hey bill on page two. The entrance numbers. So next we're gonna talk about this going to turn out in this is our last discussion of revenues. And this going to ality really joins to measures together the first is the wealth of neutrality correlation and is Adrian said earlier what we're looking at here is how closely does property wealth in the district define the revenue per student and a correlation you've heard us talk about before they're measuring how to bury bills may together so in this case property wealth and that per student revenue correlations ranged from a negative one which means that those variables are moving in completely opposite directions to a positive one where it's just moving in lockstep together and it's close to zero there's no relationship. So if you're get a positive number which I'll let you know in this case we do your next one a look at what's called the well elasticity. And that is if you have done regression statistics review than geometry where you do the formula for lying this is basically the slope of the line so whenever property wealth because that how fast is that revenue per student go up any of that in a case where there's any quality you worry about the revenue per student going out too fast with that property wealth so again we're going to look at what happens in Arkansas. And you can see that and we've had things up a little bit differently so this page is looking at that first riveting string and that's the property tax in foundation funding any can see that are correlation values are pretty close to one so that shows that they do move together but what's important here is that the wealthy elasticity number is very low so every time property wealth because at the calendar you're looking at like sixteen to eighteen cents in terms of your revenue per student SO ccording to the literature including audit practices been consulted for Arkansas that that that's a good sign that that means we're in pretty good shape as far as quality this bottom table sorry go back to that Nicks when the bottom table what we've done there is taken out of the U. R. T. districts and if you remember the U. R. T. districts are what we call those districts his property wealth raises more than they need to supply the foundation funding for their students so when we take those out you can see the correlations go down and that's because we're taking out the highest value property will in the highest value of per student revenue when you get rid of that you can see there's less of a relationship and you can also see those elasticity numbers decreases well. So the next slide is all of the revenue together you can see the patterns are very much the same although the correlations are not quite as strong and the last is the numbers are also smaller. And that concludes our discussion of revenues. so I'll continue on with the third and final analysis of equity in is the vertical equity analysis this analysis involves a concept that students in districts with differing circumstances and it characteristics can require different levels of funding to address the differences that exist district to district in addition the statutory requirements for adequacy also require that we look at these district characteristics and their relationship to district cost so therefore as we've done in previous studies of the vertical equity portion of this analysis will look at two expenditure variables relationship with the following four characteristics which is the school district's size or average daily membership the school district's percentage of students that are non white the school district percentage of students eligible for free and reduced price lunch and district property well. In. The data measuring these district characteristics are sometimes used to provide additional funding to in addition to the foundation rate that each district receives to address an additional educational needs for example the intense did an achievement or ESA funding is additional funding provided on top of foundation of for those districts based on their percentage of free and reduced price lunch so as they have more economically disadvantaged students the rate of ESA funding goes up another example is declining enrollment student gross funding are determined by the changes in ATM counts for districts. The two expenditure variables that we look at and that'll be it examined in these charts there will look at just a moment our per student expenditures of from select state funding sources and per student expenditures from all funding sources that districts have available to them and to eliminate the effective temporary increases or decreases in spending trends we are eliminating facilities or facility acquisition construction cost and also debt service payments. similar to the Revenue portion of their analysis we are looking at the foot the revenues that you see a on the screen for the select state funding includes foundation property taxes the state categorical funding declining enrollment growth etcetera. Okay in in the total or expenditures from often sources it includes as the name would imply us expenditures from often sources including federal and for each of the following charts that will you'll see we're gonna see each district or charters per student expenditures are raid according to their value for each of these deaths these district characteristics so for example of the pursuit expenditures for those districts with the lowest ATM count or going to be in Dessau one and we'll put the average of all those districts in Dessau one this west what you'll see in the chart and then the next decile will do the next lowest ADM count districts their average X. of expenditures and it'll go on so one until you reach decile ten which is going to be the districts with the largest AT and counts of the state and will replicate that for each of those four district characteristics. Of for the report first looks at the per student expenditures from select state funding an ATM. And the vertical axis shows the per student funding in the horizontal shows the average salaries of skews me the average expenditures for each ATM decile. The average per student expenditure for decile one comprised all those districts with the lowest ADM and just to go over so you kind of see how to read this chart so decile one in two thousand nineteen their average expenditures were nine thousand ninety one it was nine thousand two forty seven and twenty and then ninety eight eighty eight in twenty twenty one similarly if you look at decile ten there two thousand nineteen expenditures average on average were eighty one ninety four culminating with eight thousand three hundred eighty four and twenty twenty one. And the overall trend that you see there is that the lower ADM school spent significantly more than did the other discounts on a per student basis. chart to it Rexam is the relationship between the person expenditures from select state funding sources and the percentage of non white or minority students those districts with the highest percentage of non white students found in decile ten spent more per student than all the other disciples and the districts with the lowest percentage of non white students in Dessau one spent approximately eleven percent last in nineteen thirteen percent less than twenty twenty and nine percent less than twenty twenty one than those districts in the tenth decile. Chart three examines the third District characteristic or the percentage of students that are eligible for free or reduced price lunches and it shows a gradual upward trend in per student expenditures across all of the decile culminating with this decile ten having the greatest expenditures per student in fact the districts with the lowest percentage of students eligible for free or reduced price lunches in Dessau one spent twenty three percent less in nineteen twenty two percent less in two thousand twenty and twenty percent less than twenty twenty one and decile ten. the last chart that we examined per student expenditures from those select state funding categories are for per student property wealth. It in there is an upward trend over General gradual upper Trian a cross the disciples for for this for a particular district here to receipt with the highest per student expenditures found in decile ten where the districts have the highest per student property wealth values it's important to note that those districts that are referred to as your U. R. T. districts which Julie referenced earlier or those that are able to generate all of their foundation funding through their uniform rate of tax or twenty five meals there found among the top spending districts on a per student basis. Well charters do not have property tax wealth as a source of revenue for their schools operations their average per student expenditures are provided just for a comparison and are greater than the per student expenditures for DeSales one through four in two thousand nineteen and twenty and greater than themselves one through six for us desk for skews me school year twenty twenty one. the next four charts that you can see in your report art charts five through eight and they examine the relationship with the same poor district characteristics but with using all funds expenditures for students not the select state funding per student. Chart five shows the relationship between per student expenditures from Wall funding sources in the ATM and similar to chart one its counterpart under the select state funding it shows that districts in the lowest decile one into with the lowest ATMs spent more than any other tests on. On a per student basis. You'll also notice and this will be a recurring pattern for or the next three charts as well twenty twenty one expenditures exceed the nineteen and twenty expenditures a little more significantly they kind of track they were a little bit on top of each other in those first four grass or little or much closer and it could be that this but this is attributable to the the infusion of a large amount of federal funding to help districts address the COVID nineteen pandemic. chart six shows the relationship between total per student expenditures from all funding sources in the district in charters percentage of non white students and similar to its counterpart chart to chart six shows that those districts with the highest percentage of nonwhite students found in decile ten spent more than any other decile. The non white of the percentage with the lowest non white of the student population in this I once spent approximately fourteen percent less in nineteen seventeen percent less than twenty and fifteen percent less than twenty twenty one. Chart seven hour or the total expenditures per student by the percentage that are eligible for free and reduced price lunches shows a pattern similar to chart three in that all those those districts with the highest percentage of students eligible for free or reduced price lunches us bit more than any other decile. And finally we'll we'll see our final chart for the for this portion of the vertical analysis chart eight looks that pursuit and expenditures from all sources and the districts for student property wealth and it again follows a very similar pattern of with those districts in decile ten us spending more than those with the lower property wealth per student in decile one. So overall the trend for charts one through four and five through eight show that the districts and charters that spent the most are those districts and charters with the lowest eighteen count the highest of not percentage non white student population the highest percentage of free or reduced price lunch eligible students in those districts with the highest per student property will. the final measure for the vertical portion of this report are these the federal range ratio is. A Adrian mentioned earlier the courts use this as a measure and so we continued we in we've been replicating the previous studies to show of what's happened over time and do the federal courts use of this measure we've used it again and we show it for nineteen twenty and twenty one. As mentioned before this shows the range of per student expenditure so it's easy it's possible to see the percentage amount that the highest restricted range value or ninety fifth percentile is spending above the lowest restricted range value or the fifth. For example in twenty twenty one districts spending at the ninety fifth percentile spent fifty percent more than districts spending at the fifth. From select state funding sources and then districts spending at the ninety fifth percentile from all state funding sources spent sixty six percent more than the fifth percentile. Again some possible things to think about it you're looking at those measures are the fact that there was a large infusion of federal money that was not present in before twenty twenty one to any significant degree and that could be it of fueling that range ratio increased to some degree and it's also possible that the extra resources that have been provided since the lake view decision and when the court originally use that measure what's new additional funds sources have been infused that could be fueling that dispersion a little more to such as enhance student achievement funding English language learner an alternative learning environment. So with that I will be happy to take any questions and thank you for your attention. Thank you the report have an average an average ATM for each decile. Did y'all have that for what the average ATM would be for like D. one D. two. Yes and it's in your it should be in your appendices I okay. it will show you that is. If you look on page fifteen of your report you can see for like two thousand nineteen decile one under ATM yes I want represented all those districts with three hundred seventy or less than three hundred seventy four students got it and the same will be true for the non white percentages pre reduced lunch and property wealth values for students okay got it thank you. It's. Okay questions I mean and go to members of the committee that's what my representive Cozart established last meeting. Senator Elliot you're recognized for a question. Thank you madam chair what when we started out we talked about there were some distinguishing discussion between equity and equality. so in the end. With all the discussion. Is it what what's the determination that we're both that we are equitable or we're not equitable. What's the bottom line here that are spending is. A lot of these measures so equity the one that probably stands out as questionable as the range ratio and we've done a lot of looking at trying to see what's going on with that we know that. When you'll have this presentation last time is twenty eighteen and some of the legal analysis that was brought forth said that one of the differences is that point two five was set by the court's backing for categorical funds were added to address inequity so when you put those categorical funds on top of foundation which is equal you're not doing equal funding but you're addressing equity so some of what we're seeing with these numbers may be the state's attempt to address equity I know when we started out with the categorical is in particular and then with some other measures like the priority school funding we were trying to reach equity back bad when the judge told us to go back and rethink this is in two thousand three I think you said you to go back and rethink this I I would assume what we need to understand that those categorical rules and any funding beyond the foundation that's what's helping us get to equity instead of just looking at the quality correct I will say that's correct yeah okay. And do we know for the districts that are able to the U. R. T. districts for those districts that are able to spend funding beyond the foundation funding so to speak do we know I have any information about what they suspended for generally I guess that they can spend it on whatever they wish I'd send that we have any information about that. We've not pulled out that now this or have you look at the. Okay the U. R. T. schools and their spending patterns. Our and finally I I think one of the things the public always looks up and says I'm going to measure you go to a school district and The football fields or if you know the jam looks like something that is larger than a lot of our state institutions sometimes people confuse less that that's money that's been spent from foundation funding which is not because that you'll you pulled out facility issue you mentioned in the report I noticed and I just wanted to just like that because sometimes I you know I get a lot of discussion about facilities that sextet with from that foundation funding so I just wanted to say that the asking for the think more deeply about that when you make those assumptions or ask questions I could just add one thing we did look at on the U. R. T. schools and I understand you're correct question correctly that there so often other things going on at the same time some of them are are small as well as handling of high property well so it could be that the size of the denominator in the calculation is smaller and that could also drive up that per student cost I think a couple of them still have hype of poverty is well so vote it could be a multiple you know multiple of factors that are driving those numbers as well as just property well okay all right thank you thank you thank you. Thank you representive love. Thank you madam chair Going back to the the slide in which you have the decile this opportunity you're looking at nine line and then we are looking at the expenditures that was there were. The word count for. In the client the expenditures are higher than in this is This is expansions are higher than they were in this sow wanted this not to put. Can we find out what those. What those expenditures are in those districts. Yes Sir I don't think it that the data that we have compiled as it is done in that particular way but yes we can certainly look at the the what the expenditures okay we'll be interesting on yeah I'll be interest is interested to see. number one how that the funding was spent and then also number two is. I'm going to assume the worst the Little Rock School District in these discounts. I can look that up if you give me just a quick moment of it depends on which one you're looking at you're looking at non white the. Yes just a moment I can remember I guess we. Would districts flow between these decibels okay love look look at on page fifteen. This hand out too because I I had the kind of the same questions you have as to like what the percentage of non whites were for each decile. Because it's just it's higher you know eighty at its higher ins and. Some than others. Our. Page fifteen it changes from year to year but in two thousand nineteen the Little Rock district within decile ten with eighty one point zero four percent non white. Give me just a moment I'll find it. And two thousand twenty eight was in Dessau nine and it was eighty point seven seven percent non white. And in twenty twenty one it was in decile ten again it rate went down to test out ten again or up to skews me and it was eighty point seven seven again percent nonwhite. Okay. Our lives I'm a look at this and then I'll cry I'll probably just follow with you all in regards to some questions is. I want to look at what the the expenditures for or used for and also if. We have this ranks as far as. You know if if five schools are under state control persons they're not understate control what they can use the money for a cause I'm very interested in and stand how this plays out so. I hold my questions thank you madam chair. Yes Sir represent Cozart. Just a question about what catastrophic and especially and make these rises in the cost be a little more is that shown or reflected in these. I don't expenditures that we programmatic area we know that the special ed and strophic. we don't have it broken out by the. Category of program of programmatic Lee how the money was spent so it should all be involved related catastrophic use one of the categories that's included both on the revenue side as well as the expenditure side both and is in both of the categories on the expenditure side both in the select as well as the all funds expenditures okay this is what I was curious about thank you. Okay are there other questions from members of the committee. Right and thank you very good information very ends up I think. It's just it breaks down the finances To allow it to where you know we say this all the time I mean the state of Arkansas is such a beautiful state and so diverse in its geography and its people it's really hard to boil all that down I think with similar what Senator Elliot was talking about it's really hard to reach equity when you have such diverse city in the state and and that's what's so complicated about this process is that it is absolutely not a one size fits all approach but we try to do that you know through this mandate that we have that's why the adequacy process is complicated and that's why it's so important for us to try to just boil it down to the numbers and see the difference measures and indexes that you included I think we're so very important because it is hard I think for people to understand will gosh they must have a ton of money are given them a lot more money because look at that big fancy gym in arena one that's not the case so it is it's hard I think to explain that sometimes so this is this is I appreciate very much If there are no other questions and. Before we go to eat while you are there the table we do have some issues in front of us that I want to be able to work with you and I think there's several of us are going to work with you to try to do an assessment on as school safety measures and just in preparation for at what we're anticipating but I think it's important for us to understand a baseline as to where schools are and what their needs might be so that's really what we want to do not I also don't want it you know we had some previous questions about the different activities that may be going on with our SROs and what the schools are facing with our with our S. R. as in particular so we want to try to combine all of that members and have some specific committee meetings on just this issue and that's will be upcoming at probably in September as we're kind of working with the department of and the governor's office on trying to to finalize and figure out what that grant program really needs to be for our schools at present eleven I know it's working on this do you have anything else you wanna add to that but will get with you on the particular questions because we just wanna make sure that the money's going to be spent on worth while you know good integrated technologies or whatever but we kinda need to know a bass line as well so with that we'll move on to. M. okay let me let me move on to about what I just said. So to them okay center Chesterfield thank you man here as we continue to look at adequacy equity et cetera. met Mister Phillips yesterday who was the person who filed a lake view case. I'm concerned about the any qual I want what I want to know if there is. Any quality of teacher salaries that drive some of the numbers that we see. Between districts. I making any sense. Because I can't help but think that those districts who have large numbers of minority students for students may be getting teachers who have less certification than others is there a way for us to find that out and to see what the average salaries are in those districts. As far as these percentiles the talking about you lost me on a lot of the elasticity junk I just I mean that's Johnson. Just wasn't my Cup of tea but I guess I'm just not. Tune into that but I need to know as we look at at the first to the ten. One of the salary differences in those districts is that possible to find out if you look and both are expenditure report in in the teacher's salary report. I think we showed these to ya and not CM but those we call them our lolly pop charts I just didn't get the lot about so be nice to know that we database of breakdowns by quintiles and Senate desfiles but on a number of resources and expenditures and I can I can I'll be glad to pick out what we have and send those to you in and I think it will show you charts kind of like what Laurie have not so much the Jenny competition the claim if you're interested in that as we I mean we could try to calculate but we've not done that I appreciate if you would thank you thank you ma'am sure if you want to send it to me I'll make sure to send it out to all the members of the committee as well thank you. Representive Godfrey thank you madam chair maybe this isn't the proper time I just had a question about the school safety questions that we committee has others help with I'm as we're looking at best practices for how to use as I would love some research if you all have and any good studies on and the impact of our an armed presence in schools on students of color if there's a disproportionate impact safety impact on students of color of having more guns in schools thank you. Thank you all right moving on to attend the E. hi to me. And. Even an arms study proposal. Of this section you of the status of your bill. All right. So we have people joining us. While you are sitting down I'm gonna recognize Senator Elliot to kind of just give us an overview of have we already adopted the. Okay so we've already adopted this. Yes Elliott you're recognized to discuss the interim study proposal exhibit E. I thank you madam chair I don't I don't need to say much I just wanted to I just bring to the attention of the art First I want to thank you of the women here who are going to present for or getting their act together so well that you came today instead of having the whole committee come back again tomorrow for you were scheduled to be here so I thank you for that and our time but I just wanted to just say to the committee that this is something that's been an ongoing process and they came to me it during the last well last year to talk about hi NO code a coherent thoughtful way of discussing what the issues are and I the I. S. P. is the best way to do it so what they'll be doing today is just bringing to you their findings and and perhaps recommendations this just happened to fall during all the discussion of that teacher salaries either because we would have discussed it last month I so I don't want anybody think there is some kind of conspiracy here there's not we would have discussed it last month but we did not meet so thank you all for being here and thank you for honoring our time in getting here today. Okay so we're we're discussing about speech pathology is not correct okay. Okay. Okay everybody has a copy of of this. Okay if you'll just state your name for the record and then you're recognized okay I'm good afternoon my name is Lauren Rogers I am a lead speech language pathologist for comment public schools and much like Senator Elliot has already shared with you we are here today on behalf of the Arkansas speech language hearing association also known as ARC shack as well as roughly five hundred and sixty school based SO peas around our state to just discuss with you some of our findings related to recruitment and retention issues that we have been observing over the past few years within our state we do want to go ahead and just kind of introduce you to our committee along with myself we have candy Roland lead SLP for little rock public schools Allen Smith SO P. for Conway schools when the Roark lead SO P. for Springdale schools and Michelle's I now lead SLP for Springdale public schools we also had any faith in Elizabeth Williams and they were significant contributors to our findings that they were unable to be with us today because their school calendars have started so they are at work as we are meeting with you today. This committee over the past two years has been working very diligently to listen to conversations engaging conversations related to national trends in the field of speech language pathology as they relate to school based issues we've then observe those trends and tried to find ways on how they are impacting SO piece within our own state in there and the students that we serve and so before we start I know that many of you have experience working in the educational field but just for one moment just kind of think when you hear school based SLP what comes to mind. And a lot of times what we hear with that is you guys are the ones that help students produce there are sounds if that's what you thought that's okay we get that a lot and you're not alone please trust us and that but what we do want to take a little bit of time today is just to like brought in that idea of what we do and how we serve the students beyond teaching them the skills that they need to produce and those speech sounds and translate that into writing we're also teaching them a communication skills to be able to express themselves to their peers and their teachers we're giving them the skills to understand the tax that's provided to them within their educational classroom and we are also just giving them some life skills on how to problem solve and think through situations critically so we do ask if you don't mind please reserve your cut your question so the end of our session will be sure to get to those as quickly as we can and we have also like Senator Elliot pointed out provided you with a copy of the handouts to and some other pertinent information for your reviewing we're going to begin our discussions today just kind of talking about what we do as speech language pathologist in a school setting. Okay like Lawrence said I'm Ellen Smith and I'm a speech pathologist for Conway public schools and so today I just kind of wanted to give a brief overview of what we do as a profession but specifically what that and what that looks like as a public school colleges speech pathologist and then touch on workload versus case load. all of our well well all of the training required to be a speech pathologist looks the same at the beginning we have for or master's degree is required and then completing clinical competency our service offices it looks different within the public school setting so this this live sort of an outline some of the primary direct service areas that we. At. Provide as a school based SLP the speech production that's sort of what everyone was talking about that is that sound production and overall intelligibility language is working on a basic concepts and comprehension and expressive language and understanding what people are being are saying to the student's speech fluency you might have heard stuttering that something that we work on it step forward flow of speech that can really impact students in the classroom and so that's something we work on cognition is memory attention processing those are also skills that we work on as licensed speech pathologists and voice an oral residents we collaborate with professionals and we needed we identify and treat help to. Treat vocal trauma or verbal abuse. Social skills that teaching kids what's appropriate and helping them to recognize and use body language as a means to communicate working on behavior and safety. This continues the sort of primary service areas. We collaborate with teachers to make sure that students can hear them in the classroom if they've hearing deficits augmented communication that you may have seen someone with a device to help facilitate communication when they don't have their own voice or words to use we that requires a lot of teaching and education and training and programming and that's all part of that augmented OR facilitated communication. and feeding and swallowing it our role in feeding and swallowing within the school looks different obviously than a hospital setting we would collaborate with teachers and cafeteria staff to make sure students are being fed safely and that any sort of medical plan is being implemented appropriately. The speech pathologist in the school. they they work across all levels of education from pre K. to graduation and all different settings a regular classroom setting and and classroom settings that require additional support. We serve a wide range of students with a wide range of disorders and since we are duly licensed speech therapist and we are holding and at teaching license as well we are well versed in curriculum standards and provide educationally relevant services for our students our goal is to connect to the skills that we are providing and facilitating and connect that generalize that to the classroom we contribute to a literacy achievement for low language learners alone language students by addressing personal social emotional vocabulary needs that are impacting them in the classroom or often utilized by the ministration to assist students that are having a breakdown behaviors in the classroom because of our training in language and social emotional facilitation. M. at our range of responsibilities include these list on this site on what you read those but they vary in terms of time commitments and they are part of our work load that is important and that it can impact the amount of direct treatment that can be provided to students. So this this is sort of our highlight. Highlight reel this slide highlights the additional non therapy related duties that come along with being duly licensed professional within the school setting. these workload responsibilities include generating individualized education plans with the educational committee I'm not I repeat that so that would be an IEP meeting we also have nine ITP meetings that we meet and. To discuss strategies that can help in the classroom we have due process paperwork all that legal paperwork to make sure that it is thorough and complete and and signed off on by the committee that takes time we are owned designees oftentimes in the school so we are the ones scheduling those in completing all that documentation we have professional development that has to be completed for our own speech therapy licensure but also we're required to get the hours that the the teachers the classroom teachers are also getting so we have that and like I said dual licensure so we're also getting dual continuing education hours we are part of the response to intervention process oftentimes we're in those meetings with teachers of tracking progress of students and. Providing strategies to help facilitate those weaknesses in the classroom. we have building level duties often times and that we help with Problem solving in the classroom helping pushing into classrooms and in the least restrictive environment to help facilitate their success there. We spend lots of time generating visual schedules programming. At devices assistive communication devices completing classrooms are rations curriculum planning with general education teachers and with the passing of activity for we are often times the ones that are trained to help intervene when students are unsafe. So sometimes managing that workload in case load can be challenging and so these ladies down here going to kind of elaborate on that. Is that working. Hi my name is Michelle Darnell I am a lead speech language pathologists and spring Dale school district in northwest Arkansas and I'm gonna talk a little bit about case load versus workload so when we say caseload were talking about the direct number of students that we serve so for example if I were a speech language pathologist at young elementary in Springdale and there were forty four students there who had identified speech language impairment that would be my direct case load. We're also gonna talk about work love and when we talk about workload we're talking about all the duties that as these language pathologists in the school does within an average week. So on this next slide and over the past several years speech language pathologist across our state have taken time study data to determine what we spend our time doing to look a little more that workload he's and and help us determine some solutions for that. And we were very grateful and Springdale because our administration allowed us to pilot based on our time study a flexible service delivery model or workload approach and so that has been very helpful for us that this is some of the data that has been collected and analyzed across the state. So the size of each circle represents approximately the time that we devote to that area so the one in the middle of the direct therapy we spend about twenty hours a week providing direct intervention to students with speech language impairment. Then we have to document that time and each session that we do with each child in our billing system that takes on average three and a half hours a week. And at that time and then we go into preparing for meetings parent meetings and for that we have to complete federally mandated paperwork and conduct meetings with families teachers administrators and that takes on average up to six hours per week and we would like to know that for every student on our case load at a minimum we have to hold one meeting a year to go over their progress so for my example I gave earlier we would have forty four meetings per year but we have more than that often for several students on our case load because and every three years our students have to be re evaluated to determine if they still qualify as astutely speech language impairment so for those students we might have two or three meetings and in some states we have more depending on behavior needs or other issues that may arise. And that we also. Our one of our districts speech therapist this past school year cat seven data which was ended up being very interesting and applied to this lie and so she kept track of how many meeting she attended and how many minutes you was in meetings for the twenty one twenty two school year. And she had last year one hundred and twenty seven meeting. And she sat in those meetings for eight thousand eight hundred and forty minutes of her school year so that's a really big portion of our job being able to sit in the meetings but also to prepare the paperwork and get ready for those meetings. And that was not all the required readings that she had to attend that year that was I'm sorry that was just the required meeting she had to attend those ones that we have to hold that are federally mandated see also on top of that had response to intervention meeting and NTS S. multi tiered systems of support meeting behavior meetings professional development of that number did not count all of those meetings. I am conducting evaluations in writing the report so we are the ones responsible if there is a parent referral a teacher referral we are the ones who will test the child and determine if they are a child with the speech language impairment and then we will write up the report to gather that information. And something that's noteworthy about conducting our evaluations is that many of them we have to do in multiple languages so and when the who is going to speak next the I miss my fellow at Leeds speech pathologist at for no school district last year's track she had one student that she tested and he was tested in both English and Spanish it took her six forty five minute periods to complete his evaluation. And so at their workload duties that you see up there such as planning and prep preparation we have to prepare for those lessons that we have with the student's school dude so every school based speech language pathologists that a duty recess our duty lunch duty and then I consulting we do a lot of consulting with teachers and parents ministry heirs and will take on average combined up to five hours a week. I'm gonna let I would need for Artemis Roark talk a little bit more about case of workload good afternoon and like myself and my name is Wendy Rowe Arkansas late speech help alleges that spring no schools and so on this slide you'll see to grass the one at the top and this is a further analysis of the time study that we conducted in the state and the flood of the top shows the amount of time in our work week with that red line and then the blue beyond that is the actual amount of time that we spend doing all of our work like duties so you know that's working at home five to six hours a week and for me having two young kids that the kids to bed at night and then turning your computer right back on to finish usually the paperwork. And then the graph of the bottom indicates how our time is spent the dark blue is our actual direct working with students and then the remaining part of that circle or all those other workload responsibilities that we talked about and that it should be noted that the hiring is only based on the number of kids that we can see and that we know that we have a lot of other responsibilities and that's leading to SO he's leaving the field. And then some of the things we talked about already but on top of that all that you know additional on top of our regular work week and we often have these additional duties that are added because we are duly licensed we are asked to help with the state and local and tests like the measures of academic progress the ACT aspire and the English language proficiency assessment we're also asked to help with students with behavior issues because we do have specialized training in that were often called upon to help those students and many of the students are on our caseloads already some or not and we're just asked to help intervene and I recently read a a study from the journal of child psychiatry that indicated sixty to ninety percent of adolescents in custody have language and communication impairment and then another study indicated that adults with language disorders who got intervention in school that were reported to have less contact with law enforcement if they have the intervention in school so I thank you I'm so sorry can I ask you quick questions you say your duly licensed yes we have an education license and we have our state license okay and you're getting what are the licensing boards that you deal with a Best Buy is our state licensing board for speech pathology yes and then the Department patient issues are teacher license. And then we also hold a certificate of clinical competence with our National Association Asha Americans language hearing association right and you're all employed by your school districts yes okay thank you for. I would just I don't want to lose members and I know you have a lot of information here which I very much appreciate I'm just letting you know I don't want to lose members so S.. I want to get to all your points as much as I can so and that that touched on my next point because we do have that licensure we do have to get the professional development to maintain all of those licenses. And now miss Rogers is gonna talk about our impact on students okay so so far in this presentation you've heard some information about how our medical training is being utilized within the educational setting you've also seen how because of the diversity of what our caseloads present to us it has increased the workload that were having to complete on a weekly basis and so all of that you might be wondering what then why do you do it and so in some of our other partners in settings that are not in the educational setting wondered the same thing into that question our answer is pretty simple the students you know much like you all we engage in these conversations and brainstorm ideas to try to help these kiddos be successful and reach their maximum potential and so that's what we want to reinforce today is that are why in this discussion is also your why. So I'll let you can read through this quote I'm on your own but basically what it's highlighting is just the fact that that decisions that are made at the State Building level impact this SLPs decision to make ethical evidence based decisions and that sets up what our caseloads and workloads look like within each of our buildings so what does that look like. In Arkansas over the past two years our speech language pathologists have noted that they have seen an increase not only in case load size but again in our workload demands As we look at that you know section seventeen of the Arkansas rules and rags currently states that a speech language pathologist in Arkansas is not to have a caseload to exceed forty five and while we are grateful to be one of the states that has had that case load cap we also know that because of the transient nature of our students and because of some low staffing issues that we see across the state that oftentimes our SLPs are basically asked if not forced to hold more files than that and how that impacts our students is that we are then put in a situation where we have to maybe put them in larger group sizes to be able to meet the minutes that are prescribed to them and their IT peas so obviously with a larger group size we then are putting down a little bit of the time that they are receiving that direct intervention on the skills that are so vital for them to be able to acquire the very skills that they're trying to learn within their educational classroom whenever we have these increase group sizes it also decreases the amount of Medicaid funding that we're able to bill for which goes directly back into reimbursement for the districts and then that money then gets used you know for the betterment of the children as a whole we wish we saw a portion of that but we don't always have my that's our parents we've also noticed you know that asks medical and technological advances continue to improve that some of our more medically complex students are joining us in the public and the public school fields and we value their presence like let me say that loud and clear we value their presence because we know that it's not only creating a more inclusive learning opportunity for them but it's also creating a more inclusive learning opportunity for the students and the worker and the educators that they are working with research also shows that individuals who are involved in it they at day to day caring for the students who are a little bit more medically fragile that there and if the rates increase and so that something also that has a direct reflection on the safety of our students increasing empathy is always a positive thing. But what that means is that we do need more time you know a lot of times the students have a little bit more significant needs and we have to be a little bit more creative and have a little bit more mark multi disciplinarian Act interactions with those that are involved in their cases so that way we can address their goals in a very functional and relevant manner that goes across different settings. We also have seen you know increases the documentation and you know paperwork as a part of every job but it seems like it has becoming to get a little bit more detail as as our profession increases just to make sure that everything is documented clearly. We also know that as you know actin eighty four has hit the floor a lot of educators around the state this summer have participated and professional development I because of our expertise and neurological development we are considered usually critical members of these teams within our schools we have to have these levels of neurological death I'm learning in order to graduate and then be nationally certified but then because of that required professional development we even if either are forced to find ourselves there or we elect to find ourselves there where we're learning how to view that neurological development or injury trauma informed lens is so that makes as you continue to be these advocates in these people that are involved in these committees and while we're happy to do that because a lot of times we are the people who kind of I understand the communicative intent behind these adverse behaviors that we're seeing in the classroom it just creates more time that's not typically written in on our schedules. And then obviously like we said because we are duly certified we hold that teaching license in many in most cases we are also expected to complete teacher duties like bathroom duty lunch duty recess duty and XRS while we are always happy to help it does exist you just take time away from the direct intervention that we have been prescribed to the complete. But again I'm sorry the way the intervention that you're describing that is from your school correct that's from the individualized education plans that are established for each student no I understand IT peas I'm talking about like recess duty yes that's from your school making that decision correct each building each building each school is different. And then other things that you're describing it again is based on what that school is paying you and what that school is asking of you correct yes ma'am. so This Is flight here is just pointing out the fact again that there for it decades we've been trying to figure out what to which method is best for how to address the needs of the students within our buildings and unfortunately despite our best efforts we don't have a solid plan to present but what we can highlight is just that speech language pathologist are vital members to each and every school community and each skip a school culture and so we want to just have a little bit of what speech language pathologist bring and to write districts each year. I'll be starting my twenty fifth year the Little Rock School District at the Little Rock southwest high school right now I want to speak about SO peas in the schools and our state make a significant contributions to Medicaid and the school dollars so we will look at this table. All right so what you see is a five year longitudinal study we looked at the state total revenue from SLP services and that is a direct services so that is our individual and group therapy with the students this is our evaluation of the students and as you can see each year is delegated and then in parentheses you see the number of districts that were representative for each year twenty seventeen we provided twelve million three hundred seventy eight thousand two hundred eighteen dollars and twenty four cents and I'll just move on to twenty twenty one we are up to twelve million nine hundred eighty eight thousand one hundred eighty eight dollars and sixteen cents and if you look at the second row what you see is the state total revenue from direct funds for Medicaid in the schools a twenty seventeen was thirty million and twenty eighteen twenty eight twenty nineteen thirty twenty twenty twenty seven and then twenty twenty one twenty eight million the third call is very exciting for us and hopefully you'll and see it as well that we speech pathologist at our work in the schools that yields a lot almost half to the Medicaid the school dollars for twenty seventeen we provided forty percent of the total direct funds and then just last year twenty twenty one we provided forty six percent of the total direct funds for Medicaid in the schools the fourth row I want to discuss especially because I shall concede we saw also the discrepancy between twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen and then a twenty twenty so as you see in twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen about fifteen to fourteen million and then twenty twenty eight jobs almost double or deductible to thirty million and so this is in reference to our mac and so as Ellen included on page five of your hand out a slide number nine all of the extra things that we do. the workload and so does do not count for Medicaid dollars and what that does count for however is arm Act and what are Max stands for is the Arkansas Medicaid administrative claiming so that is our meetings with teachers that is our meetings with parents that is doing our paper work that is going in and doing observations to see if a child needs to go through RTI or go ahead and be referred for specialist services that is meeting with PLC meetings that is all the extras that Medicaid does not you'll for because it's not direct services but rather indirect I spoke to Mister Gerry Clark the health services director she stated that over twenty thousand employees in the state that work in the schools work through the arm Act of program and our mac is iffy Services reimbursement for all the extras that are done that are not directly related to Medicaid asked her about the discrepancy between seventeen to nineteen and starting in twenty twenty and she said that what her. Office did is that they had decided to address risk and it improves charges significantly and so in twenty twenty they revamped the arm back program and the way that they did that is before twenty twenty that had the twenty thousand that were participating in these are back a moment and what that is it's a random moment we get an email and it states on this specific day at this specific time what were you doing and so you have to write and narrative of what you were doing and what they found was before twenty twenty those random moments were actually happening at night and on the weekend that we would get will of course and not on the weekend unless you know like we do said we're working on paperwork we can say we're watching to be with our children or were vacationing or you know we're a slate and so they realize that they needed to get or secure in the random moments and so what they did was they sent it to now where it's seven thirty in the morning until four PM Monday through Friday only so that way that help to be able to have the moments that were more directly related to what we were doing in the schools if it weren't for Medicaid the other thing that she looked at that she said was a massive discrepancy was the training and so what you saw before twenty twenty when they revamped this is that from day one of the school year to the last day of the school year any of us could be trained in how to provide that random of moments narrative and so she said by doing that there really was discrepancies across the board of what people would write in it and they weren't trained on this is what we accept this is what we don't accept this is what it needs to look like and so therefore by doing that training and requirements now starting in twenty twenty to have that training either or when we come back to the schools which some. I've already started I'll start on Wednesday until the student start back then we have a more better understanding of what the state needs to see on our map random moment and so if you will look at that like I said twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen are mac only yielded a fifteen million dollars to back to the state the total reimbursement for fiscal year that because they revamped the program did the better training and secure the random acts of moments with us with our students from The school day rather than the the night and the weekend they were able to move up double to thirty million dollars and so in closing I just want to say that Mr Clark said that even before twenty twenty and even more so now speech language pathologists who work in our public schools are the key school staff to get the moments billable and give that money back to the states so we hope that you'll see our expertise and what it provides to the state and just to reiterate just last year alone we provided forty six percent of the total revenue of direct funds for Medicaid in the schools and so now what I'm going to go over is average salaries just around our state so fifty eight thousand dollars is the average salary of a school based SLP in the western south region sixty six thousand is the average salary for school based SLPs nationwide and then the average salary of clinical SO peas not school based but rather in medical settings is seventy eight thousand we look at the average for our state and it's not the same across the board because each district has different guidelines of how they do that and so our average of SLPs salary is between thirty six thousand and fifty three thousand that's what we get Missouri is fifty nine thousand average in Texas is sixty three thousand average and so now I'm going to let Lauren speak about R. twenty twenty two survey data thank you for listening. So asking you just shared with you speech language pathologist in Arkansas are of vital component to the Medicaid in the school system what's interestingly though of a is that of that twelve million dollars that's being brought in only five hundred and sixty roughly five hundred and sixty SLPs are contributing to that amount of revenue of that five hundred and sixty there's only roughly three hundred and fifty of those are direct higher through the state and so if my math is correct and again this is not my forte that leaves around two hundred. Those two hundred SL peas are likely working through a contracted agreement that contracted agreement could be due to just the district's preference or it could be due to the fact that that district is struggling to retain and recruit those highly qualified individuals. Asha let me mention which is our national governing board recently released this graph and I think it's pretty astounding to just know that Arkansas little Arkansas and the purple here as one of the highest per capita ratios of SLPs in the nation that's not completely shocking as we do have five highly reputable graduate programs that are producing clinicians each year but what is concerning what we are not able to explain is why estate without a high ratio of SLPs is struggling to fill those vacancies across our Eleazar around the state so archa in order to kind of delve into this Lack of comprehension on why we see and that this distributed some surveys to school based SO peas non school based SLP is a graduate students and Ellie As. In this data right here represents the school based SLP so SLPs survey results we were able to obtain responses from a hundred and thirty six of our members within our state and you can see from the pie chart that the range of experience in the past we had from one year all the way past thirty years of experience of those hundred and thirty six responses eighty three percent have are reported that they are currently working in a public school setting with those remaining members being employed through a private school setting what shocking though in ninety little yellow circle you'll see is that seventy eight point seven percent of the speech therapist currently employed in a public school setting have seriously considered leaving the field. When asked why they contributed their reasons to paperwork demands pay schedules high caseloads teacher duty responsibilities and the general view of SLPs within the educational setting when asked how do we fix that what we do to improve it they obviously mentioned improving those areas as one of those things that would help them stay but they also mentioned that the finding of their the finding of the previously approved stipend which we can talk about in just a little while later would help them to feel as though they truly were a medical professional working in this city the setting. When we look at the data from our non school based SLP as you can see from the we had around ninety nine responses and fifty four percent of those who responded indicated that they had previously worked in the school setting of that fifty four percent only twenty seven percent said that they would even be willing to consider coming back to a public school setting. Interestingly the reasons as to why they were hesitant to return to that setting was due to the same reasons that our current SO peas are considering leaving but they did indicate that some of the benefits to their new position included things such as a flexible schedule being as their number one and then other perks related to relationships with co workers four oh one K.'s and things such as bonuses. Last but certainly not least as a graduate student data this is the data that we feel like is most concerning we had nineteen we had roughly thirty responses from my graduate student programs great take into mind it was the summer time so they were not checking their emails practice frequently but others who responded only thirty five percent of the graduate students surveyed indicated that they would even be willing to apply for a school based position if one were open in their area of that already low thirty five percent only thirty percent indicated that they would then accept that position if offered. May I may I can I may I please have because I am reading the room and I want these folks to work with everybody on this when we come back in twenty twenty three because you guys have you've done a very very good job of giving us the information we need in the format that we need it and for all of the recommendations at the end I don't want to lose this group I want them to be sure they heard what you said but I also want to suggest that the presentation can and of this point so that we do have everything we need at our mind the committee we do have everything that we need in writing on the grass and so forth and because we've exceeded our time and I I want to just express my appreciation for your bring and this to us because we really need this speech but I'll apologize to the to really help us to do the work that we need to do to serve our students and if anybody wants to have or just a quick. Wrap up not back to the present presentation of do that and I suggested bringing to a close because I have to make the case that these folks that they need to help you in twenty twenty three so we just briefly ran out of that be great I'm sorry in bed space that we're almost finished anyway so As You Like and Senator Elliot with sand there are if you ask that you guys can reveal like we mentioned previously one was just a second and I just in case since considerations of workload models and flexible scheduling to have been beneficial in our surrounding states so we have provided links to those if you need those just for some models but and other than that we best mostly just wanted to thank you for your time and consideration and level allowing us to meet with you all today and so if there are any questions we'd be happy to take this and for the public this these will be posted online is that correct yes if anybody wants to sit at the the public probably should take a look at this as well thank you all so much appreciate you just to clarify a couple things one ACT ten eighty four that you keep referring to that was representative Gazaway spill Hyson twenty twenty one is that correct okay Okay I probably would have more questions for you later at that point but and then the Medicaid money that's produced right because of your services those are retained at the school correct those are not funneled back to the state now they stay in the day stay in the school district right so. I mean that's that's something that you know. I understand the different aspects of this however. Part of that funding that they're receiving does help pay for your position at that school is that a fair statement that is true okay I do have just a couple of quick questions and I'll let them go ahead of. Representative finds. Thank you madam chair this is really a question for the committee rather than for you thank you so much for your presentation and for the work that you do in our schools really appreciate you I'm just wondering if we could expand this to also include school psychology specialist education examiners because they are pretty much in the same situation they're getting harder and harder to find and they're leading the school setting going to other agencies and institutions and I think a lot of this would apply as well I would add occupational therapists and physical therapists except that most of them contract with the school district have their own separate contracts outside of teacher salary contracts so I would just to specifically say School psychology specialist at examiners that we acted this and look at that all at the same time because I think if we just separate out and say SLPs were going to be hit with what about us thank you. M. I'm I've got to and then I'm gonna cut it off because of time representatives. Murdock the. Thank you madam chair just real quick question you mentioned that a lot of your time and and again I we appreciate your door can you obviously and it makes a lot of your time is taking up and doing reports and administrative and then we all understand that and and I understand that's an issue the question I have is how much of that is federal requirements how much of that state requirements and how much of that is school district required. Unfortunately they all kind of tied together so I'm here AT a law there's requirements to have to reported that have to be included in our reports and then there's requirements through Medicaid that have to be were in our reports and so in the school district you know just in terms of equity we tried to write our reports the same for every student so that way in the case that a student could be built for Medicaid then we are able to receive those finds to help the students as a whole so we at least in our districts and I think across the board we try to make sure that everything where you're not trying to add anything extra based just preference what we are trying to marry those two things together to where we are maximizing our time and efforts in one valuation reports that were not happy to go back and write it down if needed okay so sounds like the state's not putting a whole lot of Baxter most of it is federal requirements so there's not really a whole lot that we can do to try to lighten that load other than lobby Congress. Right thank you. Okay and I have a question that somebody had texted me are you all here speaking M. Are you here in your private capacity or are you speaking for your districts we are speaking on behalf of archer which is our state advocacy education the Arkansas speech language hearing association okay an adhoc committee for that organization got thank you okay and I have Are you got her and I do have one last I called on represent Murdock but he's not here but I'm gonna let Senator Solomon. Ask a quick question thank you so if you work for a private company they would pay you based on your bill and the number of hours you build some of that is non billable hours at your school. Has to do. they're putting that additional expense on your so one of our company independent company they pay you by your billing and they end up with a margin of profit you know with the school's margin is. I'm not sure exactly I know that their rate of discrepancy that the discrepancy between the rates I think I'm average right now like if we work at the school district where to contract this is running around ninety five to ninety eight dollars per hour for up to six hours for a contracted personnel to be in that position and so if you break that down a little lately it rates to about thirty to fifty per hour for a yeah I guess what I'm asking in your in your study you you're asking for a stipend so if the district is making enough money to pay for that stipend it seems like you're advocacy would be to your district to give you more of the margin which would equal your stipend instead of coming to the legislature that comes from the state level so that Act eleven eighty seven that was funded and that was approved in two thousand and five it's kind of where they they are all in agreement with you all that they say you know yes we understand what you do but Those discussions have likely occurred across many districts across the state thank you I guess madam chair I need to understand that more I guess thank you. Thank you an I know that personally that's I've been getting funded was based on as he. Sorry and I am yes and this type and that was passed was so that because we have our national cease though that is equivalent to the national board the teacher certification site and I think it for five thousand and so that is because what we have is equivalent to what those teachers have so that was passed in two thousand five and to find speech language pathologist with that because that was equivalent to the teacher. So we're that's just part of what we're asking that would help recruit and keep honestly like we've seen lots of really good SO please leave and that's really hard for our kids and to keep those good therapist and to recruit on that five thousand dollars would be huge. And I just want to say before we began the I. S. P. I was adhoc chair for the stocking Committee and my committee and I met a member's times with members of Mr Hutchinson governor Hutchinson's educational group as well as commissioner key and so Act I didn't meet with you that that's okay I mean I don't anyway go ahead and so therefore those meetings were held and and discussed and unfortunately that money had to be allocated to other venues. I'm sorry okay I. Okay but your Medicaid is billed at the same rate so one of the questions you know we had was is Medicaid different in Conway versus somewhere else and the only it should be only different discrepancy with Medicaid. A reimbursement would be if you're a federally qualified health center they actually get an enhanced Medicaid rates more so than anybody else in the field so FQHCs are the ones that get an enhanced Medicaid rates but as far as your Medicaid billing whether you're in Conway or Springdale Rogers or Mountain View or Salem or violent it's going to be the same Medicaid reimbursement it doesn't matter where you are in the state of Arkansas and that was a question somebody had but that's correct yeah and then okay all right thanks I see no other questions thank you all so much for coming in. All right members if you'll just stay tuned we may be calling some additional meetings in September so we'll be in touch with you thank you where adjourns.