Education Committee - Senate and House
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- October 2, 2026
Senator Jane English
Unverified
0:05
first thing we have on the agenda is a motion to approve the November3rd minute motion second all in favor all post thank you very much so one of the things that we have with our education our our focus is for all of our students to leave high school employed enrolled or enlisted. so today we have some folks here to talk
about those opportunities for our students and and we're they can go afterwards so we are welcome today to have doctor Tina Moore and I believe DoctorRoss White and Ken Warden who's the director of department of higher edd who will come and talk to us about all these efforts and we've got a lot of things
going on in the state which is really good you'll identify yourselves
you will be recognized are you on The little green light's not going on
Speaker 12
1:39
we have anybody back here Oh it's on. OK, great Ken Warden
Speaker 13
1:54
commissioner Arkansas division of higher education Tina Moore, director of workforcevelopment division of higherducation. Ro s
Speaker 14
1:59
s wa t t director of the division of career and technical Education at the Arkansas department you may proceed
Speaker 16
2:06
good afternoon umRosswat. so we're going to spend a little bit of kind of sharing some
information that we hope will kind of feed off of each other so if you recall in September I actually presented to you all a little bit about the work of learns and what we've done within
Speaker 17
2:20
the division of career and technicalducation and as we go forward with those pieces and so you leave your microphone
Speaker 18
2:26
to up just a little bit right that good thank you so in September
Speaker 16
2:32
we talked a little bit about learns and access and really the work of those two things together and how they're ensuring our success ready graduates as Senator English just mentioned a moment
ago to really build that readiness piece for enlistment enrollment and employment ensuring that all of our graduates from our K-1el systems graduate with that and that being the ultimate goal. And so with that we have our vision of success ready graduates that again in September we discussed a little bit but really that continuum from grades6 through 1el, how are we ensuring that students are getting those early career experiences opportunities in our system then student success plans which was legislated many years ago and
how we're using that as a planning tool to then put our students on pathways that can lead to that enlistment employment and enrollment piece and so as we look at those things our charge has been really how do we define this for schools and how do we put it as a piece of the work they do on a regular basis so we haveccess readyady pathways that we have identified that align across the state of Arkansas and what we call high wage high demand pathways when we look at labor market information but also wages that are being earned
in Arkansas so we were able to identify 22 pathways within our state that those exist and so our schools have to now require them to have at least one of these offered at their K-1el district as a part of their accreditation process and then through that our students have the opportunities to earn merit or distinction as they graduate. and so this started with our current sophomore class and we'll continue being built in so any student that's entering high school at this point or the previous years now working towards that merit and
distinction opportunity and then that also became a part of our school accountability that I know you all have heard quite a bit about with our school letter grade system and so this comes in as a piece for our 912 campuses into their accountability and so when students are earning merit or distinction we're really looking for two things one they're completing pathway s which means they're taking a series of courses that being at least3 courses and that are preparing them for that enlistment enrollment employment and the second thing is they're leaving with what I call a readiness factor but they're
leaving with something tangible whether it be a credential, whether it be early postsecondary credit, whether it be work experience that they got while in high school so it's something that they can add to their resume to continue that work going forward and gives them a tangible piece and so that's really where merit and distinction come in. when you look at these two slides they're very similar. distinctions just had a little bit higher level which means it's pushing them towards a little bit more work or more opportunity or credential that takes a little bit more time or additional
postsecondary education opportunities as that continues to go through and so those are things to kind of keep in mind as we're looking at success readyady graduates from specifically within the Lears Act that we're building out that readiness for enlistment enrollment and employment and so as this information has been shared in the past kind of where we're at now is really discussing and this is where it fits into our school accountability grade and so it's been reflective in the grades that were issued this fall and will continue to be the class of
2028 is where we're into full implementation for all students but we're already beginning to really see the impact in our enrollment and so that was kind of our big piece for today that's going to then lead into what Doctor Moore is going to talk about is our enrollment the the chart that's in front of you is really just comparing last school year to this school year. We could put multiple years on there but I think this speaks volume to the changes we're already seeing. so the lighter shade
on the left is last school year so that would have been the fall of 2024. our enrollment in just K-12 career and technical education on a public school campus was right at 161,000 students in seats if we look at it for this fall the semester we just ended it was at 171,000 so we pretty much saw a 10,000 plus seat increase. that speaks I think tremendously the value that our schools are seeing and those opportunities that are there, and how that
fits into our students being able to be success ready graduates the pieces that fits in with merit distinction as it also then fits in with our school accountability system if we look at the concurrent enrollment as well, we were at 12,000 last fall. This fall we sat at right at 16,000, so about4,000 more students were earning concurrent credit for career and technical education courses which is also pretty steady increase and a piece that we can speak highly to the learnarns Act but also theccess Act and then our secondary
career centers now you will notice there's a little bit of a decrease in that enrollment and part of that decreases some of the changes that have been made at the secondary career centers around the programs they offer and so to ensure that we're aligning those programs with what the biggest needs are in our state for workforce development wise is there's some programs that have no longer been funded just because they don't align to Arkansas workforce needs and through the review with their career education and workforcevelopment Board and those adjustments kind of cause that to be I would say almost a flat line in enrollment
this year just because we had some programming that's no longer counted in the secondary career centers as we go forward but across the board we are seeing a steady increase in our enrollment in these programs and we know that a big piece of that is due to the Learns Act and the focus on successready graduates and ensuring students are completing pathways and being able to achieve merit and distinction but then at the same time when we start to begin to discuss access the piece around acceleration and providing those accelerated opportunities for our students when we talk about
pathways and the being a success ready graduate that is something that we truly look at as an accelerated opportunity for most of our students at the same time when we look at those concurrent credit numbers that are in there and really having that conversation around the credentials that can be earned that students can have before they graduate high school that are coming from a postsecondary and has also really helped accelerate that conversation and those pieces wouldn't have happened without those two pieces of legislation going together and then of course being complimentary to each other and so Doctor Moore is going to talk a little bit about
how access is really changing the landscape from the workfor ce side and then as our students are completing these pathways in the K-1el programming that what is that next step when we talk about enlistment enrollment employment and that it's that seamless transition from their K12 education experience to then the next step and for a lot of them it is that continuing education employment and enlistment and so there's a lot of really important pieces that come from access that complement that to ensure that we're getting these students into the workforce needs of Arkansas.
Speaker 21
9:25
Thanks rosss. and as our transition I will be focc focusing on workforce scholarships and grants but I want to
Speaker 22
9:32
first focus on some state scholarships that you're aware of because of work that you did with the access that both supports and rewards diplomas of merit and distinction. so you're likely familiar with the access to acceleration and the predominant way that students will receive merit distinction we anticipate being through concurrent credit concurrent enrollment and access to acceleration makes that
possible and you're aware of the bullet points are on these slides but I want to dig just a little deeper into what that really means as a former math educator I had a little fun crunching some numbers and looking at some percent changes because we just look at this we're like ok it's it's a little more money it's some more classes but what does that really mean for students and their families? so I'm gonna look through my notes here so I don't misquote anything the former scholarship provided $125 per course and the majority of courses that are taken as concurrent they're
typically threehour courses. so that would be41 dollars67 cents per credit hour compared to now being65 dollars per credit hour with A toA. and that is a56% increase in funding per credit hour. now granted the65 dollars does have to cover tuition fees and materials which before that might have fallen on the families or schools the families or students to pay for but um56% increase is quite large. Well, if we look a little further the
former scholarship allowed two classes a semester and if we use that three hour per course example that'd be 12 hours per year compared to now30 hours per year when you look at the funding for those hours 12 versus30. you go from500 a year to 1, 950 a year. that's a 290% increase in funding the former scholarship designated 10th,11th, and 1elth graders as eligible while A2A
includes freshman. This means total funding available to high school students for concurrent courses went from a total of $1500 to7,800 dollars over the lifetime of their high school experience. that's a420% increase so I just wanted to focus on that because we know that multiple studies including looking at our own Arkansas data shows that early college has a significant effect on two year and four year college and university enrollment degree
attainment as well as early labor market earnings beyond high school and stronger effects happen for low income and first generation college students so as we look at workforce opportunities I just want to applaud you and thank you for making this available to students and families it really can change the trajectory of lives and be a way out of poverty for many students. so that is how A toA makes merit distinction more possible for students and then students
who earn merit distinction are then eligible for state scholarships to continue their education so the Arkansas academic challenge you added an access that a diploma of merit would be a qualifying criteria for that and then doubled the freshman year award. so that really opens up a lot of opportunities asRoss outlined the slide earlier with all the different ways to get a diploma of merit that student is automatically eligible for this funding. Additionally this is one thing that sort of I think flew low on
the radar for our K-12 partners until recently and now this really has everyone's attention. I I want to apologize in advance for how many times I'm going to use the word distinction or distinguished over the next minute or so. it's a little bit confusing so the governor's scholar program as you likely know has two different levels. It has the governor scholar just regular we call it nonistinguished for lack of better terms and then the governor's distinguished scholarship the distinguished did not change it's an italics
there and if you want more information you can contact Alicia Lewis our scholarship person but I wanna focus on the nonistinguished which is the the four bullet points there that it's referring to.udents can earn the governor scholar nonistinguished scholarship by earning a diploma of distinction. See why I apologized about using the word so much like it's a little confusing but if the high school diploma of distinction is earned a student qualifies for this scholarship this is big money
here we're talking5,000 a year and it's stackable with the academic challenge. So this can open doors for students beyond what was ever possible in Arkansas's history so I'm very excited about those opportunities and you may say wellok I thought you were going to talk about workforce. Well, in my mind workforce is not just short term training. Workforce is all education it doesn't matter if you're pursuing a short term commerci al driver's license or a four year degree in logistics. It doesn't matter if you're
pursuing short term emergency medical technician training or you're pursuing a graduate medical degree. that is all workforce training all those folks are going to have jobs so to me this is still part of workforce even though it's not short termm workforce training. So thank you for those opportunities that you have increased for students to have in our state. so now we're going to focus on those scholarships and grants that are specifically labeled as workforce and typically we're referring to shorter term training when we say that and to
show how important that training is the division of higher edd has now changed instead of calling it noncredit training we now call it professional skills training because that is what it is it's to get folks into the workforce with ale livable wage. Now I know that you are familiar with this criteria because you're the ones who said it but the workforce challenge and review because there was quite a bit in access it expanded the definition of approved institution of higher education to include those public or private vocational technical schools in addition to our two and four year colleges
and universities it specified these five highdeman occupational areas that you see on the screen and increase the maximum scholarship from 800 per program to3,000 per academic year we anticipate this increasing significantly the utilization of this s cho lar ship because of the expanded definition of training providers as well as that increase in funding so because of that we are developing policy to support implementation with fidelity. we are looking at
considering programs that are 80 hours or more as the intent of this legislation the original workforce challenge legislation as well as this is to get folks into a job that has a livable wage and we know that the training needs to be substantial we're not 1 to provide3,000 dollars for a one day workshop of some sort. so we're looking at that 80 hour minimum threshold and potentially tiered funding where programs that were 80 to179 hours would receive $1500 and
those h80 hours or more or on the credit side a certificate of proficiency would receive the3000. This might not seem like a heavy lift but this is something that's new to us because we require we started just a couple of years ago we changed the professional skills training reporting to include personal student identified information as required. it's a a quite exhaustive list of information that has to be reported for student completers and that will
now have to be reported by these private career institutions that have not done that before have not reported to us before have not received funding through us before so there are lots of logistics behind that but we are working hard and we'll have that ready for implementation this fall. we've already been meeting with many of the private career ed providers getting their thoughts on the guardrails that we're setting up and have had positive feedback and it's it's really coordinating efforts among multiple folks at our agency.
you may have heard about the federal workforce Pell grant. I just want to make sure that's on everyone's radar and I'm just gonna highlight some of the big pieces of this this was part of the one big beautiful bill Act of 2025 and the workforceell expanded the regular pill that we're all familiar with to include short term training and high quality workforce programs there are many guardrails around this the the just the basic program requirements are listed here these bullets
these4,150 to599 clock hours or an equivalent number of credit hours anywhere from 8 weeks but less than 15 weeks of duration offered by an institution of higher education that's title for eligible and not a correspondence course. those parameters alone knock out the majority of programs in Arkansas and in the United States. we're very happy that this funding is available and we will try to find ways to utilize it more but nationally the talks are on like I mentioned Cdl earlier. A CdL program is
typically around 180 clock hours. If you look that's gonna be ok great you're in that guideline. well this is an and not an or. Most CdL programs are going to be around4 weeks it's not gonna hit that eightweek threshold and we certainly don't want to make learners stay in a program for eight weeks unnecessarily just to be able to get some funding so currently negotiated rulemaking is taking place in December there was a week of that and now they're following up currently they're probably sitting in a room like
we are right now with the negotiated rulemaking in Dc we're very fortunate that someone from Arkansas is on that committee Eric Atcheson from the Asu system is on that committee. So Arkansas's voice is being heard in that negotiated rulemaking which is important but they cannot change the legislation. They can, you know, provide clarity um, but the guardrails are there and when I say the guardrails this is only the beginning of the guardrails there I do want to point out that very last bullet on here it does open up ell eligibility for those who already have a
bachelor's degree because we know that folks may want to reskill and pursue something different especially with the impact of technology and AI on our workforce the bachelor's degree that served them well may not be meeting the workforce needs of today. so I'm gonna go through each one of these line by line slowly. just kidding I'm not. I just wanted you to have it for later so the next couple of slides outline some more of the guardrails I will highlight these guardrails are what the governor's office is in charge
of determining I will stress on here one thing to really point out and it's listed in several of these bullet points is the point of stackability and opportunity for credit down the road it is it behooves us behooves us to make sure that learners are not in dead end paths even if it's short term training we want them later on if they decide they want to pursue a career path that has more opportunity because a lot of times the short term training
might be a livable wage but it's at that bare minimum of a livable wage so this requires that training programs will articulate to credit and or be stackable towards other programs and this slide lists what the department of Education must do and this is where a lot of folks nationally are having discussions it's going to be maybe a challenge to meet some of these criteria you'll see that a program has to be in operation already for a year
before eligibility. The7070 rules as they're calling it at least70% of pro completion rate as well as job placement rate must be demonstrated and then the value added earning s metric it makes me think a lot about I'm scared to say it because he might jump up and down the ROI metric that Doctor Warden is so excited about for our higher ed institutions here and that's really important this is taxpayer dollars and we need to make sure that these programs are resulting in programs that
lead to jobs that are paying for the training and that there's an ROI metric in there it's important but it can also be challenging on some of these short term trainings like I said they're very entrylevel trainings many of these if they're short term. So with all that when we look at what the award is this is why some nationally are saying yeah don't know if the juice is worth the squeeze for some of the programs this is just an example the federal Pell grant maximum amount is currently7,000
just short of7,400 dollars well a longer workforce pill program, the longest 1, the14 weeks599 clock hours the maximum award a student could receive and this would be the the student demonstrating the greatest financial need would be3,980 dollars. The student who is Pe eligible but for the minimum award amount which is 10% would only be398 dollars. when we look at the shortest term of a pell grant workforce pill
of eight weeks or 150 clock hours that is as little as $1,232 even for the student who has the most need and the student that is ell eligible with the least need only $123. So that $123 may not make someone really want to go through the trouble with the ffafa or the institution go to the trouble of all the paperwork that's required so that is all the information I have on that and we're happy to answer any
Senator Jane English
Unverified
23:20
thank you very much. OK umpresentative garner thank you
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
23:29
madam chairir. I I just had a quick question at the very beginning when we were talking about the programs that have been eliminated the the workforce programs that have been eliminated is there a list of those somewhere or how is that done and is it done in a way that if someone is in that program that they can finish or
maybe they didn't maybe you weren't using it at all. I don't know but what was
Speaker 16
23:56
what was the the way that our secondary career centers through our operation the way they're set up functionally is they do Department of Commerce oversees that operation and so the careeration and workforce Development Board. there oversees the funding and determines it so they've had for years a tiered funding where they had different tiered levels so it was a tier one a tier 2, a tier3 that determined the level of need for that program and so what went into this year was
the funding for what was considered like a tier3 program which was had the least wager demand threshold in our state where the programs that are no longer counting in that because those programs are choosing to close them because the funding's not there for them anymore. holistically most of those programs and students are still finishing them out it's just been on a case by case basis also those enrollments were very small at most of those programs and but we can get you a list
Speaker 14
24:47
with a department of commerce specifically from the office ofkills Development on which programs were if you would like
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
24:52
those OK great thank you thank you p re s ent ative Duke and thank you madam chairir. thank you guys. thank you for being here it's good to see you all hope you had a good holidays I've got a couple of questions one I'm sure is not going to surprise you so my first one is when it comes to the letter grade that the
schools get and with them I guess as a merit to put my glasses back on the merit of distinction where their students happen to be a completer using my words I don't know if those are necessarily your words on this so what how much of a tick is it off if they have kids who don't are not
completers. how much does it affect their letter grade? oh thank you. So I
Speaker 17
25:43
mean when you look into the formula it is looking specifically
Speaker 16
25:46
at students who achieve that and so it's going to look at the the kind of the numerator denominator of it is the number of students they are graduating becomes that
denominator numerator becomes the number of students who achieved merit or distinction. So I mean as we build that out I don't holdly say look at it as if there's a ticket against them it's just looking at our reassuring our students have that success for graduate piece. Now if you get into the the math teacher over here start talking about the mass side of it then I mean there is going to be that who the who is their four year cohort graduation piece the students who aren't achieving that when we look at that I think it's out of the total number of points about ain of it. I mean there is going to be some impact there
long term for them for students who are not getting through a pathway.
Speaker 45
26:28
OK so this is a conversation that you and I and was it director Warden? I
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
26:32
don't know if I had the exact title Commissioner Warden whatever it is that I've had a couple of times over the last couple of years so but but you know one
of my concerns is the Duke children will be a problem for a school district right? because in a small school district a lot of your kids who do your watten and there's a couple of layers I have on this question do your sports and also do your band or your choir or your other pieces.
So I see this a little difficult for them my children I encouraged try things you're in high school I didn't have a single one of them complete they completed their sports but they didn't complete whether it was it counting or whether they went to homeme ec or whatever the technology whatever it is now whether they didag or some of those other classes that they did they tried a couple of those different things which I encouraged the way I see it is if you have students that do that if they don't complete because they went into accounting and they took her took a business class, they took
an ad class and went ok this is not necessarily for me I'm gonna go a different direction that's gonna impact the school letter grade I haven't seen anything that's ever convinced me differently. So is that is that accurate even though the terminology may not be they're achieving versus a tick against them it's still kind of the same end result, right? we want them to be selecting in ninth grade and become completers in something. not doctor Warden's gonna try to know he's used to this question with me but we don't want them to do a buffet it's basically
Speaker 53
27:56
there he goes so make me feel better Representative Duke thank you for the question.
Speaker 56
28:05
so is it perfect No but I do think it's really good and for the students that you're addressing the duke the Duke kids that are encouraged to try everything we have more than one way for them
Speaker 57
28:18
to achieve distinction they can be an AP scholar and take a certain number of AP classes to get there. They can do anternation
baccallorettebaclorette program they can also do a a complete a technical certificate in a technical area or they can also achieve a certificate of general studies which is achieving basically30 hours that satisfy partially satisfy the general education core so there are multiple modalities and ways for for children to reach this our problem is that we haven't had
Speaker 58
28:47
students having conversation the students that you're talking about are doing that with intentionality those aren't the kids we're missing
the kids that were missing are the other58% of the students in Arkansas that don't attempt anything after high school we only have42% of our children in Arkansas attempting anything after high school and when I say that I'm talking about technical education pure academics that's 20% points behind the nation those are the children that we're missing that are in the bubble of the the belly of the bell curve that we've got to get to improve education in
Speaker 57
29:23
Arkansas and I do believe that your children and those we're talking about who explore these
different things with intentionality were probably bound to that destiny and that there are opportunities through the AP or IB or the other the cambridge a certificate for them to get there is it perfect? no and and I will tell you I am very open to any other ways where if we miss miss the the ball here we're missing something and we need to plug a hole we're open to those conversations. I hope that helps so if if a student and there's a couple
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
29:59
different and you and you went in one of the directions that I do have a question on as far as these diplomas but if you have a class of68 and you're a68 students do not get that completer part. not talking I mean is that separate from the diplomas of distinction when they're graded on it or is it so if if you don't have your kids complete but you have them get this diploma distinction then their letter grade's not gonna have any effect positive or negative from that
because my understanding is they have to they have to complete over here to get that little tick on the letter grade to get it increased score so the what's
Speaker 16
30:38
up on the screen right now are the different pathways that we have and we say pathways kind of loosely because we start to include like APs on there I think it's the thirdrd, yeah3rd line on the left it talks about advanced placement so a student taking three AP courses. those courses might not be in sequence to each other or have any correlation but they are advanced placement courses that then becomes their pathway,
their success ready pathway and so that's gonna meet that indicator then the second part of having like taking something forward with them is going to be then earning that concurrent credit or the other options with their assessments and when we start talking about the AP scholar designations at collegelege Board puts out because then that gives them a designation that that would help them achieve that merit or distinction piece that's there so it's not necessarily always looking at them being a completer which is very much a career and technical education term that we use within our path way s to where our pathways
are a little bit broader as we look at this holistically and many of the examples that
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
31:36
Doctor Warden mentioned. so if a student does a gets that example you use there gets the AP that is equivalent as far as the letter grade for that school district as of them being a completer yes ma'am so they
Speaker 64
31:50
achieve that AP scholar designation which the AP scholar rules are specific to how college board determines
Speaker 16
31:55
an AP scholar. that informa that then is equivalent to them being a CT completer that let's say
went through our automotive service program and had their A AE certification at the end it would be the equivalent of that and they would still be able to achieve that merit or distinction level it's been a
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
32:11
while since I've had the kids in high school so does that do they have to have like the intercourse exam or something like that pass that
Speaker 16
32:18
to make sure that they get that they qualifying score of a three that's set by a college board and so we can send you all of the specific metrics that AP or college board specifically puts out for like the AP scholar they had the AP scholar with honor.
they also have the Ap scholar with designation and they had the AP scholar with honor designation each of those are set by college board with those designations mean and it all revolves around the number of courses they have taken and the scores they have achieved on those exams they have to take at the end of that course. OK so I have and I'll get back in the queue
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
32:50
for a couple of other questions that that revolve around this a little bit but they're a little bit different but I think you
know and in the conversations we had in the last couple of years one of my concerns is and I just want to make that reassurance from you all that if you have
students that are not completing this because they try some of those different pathways and to see what they want to do in college because you don't necessarily know ninth grade you don't necessarily know your freshman year of college what you want to do, right? So they they have additional as long as they're maybe be taking an AP class or an or is there another pathway besides that to make sure that school district isn't having that letter grade impacted by because those letter grades matter I think they're important right? isn't being impacted because of that student that is moving around a little bit
because they have the parents maybe that is
saying hey you're not you don't like that? OK, try something
Speaker 21
33:43
different so if if I could just add to that and I knowRoss spoke about the AP scholar and of course I'm going to focus on the concurrent piece.
Speaker 22
33:51
So if you notice on here where it says 12 or more postsecondary credits and we said most of the concurrent credit courses are3 hours, not all but the majority of three hours so a student who takes four concurrent credit courses
that counts as being on this previous slide in the top right column that's the concurrent credit pathway so they could be on any ofRoss's CTE pathways even if they weren't one of the h2 pathways listed here or they could start one here and to to your point change their mind and do something else and even if they were not acTE completer if they took4 concurrent credit courses or concurrent credit courses to to get to that 12 hours their pathway was then the concurrent credit pathway and I stress concurrent because the success
rate in Arkansas for concurrent success rate being a an A B or C meaning it'll transfer once they pursue onto higher ed that success rate's 91%. The success rate for AP on just one exam is only around48%. I don't have my slides with me. It's it's less than50%. so that if if your eggs are all in one bucket there concurrent is a safe bet and then the
Speaker 23
35:03
the school would get credit the student would get credit
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
35:09
everybody's good to go. OK, thank you. I appreciate that and something came to me when you said that and then I completely lost it so I'll get it back in the queue when and come back to
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
35:26
it when I ask my other questions. Thank you. thank you madam chair. Senator flowers thank you just have a couple of
questions. One is are there guidance counselors that oh that provide the information for students 9th
through 12th grade concerning these career pathways or success ready pathways yes ma'am I mean we've done extensive training
Speaker 17
35:48
with our school counselors across the state through their professional organizations but as the department hosting regular trainings
Speaker 16
35:54
to make sure that our guidance counselors in our schools our career coaches in our schools are fully aware of the pathway s and how to achieve that merit distinction.
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
36:04
in every school 9th through 12th has a guidance counselor present
Speaker 17
36:11
present at the trainings I mean so our present at the school they're required to
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
36:17
have a counselor yes ma'am. 9th through 1elth grade yes ma'am
and the other question I have is concerning the apprenticeships they're mentioned up there but I don't see a list of apprenticeships and how where are they fitting into these different subject matters
Speaker 17
36:43
so for both merit and distinction we offer our students have the opportunity
Speaker 16
36:47
to what we call workbased learning we have multiple levels to it but we have certified pre-apprenticeships which are through the department of commerce and I believe Mr. Waits might hear in a little bit discuss that and then we also have youth apprenticeships that are registered through the department of laborbor that students can complete those as well and those are going to lead to that distinction opportunity. so those are both folded in and we have numerous students participating in both those versions and then we also
Speaker 17
37:13
have career pract comes in our state which are also students umm engaged in work experience while in high school gaining credit and work experience related
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
37:22
to their interest in the guidance counselor is aware and provides that information to students yes ma'am is there a list
I'd like to have a list of the apprenticeships that are available for we can get you the
Speaker 17
37:35
number of students that are enlisted in apprenticeships throughout the state by district broken down. we have all that information available and
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
37:43
are the districts required to have apprenticeship that's their they
Speaker 16
37:46
can decide at the local level whether they want to which programs they offer. so that is a choice of theirs. I'm wondering if
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
37:54
if it's available apprenticeships are available within every school district will speak for a lot of our
Speaker 16
38:00
apprenticeships that we have in the state that are registered with the DOL most of the business and industry that we're engaged with are traveling all across the state to engage with apprenticeship opportunities. we have specifically we can use a construction trade we have
some specific construction companies in the state of Arkansas that they have a person solely employed for apprenticeships and then specifically even youth apprenticeships and they travel to any community that is interested in working to engage those students in those apprenticeship opportunities to some of our most rural to our most urban. so I would say anybody who's willing to have a conversation with them it's there and available right now. Well it certainly would
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
38:37
appreciate a list of those apprenticeships thank you madam chair
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
38:46
Representative meeks thank you madam Chair. I have just 22 questions. I'm over here by the by the pillar here so it's kind of ironic that we're discussing this today because in a few minutes my daughter will actually be taking her placement so she can take advantage of the access scholarships. so this is a very timely discussion for me so it it leads me to to two questions.umber one you'd mentioned earlier that the guidance counselors are trained to promote these opportunities within the the public schools can you talk about
your efforts maybe how do we reach charter schools, private schools, homeschool students to let them know that these opportunities are available for them as well are you looking specifically
Speaker 68
39:31
for like merit and distinction or are you looking more at scholarships thinking like with
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
39:35
concurrent credit classes so while they're still in high school if I if I've got a student who's going to a private school or an our case my daughter's homeschooled what are we doing to let those
families know that they can you know that there's this opportunity available that they can take these concurrent classes I think Doctor Warden's gonna try to answer you if
Speaker 17
39:57
we can get him on. you're not working again some things are just best
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
40:05
left unanswered, right? Can you usetinos there it goes oh he
Speaker 56
40:15
had it ok there you go operator error I'm sure reverend meek thank you for the question so we do visit with
Speaker 57
40:20
our private schools and homeschools as as we're asked and I'm happy to pull together an an effort you know to focus on that in a more and better ways to make sure that they're aware of those opportunities it's it's it's new and it's gaining traction real fast. there's a learning curve our high school or junior high counselors you know those are some of the most important folks in the lives of our young people especially when those young people may be firstgeneration students who don't have parents that are pushing them harder showing them
the options and those you know that's a that's a hardworking group of individuals that have a that have a lot of rule changes in front of them so we're providing support as we can and and happy to do more to that but if we're if if we're missing something with that that you're aware of we're happy to any time since some of our works over have those folks in to discuss these options and make sure that they're accessing them in the best way possible that's what we want and I will add to that I
Speaker 13
41:17
said on the charter panel and our charter office
Speaker 22
41:19
at the division of elementlementary and secondcondary Education work
closely with APSRC and with the charter schools throughout the state to make sure that they are aware of the changes whether it's related to legislation or or policy at the department to make sure that they they're aware of the changes and what's available for students
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
41:40
excellent and then my my follow up is I was kind of curious the this federal workforce ell grant you're talking about with the 150 to599 clock hours. you you you'd mentioned that almost everything is disqualified, right? there's
very few things that do qualify can you tell us some things that do qualify? I mean what what what was the federal government what was their focus of putting I mean if you know whenever we're doing legislation if if we're we're putting very narrow guardrails there's a purpose for that what is the purpose? iss there a certain like careers you're trying to promote or what who could take advantage of this so
Speaker 22
42:19
I will say that ironically federally the examples that they gave included Cdl and nursing
assistant. Nursing assistant programs in our state and other states typically are around 90 clock hours so that's not going to get the hour threshold and I gave the example that Cdl earlier wouldn't either so as I pulled the data for our professional skills training in our state and narrowed it down based upon both of these criteria there was one program that qualified and it was a CdL program that ended up being 8 weeks. because it's like can be one that maybe someone's attending part time. So we are
moving towards for this we're going to work with our colleges and my my partners in crime back here from Arkansas Community Colleges are here and working with them on this as well to work with our colleges to stack programs like one example might be programmable logic controllers PLCs and they may be offering courses in PLc one Plc2 Plc3 and those are all separate. Say one of those programs is a fiftyhour clock
hour course and then each of those are fi0 hours. Well, if you put those together that makes a program that would be 150 hours so as things are packaged right now they may not be eligible but we feel confident that our institutions can combine training to make them more of a robust package. often employers may want 11 type of skill but they want additional ones like it's going to benefit everyone if they add in their OSha where right nowoSha might just be a standalone training by itself.
so they're just going to have to be creative in combining programs and one thing that I left out when I was talking about this is the importance of braiding funding both state and federal funds so that's why we're being very intentional with a workforce challenge that we're capturing programs that may not be covered by the workforce pill as well as we think about we oa funding goes towards short terms training the office of Skillsvelopment funds much of the short term training in our state so just making sure that there's something if not more than one funding stream for all
programs is really critical because in our state we are working with colleges to to develop what are often called micro pathways or microcredentials that are stackable and we want to make sure as we're encouraging institutions to develop those programs that there's some way to fund them all right thank you at risk of repeating
Speaker 62
44:47
Doctor Moa she's absolutely right we we anticipate that our institutions are going to repackage programs so that they're able to better take
Speaker 57
44:54
advantage of federal opportunities but also we are on the data looking at ways that how what we have complements
what the fed is doing but also complements our colleagues at OSD Cody's here's gonna talk about apprenticeships I think later but working with them to ensure that Osd funds and workforce challenge funds all those things in in the in the whole addresses the all the the entire landscape of education workforce education in the state and one thing I forgot that with Doctor Warden
Speaker 22
45:21
speaking it made me remember conversations we were just having yesterday about this we do have some programs that currently live on the credit side that are part of
technical certificates that require some general education type training in addition to the specific workforce training and they have been moved over to that side primarily so they would be eligible for funding we anticipate some of those programs moving back over to noncredit because that is part of the reason some student s choose to do other routes besides our community colleges because they want to go somewhere that they're not having to do the general education courses so some of those programs even like welding
welding lives on both the credit and noncredit side but we could easily move some of those noncredit programs over to some of the credit programs over the noncredit side without requiring the English composition course or the math
Speaker 57
46:15
course. the way our schools are rewarded now is for completing or producing academic credentials so with the new workforce or professional skills formula that we're working on now they will they will be more encouraged to let they won't be negative as negatively impacted because if a student comes to a welding
program and gets the certifications they need and go to work before they finished this an academic credential that impacts the institution negatively and that's not what we want that's not fair to the institutional or the individual once they met their skill goals to get the employment they need they need to get on with it when they so choose now if they want to come back and stack or skill up or get more on more academic credentials that's fine but we're we're trying to mold and adjust the system so that that's positive for the students are
not staying any longer than they want or need and it's also that the institutions are better recognized for students that are meeting their employment goals that may not have been meeting the metrics that we have previously set does that makes sense I hope thank you congrats to your Representative thank you again madam chairir
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
47:35
OK, so here's my next questions and it kind of goes around with the governor scholarship and I guess I have initial just questions on kind of a little bit of the history of it I I want to have some clarity on it so the traditionally at least what I had knowledge of is on the governor's scholarship is I guess I should ask first is this is that $2500 versus the whatever the other terminology was for the governor's scholarship is that relatively new or has that been there this
whole time? I mean for since I don't know
Speaker 23
48:09
the last 10 or 15 years. do not lead scholarship work at our agency. I don't know if Doctor Ward knows
Speaker 111
48:15
offhand without looking what the the historical funding was for
Speaker 62
48:19
that Representative Duke are you asking about the funding per individual
Speaker 112
48:22
I guess so so that you all mentioned the it's kind of the changes of this with the
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
48:28
diploma of distinction piece because that is a new piece right
Speaker 57
48:30
so what we've done is we have broadened the eligibility
Speaker 58
48:37
opportunities so now on top of all the ways you could be become eligible for governor scholar you can now achieve
Speaker 57
48:45
that eligibility by achieving a diploma of distinction and what that will do is rather than getting your just your academic challenge scholarship if you achieve a diploma of
Speaker 58
48:54
distinction you're automatically eligible for that5,000 dollars award5,000 dollars a year award the governor's scholar and can stack academic challenge to
Speaker 57
49:02
that so it has the potential if a student you know is in college for four
years and they achieved distinction of enhancing the financial support through the state and lottery by $20,000. so ok
Speaker 58
49:12
so you're saying that what they're getting right now are kids who are currently in
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
49:19
college right now or previously. my understanding is it was a32 on the ACT and I think you had to have a GPA of maybe35 or4 that that's why I was saying that part's not changed right but we're adding another piece to it so you're saying was
Speaker 22
49:32
already there but it did not include the diploma of
Speaker 57
49:39
distinction. And and you're talking about governor's distinguished scholarship
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
49:43
which that's right so I'm saying the $2500 piece and the5,000 dollars semester piecece right those are two different pieces that are that's two different scholarships but the5000 dollars one it are you saying the $2500.01 has always
been here and that's the same thing the one is per year and the one's per semester OK the set so 25 each semester
Speaker 24
50:03
is5,000 a year. I think you're confusing governors distinguished with governor
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
50:10
scholar. so which is distinguished a part of this at all
it is above and beyond it's above and beyond this but that one still
Speaker 22
50:21
that now will require a diploma of distinction so this is why when I said I said distinction so many times it was confusing whether the5000 increased or not that's what I wasn't sure about since I don't ever oversee scholarships but there's always been two separate parts to the governor's scholar. there's the nonistinguished which is the5,000 dollars a year and then
there's the distinguished which is the large amount in italics at the bottom that's 10,000 per year. The distinguished had no changes that's the the very rigorous one that requires that32 super score the other one was already in place but the criteria for it changed and that criteria for the smaller scholarship, the5,000 a year now includes a diploma of distinction. What I can't speak to is whether it was5,000 last it was ok that's the part I couldn't speak to so the the money didn't change on that one it's the same. The big
change on it was adding that diploma of distinction that
Speaker 120
51:14
was an added criteria that made that eligibility increase. OK so because I know initially the way
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
51:19
that the distinguished one was one per county for several many years ago and then the legislature or the governor I don't know who decided we don't want to lose our32 ACT kids to other states because we were losing them and so they broadened it up to I think start awarding it to just everybody had at32 and then I don't know if they've shrunk it back down again. I have no idea
what the rules and things have been on that but I get that leads into my next question. so you're saying that one the distinguished one with our kids who are scoring th32s on our ICT and our Arkansas schools they're we're not putting any other thing on them it's still the th32 and the GPA it's not the distinguished scholar. So say you go through and you get a different type of diploma
but you you you hit a32 on ACT right you're still eligible for that you don't have to have the other pieces
Speaker 22
52:07
could not earn merit or distinction either one and if you have a32 on your ACT ands
you still would get that just get that distinguished perfect that's
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
52:16
that's very helpful. that leads me to my next question that has to do with as far as your private schools and your homeschool. So if they're wanting to get the diploma of distinction if they want that governor's scholarship that is the $2500 that ends up to be5,000 dollars a year then they've got to get a diploma of distinction. is that correct? are they eligible for that at all? Well you'll see the other
Speaker 22
52:40
bullet that I didn't mention but an associate degree from high
school is also an eligibility all of the other
Speaker 57
52:48
eligibility requirements for the standard governor's scholarship apply. We increased eligibility by adding anyone who achieves a
Speaker 58
52:53
diploma of distinction. so let me just kind of get to where the que
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
52:59
are they if you are a homeschool or a private school student obviously the governor's scholarship, the distinguished one,32 on the ACT I assume that they're eligible for that. All they got to do is hit the32 on the SET but if you have the5,000
dollars one are they under having to get hit those same requirements for diploma of distinction in order to be able to receive that award of a scholarship because I assume in a private school they're not under the same diploma distinctions but maybe they are. I don't know I just kind of assumed they
have their own sets of rules So
Speaker 21
53:37
I've pulled up just from our scholarship website the criteria that Doctor
Speaker 22
53:40
Warren was mentioned still remains the same and this was just added to it. So homeschool
students or private school students could still meet this criteria of being the highest scoring student on the ACT or SAT score cumulative GPA and class rank for an Arkansas county that a governor's distinguished scholar was not selected. um, or they can earn the associate's degree. the diplomas of distinction are awarded by the school district per legislation so they're not eligible
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
54:08
for those. Is that correct? for the diploma
of distinction for the5000 dollars scholarship that's that's a nuanced question
Speaker 57
54:17
that I need to make before I affirm that but that is not the intention the intentions are if they meet the thresholds of a technical certificate that we're going to award them if they meet the same expectations of someone that's attending a public school then they should be eligible for those scholarships so we can ensure that happens on the on the application of the of the implementation process and that's that's mean that's the piece that concerns me
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
54:37
a little bit however you feel about it it seems to me the way that reads the whole of distinction if that's governed by what you do in a public school then you're
out taking out your private schools and your homeschool kids for being eligible for the5,000 dollars a year scholarship. Now I may not be reading it correctly that's why I asked the question I think it assumes
Speaker 110
54:55
that a homeschool student cannot be awarded a diploma of distinction that's what would assume
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
55:00
if that's a privates if that's a public school standard not I don't know what what would preclude
Speaker 62
55:04
them from being if they hit the requirements being awarded the same or something of the equivalent so if they hit those so they will have to hit those requirements that a public school has to hit
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
55:18
in order to be eligible for that scholarship. I lost you on the last part. I'm just I just wanted to clarify the diplomats distinction everybody applying for that has to hit the same requirement which means that their school their diploma that is out from the Duke school ofducation they have to my degree requirements for them to graduate and receive a diploma from our school has to hit this diploma of distinction in order for them to be eligible
for that so we have to parallel in order that diploma distinction for them to be eligible for that particular scholarship on top
Speaker 58
55:58
of all the prior eligibility opportunities that existed so this is a value add this is not taking anything away if they were eligible
Speaker 57
56:05
before they're still eligible this is another way they can achieve eligibility but they do have to do the same hoops for this this one particular eligibility
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
56:12
criteria which is a little bit mean like
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
56:21
one.one's taking the ACT that's why the $10,000.01 there's not as many but whenever you tie that diploma to it which is an add a new piece to this scholarship, correct? then you're adding a new thing to it for the private schools and the homeschool kids as well to be eligible for it it's not just a publics so everyone's eligible to receive it but they all have to jump through the same hoops and the the
Speaker 116
56:44
you know the the determination and the communications piece of that we're we're ironing out as we
Speaker 57
56:51
speak on when they when that's submitted you know we we've already set the deadlines and this first year of implementation there's a you know a few things that we got really got to figure out some details sort of like the questions you're asking us
Speaker 62
57:02
but we'll we'll get there yeah because mean'm
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
57:05
thinking of there's a lot of different directions but one of them too is if I'm a school
a private school this is also just another potential guardrail for my kids and so I think it's something that private schools and homeschools and all of them are gonna have to you know obviously life's about choices. It's about choices so you got to
choose but people just need to be aware of if you want this particular scholarship you gotta jump through
these particular hoops so you better know if a private school or the homeschool or whatever you're doing starting in grade 9, what does that look like right this
Speaker 57
57:35
is an or this is another way you don't have to do all that plus something else this is an additional eligibility opportunity. I do understand that sometimes my questions are
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
57:45
to make sure the people that we represent understand that as well and we're happy to go that's dive
Speaker 58
57:52
deeper if we need to so thank you thank
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
58:02
you Representative Beck thank you madam chairir. So two quick questions one
is a follow up on Representative Duke's question the the question is now as I understand you said homeschoolers can do it they have to meet the same requirements as the public schools weren't as far as the the palms of distinction do we currently have that
those listings available to where like someone who was homeschooling said ok well here here's the things that we need to be doing starting at the ninth grade to to make our child eligible for that and and I don't I'm not asking what they are I'm asking do we currently have that list and is it available to someone that would be homeschooling so we have
Speaker 62
58:48
posted that information and our and our yeah thank you so that's a
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
58:52
the other question I have see I easy question quick so the other
question I had is looking at the the merit quite 11 of the requirements is certified preapprenticeship leading to a registered apprenticeship and I was looking back on the previous page so could you just walk me through one of those appr that to that step with by the I'll ask this question is electrical one of them electrical apprenticeship one of them so I mean with our certified preapprenticeship, yes, I mean
Speaker 16
59:23
electrical all your traditional apprenticeships are going to be
that so so that's gonna be specific like when Cody gets up here and he talks a little bit about what the Department of Commerce is doing with apprenticeship so Arkansas is doing certified pre-apprenticeships which is unique and he
Speaker 14
59:39
can speak a little bit more about what that looks like but that is through the office ofkillsvelopment with their apprenticeships that they're certifying so oh
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
59:46
maybe maybe this is a question for later on or are you you can offline this thing but the pray ship that as I understand it I could be wrong about this but P preapprenticeship
programs do not they they get the education part they do not get the hours required for the registered apprenticeship is this correct? And I'm gonna let Cody answer those questions when he comes up here in a
Speaker 14
1:00:10
look for you because he can speak specifically about our state's rules regarding that. OK right n z al e z thank you chair.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:00:29
I have a I have a question as it relates to you mentioned
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
1:00:35
earlier about50% or higher percentage of of students are not entering or attempting career pathways work for career readiness pathways etc. I think it was a little over50% iss that so what was speaking to you earlier was
Speaker 56
1:00:49
that in Arkansas our higher education participation rate and when I say higher education I mean anything beyond high school not just a
Speaker 57
1:00:57
bachelor degree seeking technical in art
participation rates about42% in the state and the national average is about62. that's a problem for us we have this whole package in the excess act is all about having better connectivity between K12 and higher ed and and increasing access and eligibility and opportunities for students to participate in something beyond in postsecondary education. technical academic or otherwise ok thank
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
1:01:25
you so42% in Arkansas one of the lower we're kind of
on the lower end of the other states so I was wondering since we're looking at that in K12 and we're looking across the board ensuring that we can reduce that percentage42% down what are we what what are we doing when it comes to K5 for pre precareer preparation experiences or exploration opportunities for K5 students and their families so that they
can hit the ground running by the time they inter6th grade because the vision of a success ready Arkansas graduate that this one this this slide right here it starts at6th grade and I know that in the past when nonprofits that I've worked in in the past whenever there has been opportunities for families to visit a postsecondary institution. they take their children, for example, just just one example and the excitement
is there because now the questions are, you know they're they're asking a lot of questions about postsecondary at in elementary school. So I I was just wondering this starts at6th grade. I'm wondering what we're doing prior to that so that overall K12
we're doing something K12 so I don't think we can start early enough right?
Speaker 56
1:02:52
I think that's your point. I've known I don't know that I'm equipped to answer the the the efforts I'm sure my colleague
Speaker 57
1:02:58
Stacy Smith will be glad to it knows what those things are'll
be glad to share on those but I'm not
Speaker 147
1:03:05
equipped to speak to those at this time. I'm happy to follow up though and
Speaker 13
1:03:10
would only say the slide shows this because this is what the legislation requires and learns not to say that there's not a lot of
Speaker 22
1:03:16
great work being done in K5. This is just per the legislation what ' s required because I knowRoss and his team when we worked on these even the early career experiences if I heardRoss say it once I heard him say 100 times referring to kindergarten and community helpers how we
Speaker 149
1:03:30
have to talk about more than just the community helpers that
students learn about have talked about all the different careers even in their backyards yes that was that
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
1:03:39
that's what I was curious about because we have a lot of first generation parents lowincome parents who may who may be working multiple jobs and how can we how can we serve all of the families where these two pieces are married so we're all you know aligned that that was my question. yeah. my concern thank you p re s ent ative Brown
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
1:04:07
thank you madam chairir. I have simple questions I've let my colleagues ask all the difficult ones I understand that the academic challenge scholarship that comes from the lottery and I assume there are just finite amount of funds have we ever exhausted the the amount of funds in the scholarship lottery no ma'am not in recent history. I think maybe early on in the
Speaker 147
1:04:30
evolution and creation of the lottery that may a big concern right now and I don't
Speaker 57
1:04:39
know are my CFO's not with Nickick's not they are the last I knew I know that and don't hold me to the number but it was over350 million dollars in the in the fund in excess of what we have spent in over the past several years that we have accumulated that has not been spent that is so we
Speaker 58
1:04:57
are producing in in prior years we are the lottery is generating more than it's spending and then my next easy question is now
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
1:05:10
that we have learned and it was implemented a couple of school terms ago are we seeing that our students are achieving more and better have we been able to track that yet as far as learns and implementation I'm
Speaker 56
1:05:26
not equipped to speak to that but I can say just by the participation rates you know the the numbers
Speaker 57
1:05:33
thatRoss you know we're not even a year in implementation this fled access to legislation didn't pass until
last you know, spring of 25 and in this fall we've seen a30%,32, almost33% increase in the number of students participating in concurrent credit. and we've seen huge increases in CTE so I know or I feel like that the numbers show that these strides that were are that we the steps we've taken are making significant strides in participation and I know that feel strongly that those those are those numbers are going to continue to grow next year and beyond. We the thing about the bill is was it was an omnibus
bill it touched a lot of things but we've encouraged students and parents through better financial opportunities if they stay in school their senior year. We had less about half our kids our senior year had a full schedule and they were coming trying to go to college without a full schedule, not taking a math class or senior year in a remediation rates were high so we've got to keep them in school their senior year even if they're going on with taking more concurrent credit so that they don't have that that time of forgetting. so we've got students and parents encouraged to do that with with financial aid opportunities we've got
districts encouraged to keep them there to to get them to this merit distinction opportunities to accountability enhanced course of accountability and then we know that our higher ed folks are going to be be connected because they're gonna have more enrollment so it's really the trifecta of of the package and encouraging all the entities involved to to to to bolster this participation in this enhanced skills for an opportunities for our Kansans
Speaker 23
1:07:15
and to add to the trifecta at a a 1/4 thing
Speaker 22
1:07:19
as well the part of acceleration that we also talk about is a standardization making concurrent credit weighted. so that is just an additional reason Doctor Warden mentioned some students not having a full schedule of their senior year. sometimes that was due to they had already exhausted the AP courses offered at their school and they did not want to take concurrent credit because it would actually lower their GPA since it was not weighted. So with that change because of access now students are
incentivized to take concurrent credit. it'll help their GPA rather than hurt it since it's waited just like AP or IB courses. and maybe you can explain that
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
1:07:57
to me offline about being weighted. my other question has to do with the governor's scholarship where did the funds come from for that and is that a limited amount of money because it
looks like we might be it was just got a text from my CFfo so the
Speaker 57
1:08:17
lottery count right or the but the balance right now is like330 million correction on what I serve and now you're you're so in access I think don't hold me to the number but I think that the governor's scholarships, governor'sguillerstinguish was funded at around $18 million and what we did in A accesss was that any if should the governor's scholar scholarship amount need to the need exceed the balance that we could use
lottery funds to supplement any overages from what was currently budgeted in the governor's scholar amount does that makes sense? Yes it does thank you ma'am Representative Mayberry thank
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:09:06
you. I'm sorry I might might be a little confused so I'm just asking for some clarification because that number just kind of perked my ears a little bit with saying that we've got I guess330 million. so
the people of the state of Arkansas approved the money for the trade schools Is that what we're talking about here and and or are we saying that this330 million just help help help update me and understand where we are. I know if Robin were here I'd I'd ask her cause I know this is the issue that she really knows about but if I'm questioning and maybe some others are questioning where do we stand with that? Is that are are we using that money now
Speaker 56
1:09:50
for the trade schools ma'am so prior to access lottery proceeds could not be used at private career tech schools. They could be used
Speaker 57
1:09:57
at private colleges and universities but they could not be used at private career technical schools. So we have opened it up for use there so that should increase some of the utilization of the acc excuse me of lottery scholarship funds yes
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:10:10
ma'am do we know what that amount might be because it hasn't started yet is that
Speaker 57
1:10:17
we did a financial fiscal assessment on that during
when we when the bill was ran I can get you the number on what we estimated that's that's been to be OK
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:10:29
is that though this school year is the first year that that would be in effect or next
Speaker 57
1:10:35
fall so we're working out all the implementation and the rules and processes for that with our friends at OSd and all the public private care technical schools there's a lot of legwork, you know it's it's I mean we require a lot less of the private career tech schools than we required of our public
schools so we there's expectations of reporting because we can't give them taxpayers' money or lottery money and not know and not be able to gauge its effectiveness so postcompletion outcomes and such so we're we are setting the parameters on all the metrics that we're going to gather from them including unique identifiers for students so that we can track wage growth and those type of things but we we're doing all that now and the target date for for those schools to and those students attending those to apply for that will be fall of 26.
Speaker 149
1:11:24
and an access it outlined that5 million would be allocated specifically for those private career ed do you remember
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:11:30
what that amount was what it was estimated at I I I think well Doctor
Speaker 57
1:11:36
Moore just reminded me that that that was a5 million dollars so we set the fiscal impact not to exceed5 million for first year there are hundreds of private career technical schools in the state hundreds but not all of those are eligible because they don't offer a high tech or high wage
high demand programs it's a limited number of programs graded to I think the list was was placed up there early on a slide
Speaker 116
1:12:03
that what we can what what what skill sets that we will spend those proceeds to
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:12:09
support OK well I guess my question would be if we have320 million that's not being used or we thinking about maybe increasing that lottery scholarship amount to the students so get it into the hands of the
Speaker 57
1:12:25
I know we did list last session yeah so we increased the freshman award from 1000 to2,000. We increased the utilization to private career technical schools we also were on the on the cusp of we just this past year was the first time we did Challenge lus so it wasn't just merit based it was needbased and that that had an impact of the lotter dont I I can't remember the number but I think it was around $1012 million. so we are seeing an increase in the utilization rate of lottery proceeds and I think we've done so much now over the next probably biennium we need
to look so how many more kids are using access to acceleration how you know how's it going with our private career text so we're using that5 million what is the challenge plus doing over more than just one year's worth so we are that's very on top of my mind to make sure that that money that money in
Speaker 127
1:13:11
the bank is so that's great but it's not helping students it's it's not doing what it's intended to do so I guess I'm just making sure where
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:13:19
where are we now and that's you've given me the
information I wanted. I knew that we have done some things so you're updating
Speaker 57
1:13:27
me thank you have had conversations with our friends at the lottery director, uhharron Strong, you know we have good support from them. we know we need increased utilization rate. There does need to be an amount in the bank so if something happens the lottery stops we could finish what we started with those students but we think330 million dollars is too much so we are working to bring that down thank
Speaker 173
1:13:47
you for the update. I appreciate it. Representative Barnes
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
1:13:50
thank you. I have a question probably two questions in one.umber 1, do we have any data
on how many students and where they are from who are getting the distinguished scholars scholarship and what journey did they take did they take the SAT or the
ACT to qualify to get there we have that so yes sir we
Speaker 62
1:14:13
do have that information and I can get that to you. I will say we're we're we're
Speaker 57
1:14:19
a heavy ACT state so most of the students have used ACT now we did open up some other testing options recently because we we opened up for the classical learning test the lt but yeah
you can use SAT ACTclt now so any of those can be used but by and large the the the most heavily utilized is the ACT. you can't give us that
Speaker 134
1:14:43
information? Yeah I can get that information for you I'm happy to you send that to Emily?
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:14:50
Yes thank you are there any other questions she's been very informative no seeing no further questions we appreciate your attendance thank you very much for the information and I'm sure we'll be back with you again thank you
very much thank you thank you and now I'd like to introduce Cody Waits who's the director of Workforce Connections and the the state of Arkansas was fortunate that the federal government chose us and the department of workforce Connections to be the administer of a34 million dollars national apprenticeship grant so Cody's here to tell us a little bit about that and what it means
for the state of Arkansas it's quite an honor.
Speaker 180
1:15:36
it is thank you senator and thank you members of the
Speaker 181
1:15:40
committees just real quick hats off to counterparts and colleagues from department of Education higher ed they're doing a great job with everything they're working on so always appreciative of the conversations we have together and I know there's some apprenticeship related questions I think maybe senator flowerspresentative Beck think you had some so we'll we'll dive into those here in a minute but just real quickly over the last probably6 months or so we've been working with the federal US Department of laborbor on a cooperative agreement that's been signed and executed by the US
Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration and the Arkansas Department of Commerce division of Workforce Connections to administer the American manufacturing apprenticeship incentiveund and really what brought this up was you know there's a lot of conversations around how do we address the urgent need to grow and modernize the US manufacturing workforce and in direct response to executive order 14278 of preparing Americans for high paying skilled trade jobs of the future which to expand access to high quality registered apprenticeship programs
umarkansas will serve as the lead grantee and convenor to establish this incentive fund the incentive fund will support the expansion of advanced manufacturing and registered apprenticeships nationwide to include 120 occupations currently in the advanced manufacturing subsectors such as but not limited to aerospace and defense automotive biotechnologies, maritime industrial defense and shipbuilding supply chain and automation nuclear energy semiconductors just to name a few through an incentive funding model the Arkansas Department of Commerce will
motivate sponsors on a national scale to develop expand and or join existing advanced manufacturing registered apprenticeship programs and higher apprentices incentive funding will be distributed through a pay for performance model where payments are linked to specific performance criteria and predetermined outcomes the incentive fund aims to stimulate innovation or reduce barriers that prevent sponsors from committee to registered apprenticeships thus promoting program scale and sustainability just a couple of other things I wanna talk about here just in the opening
before I talk a little more plainly is you know there's a couple of things here so this initiative supports implementation of several presidential executive orders related to expanding registered apprenticeships I've already said the one about preparing American high paying skilled trade jobs for the future advancing artificial intelligence for education for American youth reinvigorating nuclear industrial base and restored Americas America's maritime dominance and serves a significant pillar in the president's goal to reach and surpass 1 million active
apprentices. additionally this initiative aligns with il ar one of America's talent strategy the comprehensive plan to reindustrialize the US economy by investing workforce systems that deliver me measurable results for employers, workers and communities this initiative is designed to incentivize growth and expansion of quality registered apprenticeships in advanced manufacturing thereby accelerating the creation expansion and sustainability of registered apprenticeships it's not usually like me to read from a piece of paper so that was a little bit different for me
at the end of the day you know what we're working on now is we've already had conversations with many businesses both here in the state of Arkansas and across the United States other state workforce agencies Iowa Montana Virginia Mississippi Wisconsin just to name a few you know I mentioned companies you know there's companies here in in Arkansas such as Verco manufacturing, Strong manufacturing, Lockheed Martin others that already leverage registered apprenticeships in the manufacturing areas
we've reached out and had had site selection consultant groups actually reach out to us as it relates to their interest and awareness of what's happening in Arkansas as it relates to workforce development so it's a really exciting opportunity for us as you mentioned senator English it's and I think it really helps put Arkansas and what we're doing and workforce development on the map obviously this is specific to apprenticeships but we've witnessed a lot of growth and registered apprenticeship in this state over the last you know few years I think at one point in time when when I first came to the state back in 2
017 I think we had somewhere around4,000 active apprentices now we have north of 10,000 active apprentices as reported by the department of laborbor and and obviously a a big share of that we were talking about electrical and things of that nature obviously the construction trades are a big piece of that with the licensing aspect of it but we've seen expansion of apprenticeship obviously and teacher registered apprenticeships right of which we work with the department of Education on manufacturing IT data analytics healthcare there's a number of different apprenticeship programs across the board in the state
now and that didn't exist previously so we've made a lot of great work additionally this year and just recently we we submitted our application to the department of laborbor to be the state apprenticeship agency that that legislation was passed during this last legislative session so as you were listening to my counterpartsman Department of Education talking about kind of the the certified preapprenticeship which is governed and oversaw by us and then there's registered apprenticeship programs to get approved by the US Department of Labor before the probably beginning of the next fiscal year we'll
actually be administering all of that through here at the state level so you know this pay for performance model3,500 dollars incentive payments will basically be cut to two organizations sponsors of registered apprenticeship programs either here in the state of Arkansas or outside the state of Arkansas as part of this effort once an apprentice has been employed and registered for a period of 90 days we will verify that that has occurred and that they've met those eligibility criteria and that they're in within the 120 occ up ations that we've agreed upon as part of this effort to begin
with this first six months is kind of a pilot phase for us in the department of laborbor to see how this grows out but at the end of the day we'll be cutting those incentive payments to companies and organizations who sustain those individual appearances for a period of 90 days until the35.8 million dollars is expended it's a four year grant we don't know that the funds will last four years we're hoping that there's a lot of activity over the next few months and years to come but you know with that senator that's that's really the gist of what it is that we're doing and what we're
leading at a national level there's only been a couple of these cooperative agreements signed with the department of laborbor we're obviously one of them and we're focused on advanced manufacturing and I think that puts us in a really good position to do some great things both at a state level and a national level so with that I'll answer any
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:22:03
questions thank you senator flowers thank you thank you Mr Wa
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:22:14
The35 million grant you say it will be administered by Arkansas is that for the whole United
Speaker 181
1:22:22
States It is yes, so we were given a35.8 million dollars cooperative agreement of which will hire staff for00% funded by US Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration we're in the process of we just went through legislative council a week or two ago so we're in the process now of of posting positions and hiring positions 100% dedicated to administering this fund and and how much is the administration
we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna try to stay under 8 or 9% of the total amount of money and I think that's one of the things that the department of laborboor's really looking at in their model is how do we how do we put more money at a state level and try to not spend it so much and NGOs and a lot of administrative and overhead of of of putting these funds together because historically what you would see is you'd see a bunch of discretionary grants that would come out and states would get a little bit here and there and a lot of it would be taken up at administrative and by doing it with us I think we're gonna highlight
the fact that you can do a lot more
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:23:20
with less. Is it going to be a portion equally across the United States, the states of the United States? No, no there's
Speaker 181
1:23:28
no requirement that any sort of amount of money has to be expended in any way there's no formulas or percentages it's really a first come first serve basis which is why we're trying really hard as the administrator to make sure that all of our Arkansas companies and organizations are aware of it so hope that you all will help us spread that word in your own districts and communities around this ability
for manufactured employers to take advantage of this but we want Arkansas to get
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:23:53
their share Arkansas agency your agency or whatever work group comes together to administer the funds will be the decider of where the money goes. yes and no I mean we have certain criteria
Speaker 196
1:24:07
that we've worked on with the the US Department of Labor Employment Trainingdministration so
Speaker 181
1:24:12
there's eligibility criteria there's actually a a landing page that's like well I think it's live right now but
Arkansasosd.com/Mfgfund so if you want to go to that website there's a lot of information on there just around documents and eligibility criteria that organizations will have to adhere to they'll have to sign up as vendors with the state of Arkansas they'll have to follow our pro cu re ment policies and things of that nature but yeah we are we are as a vendor for us in order to make payments to them they'll have to be a vendor yeah so but the of Arkansas what what would that include? it's
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:24:42
really just going through the process of if if
Speaker 181
1:24:45
you're going to receive a grant or if you're gonna receive a contract or something like that with the state of Arkansas you sign up as a vendor
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:24:52
that's a normal process that that they have to get a certification from the agency to be a vendor that's something they do
Speaker 183
1:25:00
through the department of financedministration. not through the
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:25:03
secretary of state they don't have to be a business organization recognized by the secretary of state Yeah I mean and I'm not the expert on on that
Speaker 181
1:25:11
aspect of it senator so I I'm not gonna weigh too far into that but yeah that's just part of the normal process for anyone that we provide funds to or that we grant funds to
they have to register as a vendor with the
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:25:26
state of Arkansas. OK it it so technically our realistically just one
or two states could end up with all that money No I disagree. I mean
Speaker 196
1:25:37
again like right now we're already having conversations with about 10 different states and organizations
Speaker 181
1:25:43
that are within those states that as they began applying for funds the application opening is January twentyeth I believe so as of January2eh we'll actually start
receiving applications and whether that's you know we're obviously one of the things that we're focused on is small and medium sized businesses we don't want extremely large businesses and corporations that have locations and710 different states that have access to a majority of the fund s we put some limits and some caps kind of in this first six months of a pilot phase on how many apprentices an organization can receive and apply for funding for but we're not really concerned about one or two states taking up a majority of the money so
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:26:20
and and so Arkansas this this group or
whatever int administrative entity is created I mean are the members of that team from different states or is it all Arkansas born? No these are so this is administered within the
Speaker 196
1:26:35
Arkansas Department of Commerce division of Workforce Connections and so we through the office ofkisvelopment is where
Speaker 181
1:26:40
this is going to be administered at at a at a very local level here we're hiring additional staff through the federal grant funds that we received in order to administer this grant and and answer questions and facilitate the funding and some of those things
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:26:58
and then had the last question which was about the kind of slipping my mind here now but it
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:27:14
a question previously I think about other states companies or business entities across the United States get information about this is that something that it's going to be
part of the administration through your office it is
Speaker 181
1:27:34
yeah and and we have funds available within the the budget that we've that we built with the department of laborbor to provide for marketing and outreach and things of that nature we're obviously going to leverage some of our national associations national association of state Workforce agencies national governor's association US Chamber of Commerce our own kind of department of commerce economic development ways that we deliver messaging to companies and corporations and organizations across the US to help build the message but
also the US Department of Labor has it on their website they've put it out through publications the US Department of Labor Secretary put out a press release a couple of weeks ago around this and so a lot of that momentum
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:28:15
and a lot of that marketing advertising has already taken place. and this program is designed for youth K
Speaker 181
1:28:21
through 12? No, this is not necessarily youth K through12. this is for employers that are that are using registered apprenticeships or are looking to use registered apprenticeship
within their business as a workforce development strategy.
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:28:34
but the targeted apprentice who would that be? I mean would it be a young person? I mean it could be anybody
Speaker 196
1:28:41
that's working in a manufacturing plant anybody that's working in a manufacturing industry anybody anyone that's working in a manufacturing
Speaker 189
1:28:47
sector whether there's 171,860. if they're working in that support what the other group before you were
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:28:52
talking about well I think you got you gotta to think of this as
Speaker 196
1:28:58
kind of a separate situation right this is
Speaker 181
1:29:01
a one time cooperative agreement that we're working on with the US Department of Labor well our relationship with Department of Education and currentteched more specifically is with the certified preapprenticeship framework and how that kind of comes together with kind of what they're doing at the department of Education which ties into a little bit what Representative Beck was asking which is you know we at the agency have a set up a certified preapprenticeship framework that organizations can apply to those organizations have to be in connection with employers they have to have employer acceptance agreements so that
employers will honor the hours that those students receive as they're going through the preapprenticeship training and those typically are registered apprenticeship program sponsors that are applying for that through our agency when we approve that then organizations are partnering with elementary or not elementary schools but they're partnering with high schools secondary career centers and things of that nature to offer that preapprenticeship in a lot of ways whether it's electrical plumb ing it might behVAC it might be manufacturing it could be a different it could be data analytics web development
whatever the case is I I don't know all of the exact preapprenticeships that are offered at the high school level but that's a little bit in terms of the certified preapprenticeship framework for the high schools and for the public schools well the organizations that apply
Speaker 189
1:30:21
to be an entity for a certified to have a certified preapprenticeship apply through Arkansas Department of Commerce workforce nections so
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:30:29
you wouldn't have the list of apprenticeships in Arkansas we
do we have them all we can send that
Speaker 181
1:30:38
to you and if you also if you go to arkansasosd.com there's an apprenticeship title there and you can go on there and there's an interactive map and you can zoom in on different areas of the state and it'll show you all the apprenticeships within that specific area including
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:30:50
those that offered to high school students should and if not then we'll get it updated.
Speaker 180
1:30:54
OK thank you very much thank you Representative ladyman
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:31:04
thank you madam chair. I'm way over here yeah this is really interesting I guess my main question is who who what type of entity would apply for these grants now we're talking about companies that would need certain skills apprenticeships but would a lot of times the company will work with the college or junior college and set up a program where
the the school actually does the training but the company benefits from that by getting trained personnel where they don't have to do it themselves right so who would apply for the grant would it be the company or the college or would it be a joint application so there's really kind of two
Speaker 223
1:31:52
different ways in which you can do this so companies are registered apprenticeship program sponsors in some
Speaker 225
1:31:57
cases so in some cases it could be a
Speaker 180
1:32:01
company right? take I'm trying to think of a
good example real quick that I might be able to tell you can't think of one
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:32:09
let me give you an example that think might work so I work for a company that we had a university in the plant so these were like wind technicians is a specific skill that they needed and so we could do that at the plant or we could do it at AU or some other university so in that case the company could apply
to have that program run through Asu or it could be run through the plant where they could hire trainers at the plant is that correct? Yeah
Speaker 181
1:32:44
and I mean in most cases you know are two year colleges or four year universities are not the apprenticeship programs sponsored themselves they're the training provider right so you know ConAgra for example over in Rustville you know is for an example their their own apprenticeship program sponsor so for this fund they could apply directly and we would work with them directly and in other cases right I mentioned
companies like Verco manufacturing or others they're not their own registered apprenticeship program sponsor they work with an organization called Apprenticely. Apprentice Lee is the registered apprenticeship programme sponsor who would actually apply to this funding on behalf of that company and as part of that application process they would have to highlight to us that they have an employer acceptance agreement with Verco manufacturing and they would have to highlight that the occupation is part of the 120 occupations that are tentatively now approved in order to be a part of this effort so those are really the two kind
of organizations that can apply there's a in some cases a two year college or a four year university is a registered apprenticeship program sponsor University of Arkansas Fort Smith for a number of years has ran their own program AU Newport for a period of time I still think they run their own apprenticeship program Black River Technical College is another one that has their own apprenticeship program sponsorship so there's a number of different types of organizations consultants firms can be registered apprenticeship program sponsors but you have to be a registered apprentice ship program sponsor to apply
for this fund now what type of entity you are whether you're the business itself or to your college or a or a third party provider that's who's eligible to
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:34:19
apply for this funding on behalf of the employers so we've had discussions with Arkansas Tech about developing a nuclear program for technicians so in that case if nuclear one entergy wanted to do that maybe they already do I don't know but in As Arotech had to develop
a program so in that case would that be a partnership or who would who would initiate that either way it
Speaker 230
1:34:43
just depends on how really the business wants to
Speaker 181
1:34:46
do it if the business wants to take on the ownership of that on themselves then they're more than happy to do that if they want to outsource it to an intermediary right we use that term intermediary in a lot of ways so whether that's an organization like an apprentice Lee who functions as an apprenticeship program sponsor or whether that's the college and they want to take on that ownership of it they can do it sometimes the college likes to
be the training provider sometimes the business likes to be the business and they like to outsource it to somebody else so it just depends on kind of the nature of the parties involved and who wants to have ownership of that there is some some legwork that has to be done if you're the business you know and just in terms of getting the approvals getting the documentation tracking all that documentation things of that nature so the beauty about this though is typically that in the in the past has been done by the US Department of laborbor field office in Dallas Once we get our application approved that'll all start happening here at the department of commerce Workforce Connections here in the state so
when that time comes if they choose to do an apprenticeship program we'd be at the table sitting down from the beginning to the end if they choose to do an apprenticeship of establishing that roles and responsibilities making sure the documentation and paperwork was in order and again it's really just the choice of how the business intends to operate it but the college or university could do all of
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:35:58
that as long as they had a place for the students to go once they're certified is that right correct yes all right thank you sir
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:36:12
oh what happened? did you oh ok Representative Rye thank
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:36:21
you madam chairirman. Cody, let me ask you this that35.5 million that's across the entire United States do you happen to know what how much is the figure for the just the state of Arkansas alone and we're utilizing that we are going to be utilizing it yes and
Speaker 196
1:36:38
that's why we're trying to be very intentional about having
Speaker 181
1:36:44
conversations with all the industry associations state chamber of commerce we're working through our manufacturing extension partnership and having conversations with manufacturers we already have interest across a number of different manufacturers in the state I mentioned a few already but there's no set number for example there's no set percentage there's no set hard number that we're gonna have specific to us here in Arkansas we just want to make sure that we get our companies that are interested and engaged you don't want to be part of this in early and often so that we can have access to as much funding as as will be available again because
Speaker 205
1:37:15
it's a first come first served basisollow
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:37:20
up ma'am please ahead coy let me ask you this of all of this top situation that we're going through here with this what do you think that the parents of these children and all of the teachers are are they actually in tune with what's going on here well not specific to
Speaker 196
1:37:39
this specific grant because this isn't really targeted at that
Speaker 181
1:37:45
K12 population, right this is really targeted more towards the businesses that are that are using registered apprenticeship currently as a workforce development strategy or have been on the fence or trying to mitigate costs as it relates to getting into an apprenticeship model so I don't don't I don't know that that necessarily impacts the students but holistically right like more generally and broadly speaking not just specific to this grant yeah I mean we're trying really hard to you know put out the message of around what apprenticeship can be and how it can help support you in many ways I mean we we've heard you know
earlier just about how many different pathways and opportunities there are for young students and and adult learners and things of that nature right and a lot of time we get caught up in the K1el piece but there's an adult edd population out there as well that we're targeting and trying to get into more apprenticeships whether it's manufacturing construction healthcare IT you name itgy so yeah I mean we're
Speaker 205
1:38:34
trying to change that bero be proud obviously helps us with that every single day through the state chamber yes. thank
Speaker 241
1:38:41
you Cody and thank you Mr Chairman Representative painter right
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:38:47
here Freddie will you be able to provide us some data on maybe the apprenticeships and so forth that Arkansas companies take advantage of. I think you said something about you know a 90 days or something like that can you provide us at least with art within Arkansas who's taking advantage of maybe of what those apprenticeships are absolutely OK thank you thank you madam chair see further
Speaker 15
1:39:10
questions I don't see any further questions
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:39:13
thank you very much for the presentation it's been
very enlightening we've learned a lot and now we will we have consideration of adoption of an interim study by senator Crowee if you'd like to come in please thank you
Senator Steve Crowell
Unverified
1:39:52
you're proposing an ISp yes Senator Krowll district3. this is just a simple ISp on the four dayy school week just a fact finding mission I mean that's what ISps are all about have questions
Speaker 157
1:40:15
I need a motion OK? all in favor? all opposed thank you very much
Unknown speaker
1:40:26
OK seeing no further business we are adjourned
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration of a Motion to Approve the November 3, 2025, November 4, 2025, and the December 2, 2025, Meeting Minutes [Exhibits B1-B3]
C. Updates on the Arkansas Acceleration, Common Sense, Cost, Eligibility, Scholarships, and Standardization (ACCESS) Act, Workforce Pell Grants, and the Arkansas Workforce Challenge Scholarship [Exhibit C]
D. Presentation of the National Apprenticeship Program Administered through the Office of Skills Development
E. Consideration for Adoption of Interim Study Proposal (ISP) [Exhibit E]
F. Other Business
G. Adjournment
Documents
Speakers
Senator Jane English
Unverified
Speaker 12
Speaker 13
Speaker 14
Speaker 16
Speaker 17
Speaker 18
Speaker 21
Speaker 22
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
Speaker 45
Speaker 53
Speaker 56
Speaker 57
Speaker 58
Speaker 64
Speaker 23
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Speaker 68
Speaker 62
Speaker 111
Speaker 112
Speaker 24
Speaker 120
Speaker 110
Speaker 131
Speaker 116
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
Speaker 147
Speaker 149
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
Speaker 127
Speaker 173
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
Speaker 134
Speaker 180
Speaker 181
Speaker 196
Speaker 183
Speaker 208
Speaker 189
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
Speaker 223
Speaker 225
Speaker 230
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
Speaker 205
Speaker 241
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
Speaker 15
Senator Steve Crowell
Unverified
Speaker 157