Education- Senate and House

Brian says it's OK we get started now. Our like all this meeting to order thanks everybody for being here this afternoon kind of a few lacking but maybe a little filter in today. Manager have some remarks. This one I think the bureau for quickly getting nice in here today sorry for the the time crunch that you all were under I know we had a long public health meeting this morning that thank you for thank you to the staff our working really fast and hard cider per se that I'm just a couple things I know during the fiscal session we I will have a couple of Senate meetings we can meet jointly to if if perhaps I just wanna be a good time for us to come here from some maybe some outside groups to during that fiscal session since you know we're all going to be here so be on the look out for that and while collaborating with you know yes yeah. And just be only count look out for for those things and if you have ideas or suggestions you know please don't hesitate to contact us and let us know about that thank you. All right of do I have a motion to approve the minutes January 3 and January 4 meeting. A motion and second. I'll prove say aye opposed. Motion carries all right we'll move down the island the funding for adequacy in K. 12 public education exhibits deed to the. The one of the 2 of them missed you helped will turn over you thank you a representative because arcs and armor and this is going to be a team effort again as you see and so I let everybody introduce themselves and men I'm Julie held with the bureau you are used to us giving 2 or 3 reports during the meeting usually we got one long one to walk all the way through the funding today so we do have some places where will stop for questions if it pleases the chairs so M. before we get started I let everyone introduced themselves. Well as I am with the bureau. Katie Walden puro fiscal division. Adrian back also with appear on jasmine rae also with the bureau. Okay so if you remember in January when we had our first set of meetings we talked about we had arranged our presentations this time because we really wanted to tell the story of adequacy from beginning to end so last month was sort of the preface to all this Taylor Lloyd gave you the legal context for why we do adequacy what the courts expect out of that each time how it's effluent process because adequacy can change over time and 9 Elizabeth gave you a fantastic history looking back at the state of education over the last century and then what what has happened since like you is decided in 2003 and then I walk you through those indicators that ring judge Kilgore's decision that he had listed in his decision as reasons why we really needed to have some education reforms and so it's like you so this month we're actually going to really start getting into the meat of what adequacy is right now so we'll start appear at the top and talk about sorry well sort of beards top and we're gonna talk about just spending today in their lot of streams of funding but we thought it might be helpful to consider all of those together because I think schools in general get all those funds and think of them kind of all together so um this is how the today's presentation will go we'll start with an introduction and I'll talk about 7 funding research that addresses spending overall and you'll hear some other research referred to as we get into specific lines of the matrix also as part of that will compare to those top performing night states that we introduced you last time to see what they're doing and then we'll I want to turn. It over to Katie wall them for just a little bit and she's going to talk about how those funds are massed up at the state level so what are the tax revenues and so forth that combine to make up our edit our funding that we sent out to schools and then after she finishes will stop for questions and then we'll see really get into okay how does that pending get from the state down to the schools and we'll go through the matrix line by line and look at how we fit in each of those things Rosston look at some things that are not in the matrix and we're doing this because we have both research that says these things may be important to schools to be able to have some to give that adequate education and then we also hear from our educators in those surveys that are in your binders AS in things that they think are important as well so we wanted to look into that as. Then we'll talk about those categorical fence in those that have been around since the late fee reforms and that's how we get additional money out to the schools to help them educate their special populations of students so that's really I think of those plans is addressing equity and then there's also professional development categorical bent and you'll hear about that from Adrian. Then we will talk about supplemental funding in some of these have been around since like the that's your isolated your growth in the climbing vines and these are monies that are given to the particular schools that may have a more difficult time reaching adequacy on their own and and these are required in that 2000 statute for us to address there also is you know been some supplemental plans added since that time enhance transportation enhanced professional development so we're going to also talk about those because those have been provided to address specific lines in the matrix and help make sure schools are are able to reach Legislative intent for that as. Then there are quite a few other local state and federal funds which are additional to all these that are then your purview really and so we'll just briefly talk about those so you'll have the full context of the whole funding picture that's out there. So today we M. as we go through we as we've gone through our process over the last couple of months we've had some major things that have popped out at us and that we're calling the major takeaways as we got through it there may be some things that you notice that really stand out to you but we just thought we'd share these because as we go through all of this information we're about to go to go through it may help to have a little bit of context that it in the book of the school spending is provided 3 foundation funding so what you make your decisions on really has an impact on what schools have. We also M. and looking at research and then as we look at pending and data analysis we realize there's some issues with the matrix that may be important for you all to understand we're going to try to bring those out as we go through this a lot of that has to do with the matrix originally as it was introduced to us was based on a 500 member school in a lot of the research we've been reading really points to her people funding working most efficiently if a school has 500 students enrolled in it. So about 40 percent of the funding comes from other sources in some of these our our funding streams that you really have a lot of say so over. And and then again there are those resources that are not included in the matrix right now that both research and educators have said that are important for them to give to their students. So turning toward the root literature reviews of the research that we've looked at some of the major trends we've seen there include a lot of states have had their Lakeview moments so there been a lot of statewide reforms put in place and what this is done for researchers is allow them to have a whole new way to operationalize their and research projects in this means just how to and how do they find the data to put it together to answer their questions and so with these statewide reforms they can look at before and after a big influx of money statewide and what the literature points out is that before there were a lot of these you had to find a school district or couple districts that had an influx of money try to find a similar school district that didn't have that influx of money in CV could discern some differences so this is really been a baseboard for the research community. So I'm one of them meta analysis that I've read that pulled a lot of these research papers together and analyze the results of all of them found that an vending does matter but it matters how have where that funding is going a lot of impact can be made with smaller classes at the lower grades and also spending what research now often refers to a struggling students and so those are kind of all of our special populations that counts your property students your English language learners your kids who need alternative learning environments and sometimes they also include special education in there and what they found that if you can write these kids above the regular pending for all the other children at a weight of about point 2 throughout their careers that you can really have an impact on their achievement levels. Another thing we've seen popping up in recent research is waiting for smaller schools in this again goes back to that point that if you can't have a 500 member school where it's really most efficient to supply all the resources that people say are needed for a for a school then and smaller schools need some additional funds to help them reach that same level of resources for their students as larger schools are able to. And then finally there is some new research that looks at come and pets versus outputs inputs being that I was asking the questions what is it what is the school need and how much does it cost in outputs is more of a this is where we want to get to so will back up and do some statistical analyses to see what it takes and how much it's going to cost to get there so inputs verses out pets. Few more things in research that were kinda interesting back before the seventies local government for a lot of the cost of pending their schools and in more recent decades states and local governments have become largely equal partners with the federal government putting in about 10 percent of schools offense that schools can use an in Arkansas on 2020 and if this makes is more like 4740 and 13 where the local is supplying 40 percent and we'll talk about some of this with how we do our foundation funding but between the what we help the poor school districts out with and then that that all tied 1 pens I think a lot of this difference is due to us being a state that has a little bit more poverty. So many states have looked at how do you provide an adequate education what is the cost and representative McKenzie I think you asked last time specifically about this about what other states have done and when augen Blake thank an associate's or API we're here last time day and included in the report that they've been 49 studies performed on adequacy since 2003 and that's been done in 31 states in this or by consultants so Arkansas really gets credit for 3 of those we had to buy on in picus and then the one by a PA last time. The interesting thing I think is that not quite half of these are sponsored by state entities and sometimes these are by legislative bodies sometimes they're by departments of education but then just over half or have been conducted or sponsored by an outside organizations like non profit groups. So I think it also ask you know how many how many states actually implement these and there is a study that often impact is put together a few years earlier that bound that relate there very few times that the full funding amounts that are recommended are put in place in part that maybe because these outside groups really don't have the control to do that. So and there are 4 ways to study adequacy there is evidence based met the the professional judgment method successful schools in the cost function evidence based is very similar to what we do it's what are the components that are needed to provide an adequate education and how much to those components cost professional judgment is when you bring in panels of educators and bass determine what those resources are and how much they'll cost and it I'd impact is actually back in 2003 did have some panels of educators and why we don't do that now we do get and put it through our surveys from educators each time the third way the successful schools or districts that's when you identifies and successful schools or districts and look at what it they're paying over offer education and replicating that and then there's cost function which is more of a regression in a kind of mimics that out that research I was talking about where you set a goal and then determine the cost to get to that girl. So in addition to there being 4 ways to determine adequacy there's also for ways that states generally use to get their money to the districts and these include student based foundation funding which is what we do so at certain amount follows the school to the districts there's a resource based allocation which is looking out so what are the resources the school needs and paying for the full resource. There's a hybrid method and of North Carolina seems to have been a to be a good example of this what they do is for all their staffing so for teachers principals they look at the school the size it is a you need for first grade teachers I have a statewide salary schedule my supply the first grade teachers but then when it comes to textbooks and technology those that that's been that on a per pupil basis and then I have categorical for their struggling students much like we do. And then the fourth method is called a guaranteed Hackspace model in this is in states I think New York's one of them where a lot of the and local schools our if the the local responsibility still remains so this just ensures that everyone is able to achieve a certain level of funding even though their property values may be less and I thought I would argue that Arkansas does this through our state and foundation funding 8 because we make at those differences. 43 states have charter schools and most of them to like us and find in the same way and 2 notable exceptions I came across was Connecticut has a separate people funding amount for their and charter schools in Indiana it's hard funds their virtual charter schools at 90 percent the rate at all other schools. So according to the Commission of the states which came out with a new listing of this in 2021 there are 34 states that use student based foundation funding and that's down from 37 and in 20174 years earlier 90 is the resource based and then the others he's either hybrid or the tax base. This is just to show you how those top performing Nate states do their funding and also with the spending per pupil funding amounts are these again are based on national and center for education statistics we have adjusted these for at a cost of living differences between the states so you can see that Wyoming is the top under 21000 per student this is how it looks with the and sorry be states. Know what you look at that for just a minute. And then here's Arkansas in the contiguous states and you can see our funding level in 2018 was almost 11000 per student. So again because we do use this database foundation research shows that that works best when you have schools of 500 and districts of around 3500. And you can see that nationally that translates pretty well because nationally the average school is about 513 kids in that district enrollment is over that 3600 mark in Arkansas our schools are a little bit smaller averaging 452 an important thing to note there is those schools also include we have about 10 comprehensive K. through 12 schools so that's really all 12 grades and then we have a lot of high schools that are grades 7 through 12 so ours if we if you truly broken down to elementary middle school and high school and our average might be lower. So in 2021 we had almost 70 percent of our schools with fewer than 500 and we had about 20 percent of our districts with and that size of enrollment. And so we popped this quote at we were we're going to show a lot of clients throughout the day they come from our educators they they said please share with the legislators when they send them back but this one says that it's not just research that says that the spending works differently in smaller schools educators out of state recognized it as well. So now I'm going to turn it over to Katie. Good afternoon members. Very quickly I am going to go over the larger fines and that we dedicate of state level funds to education this includes to school districts and education programs statewide if you want to refer to your report I'm gonna be going over the funds that are listed on page 2 if you look in your attachments this includes a 17 year history in the full report of all the funds I'm going to be going over so. I'm gonna quickly highlight and you little bit more detail of these levels of finding their the public school fund account the educational excellence trust fund the educational adequacy fund the department of education fund account and the educational facilities partnership funds. Beginning with the public school funds. This fund is appropriated to the Department of Education it is mostly general revenue state revenue I would argue that this fund is the fund that you all have the most influence over because your recommendations will guide and increase this fund over time based on your findings this fund also includes the local tax revenue that's brought in and it's compiled at the Department of Education Public School Fund with the foundation funding and then sent out to the districts to provide. Their aid. This fund also receives funding from the educational excellence trust fund in the educational adequacy fund which I'll go over in a moment. But this is the largest Fund they were going to be reviewing. Next is the educational excellence trust fund. Funding for this funding stream is given from an off the top deduction from gross general revenues based on the prior year's collections it's 14.14 percent of prior year sales and use tax collections. Public School Fund receive 67 percent of these revenues annually does he also receives some fines as to institutions of higher education. This fund. Was actually you may have remember in Elizabeth's presentation this was as a result of a lawsuit in the 19 eighties and it was established to help teachers salaries at institutions of higher education as well as at the district level. The educational adequacy fund this fund was created as a result of Lake View it was created to help the state meet the on coming adequacy needs they knew they were going to have to pay this is a kind of a scattershot approach and they at the time established a $0.78 sales tax increase the expansion of sales taxes to a number of fuel and motor vehicle based services and goods 8 increase minimum corporate franchise tax and tax rates and as I mentioned before a $0.6 per gallon dyed diesel tax rate increase. Finally I'll just briefly touch on the department of education fund account this is also funded with general revenue. This fund and provides for the operations of daisy as well as their statewide programs and as I mentioned before it's mostly find of the general revenue they also receive adequacy funds for the statewide programs as well as educational excellence trust funds and then lastly I will just mention the educational facilities partnership account you'll see they receive about 60000000 a year that is to provide for their operations as well as the funding for the partnership program. And finally just a most recent year comparison you'll see that in 20213.$1000000000 or provided all of those selected funds that I mentioned and that's a 45.$6000000 increase over the previous year. And at this point what we want to stop and take any questions that you will have about mine or Julie's portion of the presentation so far thank you Mr chairman. Seeing none continue on. All right it M. will be glad to move on I have done so Cady's describe that top level state funding and so now we're going to move and go toward how does that get to the district's. So are pending system and again is a combination of funding sources the foundation fund which is the primary source categorical funding which comes on top of that to provide a lot of the equity and then supplemental offense and these are all this and bending strains that you generally talk about during the adequacy study process and then there's those other local state and federal funds. So if you look at it broken down you can see that bound ation pending accounts for about 62 percent the categorical funding accounts for about 5 percent of all the fence supplemental is 2 percent and then those other funds account for about a third. Senate dig down a little bit more about how foundation funding is put together is in it's a it's a. Ship sort of between the state and local governments local governments this top line you see the uniform rate of tax the first 25 mills it's raised in a school district comes to the state and guys right back as part of their foundation funding. And the. Depending on the amount that set in 2021 and the foundation funding per student amount was $7018 this state will put in committee to meet that level of funding needed for each kid so every child is funded at least 7000 in $18 that year there are some other funds that flow and there's a 90 percent at adjustment that's a very small amount of money but it's to make up the difference if a county does not collect 98 percent of its taxes the state and penalize the school district so they can that fund or we can come up and and then there miscellaneous funds which are like land and rights for grazing or forestry and so can kind of think of this is land where there might be students except there can't be students because it set up by side for another purpose they can see foundation funding for the districts in 2021 total 3.$2000000000. And then over on the right side is a column for the charters and you can see it looks different because they don't have a tax base so all of their funding for foundation comes from the state foundation funding aid. So now we're gonna start going through the matrix which are familiar with but we want to go through it line by line again this is just your tool for calculating with that foundation funding amount should be it's time and it's once you come up with your per student amount that's I applied to the previous years 3 year average daily membership and that's true for everybody except for send charters who is either just started or who have come back in an expanded their charter to either include news grades or increase their enrollment cap in so there's and current year and calculations that go out for those schools again this is not an legislation so it's really it's full of this and these 2 committees. So finally just to look at the 5 year trend in foundation funding you can see that in 2017 there was 6000 600 $46 per student that was made up Foundation that moved up to just over 7000 and 2021 however we did M. look at that to control for inflation and if you kept that $2017 and put it into 2021 constant dollars you'd see that would actually equal about 70 $300 so just a little bit more than is was given in 2021. Johnson. Okay we'll jump into the matrix now so the first part of the matrix is the school level staff and unlike other parts of the matrix this section identifies the number and type of school staff that are needed how many are needed for 500 students at TV's how many are needed and the salary benefit package for each of those. And so this staffing includes classroom teachers people support which will break down people support a little bit further in the presentation and then one principal and one secretary and the per pupil funding amount is calculated using and it's got a by multiplying the entities that you see there by the salary and benefits and then dividing by 500 and so in total this section of the matrix is almost 70 percent of the total per people account and as a note this many classified employees such as bus drivers cafeteria workers instructional aides they are not included in this section of the matrix. Okay so now we'll get a break down classroom teachers will that more there you see in 2021 the announcmenet the poor people the total funding announcmenet and for core teachers those are actually broken out by grade level in the matrix but your non core and classroom teachers as your P. E. art music you know other elected teachers they are not recognized by grade level we'll. Are you can't I'm sorry I need to be closer to the microphone can't get it to move is get better okay got. So the funding announcmenet that we just reviewed these are and based on the number of classroom teachers required to meet grade level average class sizes that are hand established by the Division of elementary and secondary education rules but also based on it soom number of students in each grade in the class size limits the major uses for core classes are reflected here for kindergarten through twelfth grades and you can see next to that call and the evidence based more recommendations which which are quite a bit lower lower for the lower grades and we actually conducted a review of class size averages and math classes for elementary grades in English classes for higher grades and you're not gonna see then the presentation that they are in your report and which resulted in a wide range of to your teacher student ratios in fact the traditional classroom environment the ratios were as low as one to one and as high as one to 32 and for virtual schools as low as one to one as high as one to 158. I am so the findings of that review suggests that there's there's a lack of consistency an average class sizes which can obviously make per M. funding on a per pupil basis challenging an but what I want to talk about the PT the the what they call Pam teachers here and the major spine so that 20 percent of the total core so all the teachers above that line is that 20 percent and again it's not broken out by grade level I'm. However this is one area where the past consultant recommendations they have said that if they really believe that it should be 33 percent at the high school level because so many more high school 70 or elective teachers are needed at the high school grade of all. So and the teacher to student ratio is one of the 3 key areas where the matrix differs from past consultant recommendations and pass Arkansas studies and other national studies have recommended a one to 15 ratio for K. through third grades I'm in research consistently suggest a lower teacher student ratio for those greats. As we showed last month and to gauge administrators assessment of how well the current matrix is meeting districts needs the Bill are surveyed superintendents asking them to identify which resource components of the matrix need additional funding and here you see that the majority of superintendents and the CAD work funding is needed for classroom teachers I'm in several superintendents reported the funded ratio for classroom teachers is too close to the state because maximum requirements and here we've highlighted it a couple of quotes from superintendents indicating that and a review of funding in class as rules indicates that this could be true. So you're and the matrix assumes 40 kindergarten students with 2 classes of 20. State rules capping our classrooms ACT 20 students or 22 if they have an 8 while the matrix funds the number of teachers needed to meet those class size rules this only happens if a school hits the mark exactly. For example if the school ends up with more than 45 students 3 teachers would actually need to be needed to meet the class size rolls. But unless the school ends up with 60 students they will have to pay for another full time teacher to teach anywhere between 1 and 20 students. So here's what it looks like for first through third grade the major seems a total of 115 students which equates to 38.33 students per right. And find a total of 5 teachers. Based on the same number of students per grade 2 classes in each grade or need it. To meet the class I standards so. Refining 5 the teachers required to me because I was rules is actually 64 that's great. Once again this is a write down this is for fourth through twelfth grades. 300 45 students is this and so you see that 345 and the 40 kindergarten in the first or third that a quite so that 500 students that we that we keep talking about. And I get it breaks down to 38.33 per grade based on about the same number of students so 2 classes would be needed for 38.33 to any class size rolls. When applying those rules 18 teachers are actually needed well for funding at 13.8. So here is a summary at a table displaying the difference between current Arkansas Policy and the evidence based upon the recommendations and all the matrix fines 24.94 core and non core classroom teachers for every 500 students but you see the evidence base model differentiates by grade level and uses prototypical schools has. So the evidence based model uses the research based in teacher ratios that we discussed earlier to provide the total core and elective teaching staff and that 32 U. F. T. E. you can see where for the non core teachers are elected teachers they're finding at 33 and 1 third actually at the core teachers. So but the number of teachers find the matrix aligns with the evidence based model recommendations at the middle school level but fall short for elementary and high school. I am not gonna read these to you but here are just some additional examples and quotes related to superintendents of small schools and and and some of their struggles that they have with meeting these these classrooms officer. So next we'll get into special education teachers. That's close enough. So special education teachers this line of the matrix accounts for about 6 percent of total foundation dollars which came to about 180 9000000 in 2021. And. Okay sorry about that. So the matrix funds 2.9 special education teachers per 500 students and I wanted a couple of things about that that ratio is stayed the same since the matrix was first put into place despite having a larger increasing population of students with disabilities and I'll get into that translator in a special education report but I wanted everything to another point I want to make about that funding ratio is that this is based on total student population not the special education student population. So in our most recent evidence based model added on an impact is recommend 4.05 special education positions per 500 students and as we'll see in the next slide that originally comes from their models based on 1000 students week modified that down to make it comparable to our 500 model. But and we'll look into that recommendation a little more detail here after this slide but I want to know that might recommendation in relation to the actual F. T. E.'s that we see in regards to special education teachers so districts are coming close so that recommendation of the foundation fines are only making up that 72 percent of those funds are having to pull in other funds forces and we'll get into that more tomorrow you'll see that charters aren't quite reaching that or even the I have made the matrix funded ratio and that's likely due to having this a smaller number of students with disabilities in the charter schools. So going back to that recommendation from on impact is so this is what our staffing ratios what they recommend so for students with mild to moderate disabilities they recommend 5 special education teachers and one teacher behaviorist. For students with severe and profound high cost to serve students they recommend finding 100 percent of those extra cost though capped at 2 percent of the total student population. FOR related services so this includes occupational speech and physical therapy services they recommend 1.one staff member. And then for the costs associated with developing and reviewing that I. EP's the individual education programs that are federally required process litigation students they recommend one psychologist for that so that's where they get their regional that's what makes up the total cycle recommendations and not included here but they recommend to reduce usage up here professionals as well with the exception of some of those students with severe and profound disabilities. So another part of their recommendation was to use a census based funding system and this assumes an equal distribution of students with disabilities across the districts and as we'll get into later that's not quite what's happening but we'll get to that a little bit more detail later and in that instance the space is a somewhat similar we have in the matrix we do have the same a little bit and equal distribution to an extent. And the other recommendation I wanted to know was from a PA that we heard a couple years ago they recommended pulling special education completely out of the matrix and using a weighted funding system and there are different types of waiting there's a single waitress multiple weights that can vary by different types of criteria life disability type or severity of disabilities. No they don't recommend a specific one APA did note that a multi weight system what online resources to the level of services students need in each district and also know that the weighted funding system is the most common across the top performing states across the country. And then finally I want to know that in our surveys superintendents the majority of superintendents reported needing additional funding for special education teachers as Jack no no this is actually the highest rated item in the matrix that they rated as needing more funding for and I wanted to also know to quote from a superintendent that would receive that highlights that need for more funding as well as that unequal distribution of students with disabilities across districts and what the finding and that there's a financial impact on on those districts. Thank you. So the next 1 and the matrix is for instructional facilitators and according to state rules and instructional facilitator means an individual holding are a valid Arkansas teachers license who facilitates continuous improvement in classroom instruction by providing instructional and professional learning support to teachers for research based instruction and by demonstrating the alignment of instruction with curriculum standards and assessment tools in here you'll see what the 2021 per people finding internal announcmenet worked was which equates to about 5 percent of the total foundation dollars. The matrix finds 2.5 instructional facilitators for every 500 students I'm however the 2.5 positions are also used to pay for half time assistant principal and I have time technology assistant though not all districts utilize those positions that that is something that tomorrow when we get into spending and you'll get to see how those position how much they're spending on which. As Asians specifically and there are no state accreditation standards that require the use of instructional facilitators however or schools with more than 500 students are required to have have time assistant principal instructional supervisor or curriculum specialist in addition to a principal and waivers for these personal may be applied for that there is no effect on funding if they do receive those and that last column you can see what the evidence based model recommendation was which is 2.25 and what rather they actually recommend 1 instructional coach for every 200 students which translates to that 2.25 for the prototypical mint and elementary school and 3 for the prototypical high school. And at that is far really emphasizes the need for these positions to be truly instructional coaches I'm really and they're helping the teachers and make data based decisions. What just again indicated here and according to the audit and pike is nearly all improving schools provide resources defined instructional coaches to not only designee instructional program but to work with school based data teams and provide on going coaching an APA actually recommended separating out the resources that we use right now in that line and specifically the system principal for greater transparency and to allow for consideration I resources provided separately so how many how many true assistant principals or any verses instructional coaches or instructional facilitators. I'm here you can see that the majority of Superman's indicated more funding was needed for for instructional facilitators and we have a lot at a quote here from I actually from a principal which really mirrors exactly what on impact essay about the need for instructional coaches. Next we have library and media specialist you can see the per people amounts entitles there which equates to about 2 percent of foundation dollars. And that's funded the FG's or point 85 for every 500 students in this state accreditation standards call for schools with less than 300 students employed at least 1 half time librarian and while or media specialists while schools with 3 or more must and play 1 full time and schools with 1500 or more require at least you time skews me to full time library media specialist again this is an area where waivers can be granted an adjustment to finding is made if those are if those are green had and you can see also in this table where. We looked at after the ratios for districts and charters and districts are employing about point 97 as TV's to 500 students and charters point 04 to 500 and just and that this is not this is based on all funding our funding sources is not just using foundation funding dollars and the evidence based model recommends 1 to 4 again they're differentiating between the needs of elementary middle and high school and they recommend 1 for elementary for 450 students elementary and 1 to 600 and high school. So this is another key area where the matrix differs from consultant's recommendations both art in Pakistan APA remake it recommended at least one F. T. E.. I'm in the 2020 Arkansas study APA our for the current any matrix below recommendations found another adequacy studies and they needed funding is below what is required for a school of 500 students per state accreditation standards and research actually shows that students with access to a full time librarian perform better on state reading assessments. And here again is the feedback this is actually I'm and many this is one area where they didn't see a need for additional funding but it's also an area where some of the most number of waivers are granted. Sir next line is for guidance counselors you can see the funding announcmenet there for 2021 this also accounts for about 20 percent of total foundation dollars. And the F. T. E.'s are we that we find our 1.11 for every 500 students and the state accreditation standards require at least 1 counselor for every 450 students. The evidence based model recommends one counselor for the prototypical elementary school and then one for every 250 students in the middle and high school. So according to the 2020 A. P. airport the major expense below the resource requirement recommendation resource recommendation for grades 6 through 12 there were actually slightly above for elementary schools and but again it's important keep in mind the matrix is not to differentiate a grade level I'm in numerous research studies show that using the American school counselor association's recommended ratio of 1 to 250 students has a positive impact on student learning and achievement test scores and graduation rates. 3 superintendents report funding is needed additional funding is needed for guidance counselors and you can see a quote there from another Arkansas principal. 6 nurses and this accounts for a little over one percent a foundation dollars you can see the amounts there. And this is based on M. matrix funding at point 67 and TV's for every 500 students at a state statute requires districts to have at least 1 nurse per 750 students with even lower ratio if there's a high concentration of students with disabling conditions however there is a provision in the law that states is it's effective only upon the availability of state funds and the evidence based model provides 1 nurse position for every 7 or 50 students and that's allocation actually allows for districts to have a halftime nurse and the elementary middle schools and a full time nurse at the high school. And and the national association of school nurses recommends one full time registered nurse be present in every school every day it is their position the school nursing is a specialized practice of nursing that protects and promotes student health and advances academic success. About 611261 percent reported more funding is needed and there you can see another quote highlighted from the superintendent's. And now we have other people support. You can see the funding announcmenet for other people support here and which accounts for about 1.4 percent of foundation dollars and this finds point 72 at T. E. positions and these positions include your staff such as speech pathology peach speech pathology and audiology services occupational therapy services and psychological services and there are no specific state standards requiring these individual services Arkansas accreditation standards do require that a full continuum of services be offered to students according to the individuals with disabilities Education Act. And the research on this section of the matrix will be provided a little bit later on and it was because when I go into a little bit more detail on the different types of research related to these to the staff it's covered within this area of the matrix. There you can see the feedback from or that the majority of superintendents cited more funding is needed and here is a high I want to highlight one a quote from an actual teacher as well and indicating that there need for additional that they see a need for additional resources to deal with the behavioral problems that they're experiencing in the classroom. Okay so we have 2 staff positions left in this part of the matrix the principal and we find 1 principal per 500 students so that's you know that's been like to say 500 students just wherever they maybe it's 500 and the school or in the District Revver 500 are we find 1 and that is compares to the evidence may based model recommendations of 1 to 400 at those lower elementary middle schools and then 1 and 1 assistant at the high school level where they're model has 600 students. We do M. let me go back just a second our accreditation standards say that schools with fewer than 300 students can have just to have time principal otherwise they need a full time in 2021 we had 313 schools high schools or schools I'm sorry with fewer than 300 cats but only about 20 percent hired at halftime or less principal. The majority of our superintendents do not see principals as a need for more funding. The research says the principles can be associated with higher performance especially if they're focused on attracting and retaining really talented teachers in their school buildings and we N. and that's as opposed to having to manage the facility or deal with behavior they say it's better if they delegate those functions to to either assistants or other people on the staff and we didn't have in our successful school focus groups that we did in interviews that M. superintendents said they have Brenda school districts said yeah we hire the best person we can we let them run the school and then the principal in turn said I hire the best teachers I can and I let them teach in their classes and the teachers that you know the principal is great because I get the support I need I'm included on decision making and I'm also held accountable and we're we all hold each other accountable in the schools so that leadership really does seem to make a difference and successful schools. When it comes to secretaries we find them again at one per 500 students and $82 per student that goes there and. The evidence based models actually suggest more in APA when they were here suggested that we have to propel them and in the autumn picus in evidence based model suggests even 3 at the high school level. And when we get into spending tomorrow despite what the superintendents tell us they actually spend almost twice as much as what is in the foundation funding for them. So now we're gonna move to the next section of the matrix which is the school level resources and these include technology instructional materials like sturdy defense supervisory aides and substitutes will start and that all together counts were 9 percent of the matrix agency were classroom teachers and staffing really accounts for most of the foundation dollars. Yes just a quick question on this section before we move to the next section. When you look at guidance counselors and you look at nurses and you look at. Other people support you talked about behavioral health in that section. Guidance counselors you're talking about you know students need help with social dilemmas social social media family dynamics you've got nurses and not space you've got guidance counselors in that space and you've got additional people support in that face. So my question is is this a clearly defined role. For this type of. Need that's been identified. Because. You know I see this kind of spreading this out and so I'm I'm wondering if there's it is this defined in each school differently I mean I'm I'm I just I'm asking from your research and information I know personally my experience with public schools. And so you know I I I kind of it it seems like we're kind of doing a shot gun approach and you've got like 3 or 4 different people like an honest assistant superintendents perhaps still is some of these issues And with assistant principals and so. You know are we are we not really being intentional about the issues that students are dealing with when it comes to mental health behavioral health social dynamics that are outside of the classroom family issues social media X. Sentara. So I'll try to answer your questions a good really good question and is as far as some of those positions you mention the guidance counselor and the nurse positions those are fairly clearly define I believe and I mean I can't say for certain how those roles are executed within the schools themselves but does seem to be clearly define and. You know based on my review and rating guidance counselors you know mental in dealing with true mental behavioral health issues just outside and that their scope right and there's a lot a lot of feedback and we're gonna get into that later on the presentation where specifically talk about and mental health in there and the resources that these discipline had superintendents have indicated that they need help with and other people support is interesting I I struggled with other people support because it those are not very clearly define over the years ever since out of you know this first started there have been different kind of iterations of what other people support constituted you know what all that included but it's never been. Concretes you know and really clear I just know that based on a review of all that has adequacy studies and then re and recommendations from past consultants it you have repeatedly we repeatedly saying the things like audiology services occupational services that when you really dig into the data and you see what those expenditures are you are spent on with the money spent on it's a it's a very wide range of of types of positions so I would say other people support is one that's that's definitely not clearly define that tomorrow will out I will be showing you where that might how much of that money which the vast majority of its being spent in one area and so you'll be able to see that and I think that my highlight where that. Leaves need for all these other things I have not been captured I don't know if that was helpful yeah I know it is it's helpful I'm I mean it's just part of the discussion because I'm referring to your quote that you included here with guidance counselors and so you know from from my perspective it's not clear to them either if this quote says what it says about guidance counselors then we're not clear we're not being intentional or not being focused in my opinion so okay just noted thank you. The doors open we got 4 questions. Revson makes you're recognized. Thank you and I don't know of ways if the if the you would be the best one to take a stab at this or if and at the appropriate time we need to have the the. Director key or any of his staff to come up but on the personnel issue with. Things like resource officers and nurses has there ever been anything in the literature or. That would allow school districts to partner with outside organizations so for example I know in Florida it was not uncommon for police departments to build substations in the schools so that there were police officers there. During our normal duties but they were based out of the school so that by default there was always a law enforcement officer at the school in the school didn't necessarily have to have a hire an outside resource officer or you know we just talked about all the medical clinics and all the medical services being provided about partnering with a you know on express care or express clinic to build the clinic on the school grounds to allow them to provide services not only to the students but also to the public in general has have you come across anything we'll or we can create these public private partnerships with the schools to meet the needs of the schools and maybe save some of the expenses to the schools. There are some of those partnerships out there's this specifically with the school resource officers that's what we show pending on that it's Matty because we know a lot partner with their communities to have those personnel in schools with mental health is another area where there are lots of partnerships with the local community health organizations or or or practices to place their people in the schools for you know maybe not 5 days a week but for a certain number of days I don't know for the nursing if that is and I don't know if you ran across that jasmine I I haven't heard of that happening out well I'm and then count one month makes me think of a nursing 2 is one of the problems we're facing in the state is we've got a lot of nursing students but they don't have anywhere to do their residency practices and I'm wondering if this might create an opportunity for students. Who are wanting to become nurses to be able to help fill on me they're like I'm just throwing out the idea I just don't know if it's been done or if that's something apartment needs to maybe dig into or we need to have a policy discussions on. What I do know that a lot a and nursing students do their private practice within the school based environment I don't I don't know that offsets any cost but I do know those partnerships are definitely they're not thank you. A representative I'm sorry senator Hammer. Thank you Mr you should be a case manager in a school for mental health farm and to your point about the dollars and about the number of positions needed in order to address the needs of kids. How do you how do you justify adding additional staff when in fact some kids you'd have to have a one on one in the classroom all the time so I'm just wonder how you how you arrive at the recommendation or what the what the sign says about the number of of adults actually need in the room given the variable the number of kids in the issues that they have in the classroom. Sure that's a good question and I'm a little bit later on the presentation there's gonna be a whole section on mental health but I will go ahead and let you know that it was in your report there are and we've provided at the resource recommendations that have been made out there by national organizations in terms of mental health social workers except are and what that student to student to staff ratio with the client but I'm I will be discussing that and a lot further detail later on followed Mr one. Right thanks and and maybe is in here and I just haven't found it yet but is there anywhere when it goes back to the dollars that are being spent by the various states toward education is there anywhere that shows where those states fall in the ranking of how they stack up educational like you know if Oklahoma spends $10000 their number 46 by whatever ranking agency has credibility to give a ranking is there anywhere in this that gives us that. The states that we selected the United States those are the top 20 or the top 2010 states the top 20 percent of state just ranked on their night performance so those are the top performing states and then we selected in that led us to that top half of it sorry be states so the top 8 of those states then we that could not take that Oklahoma because then we just selected the contiguous states because so we know that in the past that you've wanted to see. Comparisons to the states around us many times and so we wanted to provide that as well or thank you. Reserve bank. Thank you Mr. It in if you're going to cover this tomorrow I'll wait for tomorrow but so does a lot of the things up. You have because the superintendent recognized that they need more funding for this person I'll just use principals as an example of so when they're saying that are they actually saying that they want more principles are they saying that you know I can't hire principal for what you're paying me that that did you guys get down to that level with this. Or is it. Yeah I think I think it's more in terms of I think I think they have the personnel I think the salaries and perhaps retaining it I think it's more of a recruitment and retention issue although we ask that more about teachers than we do with administrators but in some of the comments. I would just say that I think it also varies by the position. I mean I think there are some of these were they said that they needed additional funding and it was directly related to the need for more bodies you not not necessarily a salary yeah other than principles based. But there's a lot of comments that explain. Why I responded the way they did okay is all included in the presentation. Thank you. Representative garner. Question. In addition. What happened you just punch it back in again. She during. Are your are you 19 okay. HM. That work thank you Mr chair I appreciate mineral ester the press asked the question and I it's really kind of part of what senator Hammer and senator Irvin are are talking about when we're looking at this data do you guys take a look at the research to find out when these proportions were are determined like things have changed so drastically I know in the school counselor ratios those ratios were determined by study at Harvard 20 years ago or years and years ago and things have happened I mean things are so drastically different than what they were then do you guys take a look at that or do we just assume that the counselors association or whoever I'm just throwing that out there but whoever is is accurate in those needs well I can speak for for all the I always I go into those are all based on the most recent research that was pulled and the evidence based model that we all are referred to throughout here and although there recommendations may not change for quite some years right to yours it is actually based on their most recent. And the book that they published in 2020 so it's all very. So would take what is that it takes into account COVID and and all of its tricky I mean because some of the statistics that we're going to provide specialized mental health a little bit later they predate the pre date of it I mean so some things could have been obviously exacerbated by my codes that mean that we need to be kept in mind but I know it does it it does predate means it's right because we started on this you know I so the research. Right right right okay thank you. Yes. I am sorry to cut in line Senator Elliott as I have a lot of questions I think this is so robust and helpful but I know we'll talk about categorical funding but I did want to talk about and special ed funding through the matrix instead of through categorical and it does seem based on some of the feedback that perhaps the needs are not being met because the funding doesn't match the student where's that wouldn't categorical some just wanna give you can speak to what other states are doing who have kind of that the matrix model with categorical and if if we're in the majority of a state to do foundation funding for for special lead or if that would be better and funded through categorical funding sure so I haven't looked at I didn't have not gonna cost comparison at he's doing Foundation finds versus categorical instead but I know a lot of the states in terms of how they fund special education that weighted formula is the most common and that's usually the letter to talk about that as a way kind of. Trying to meet the different types of needs that special occasion has instead of just focusing on teachers funding the matrix that they're trying to meet all of the other class I will get into tomorrow all the other extra cost like this therapy services in the transportation I need whatever similar tales a lot of places I think take that into account of the so with the weighted form I think that's the most common we have seen that they try to take that into account instead of just funding for teachers but I haven't really compare that side by side with the student based foundation funding model great thank you and just as a quick follow up federal funds that come in for spat or those per teacher per people. That's a good question isn't I've. Pretty sure that's not per teacher okay I think that's a per pupil can double check that I wonder if that may be a better model to look at as well to kind of cross check with and how this federal funds come in because it does look like we're under funding spad based on the actual students and the number of students in the needs of the students have so I think it's interesting to and helpful to look at other ways we can kind of insure funding that's adequate sure and I also know that we'll get into this tomorrow but the federal funds in terms of all special education expenditures I think make about roughly 3031 percent of all those that are not at. I don't know the whole history of that funding but I know there's been some issues and under funding nationwide so I don't know how much it's spending per student if that's the model that they're using but I can definitely look into that and get more details that would be great I think it's helpful to look at it as a comparison with eHealth funding to I'm more familiar with that that's not my background is that you opening and that's categorical and so just looking at where some opportunities maybe missed or could be enhanced through per people thank you summoned. Okay thank you Mister chair Mister I have 4 questions I want to ask and so if if. A whole. If we are having a study on I think I need install them. Okay thank you my first question. Has to do with. If that's something you can do perhaps for a for all that for each one of the items that you've talked to us about where we are funding at this level but there may be evidence for this level or there may be maybe on a national association or professional association that that suggests something else I know I can go through and read each one of the separately but it wouldn't be an outside just ask if you could say look at the items where are we are funding may be beyond what's suggested I mean just a spreadsheet we're funding beyond what suggested we are not funding what suggested. By evidence or by a professional associations. There is that yep in one of your appendices and and it would have to look to see which one but we have a comparison that pretty much that that does all of that okay D. so how I can I don't know where it is in here but yeah you can show you don't have to show me right now I'll get with you to do it okay what I'll do and I think 10 the okay yeah so that's one of the S. okay it's one of those and the second question has to do with. How special ed. And as part of what representative Godfrey was asking about but the other side of it Mister chair something I'm asking I didn't want to ask of the department of education and our committee. It we are funding at a rate that is less spam according to what I hear all the time the gross for special ed yes I hear from many school districts and I've heard from I from folks all of the country at the highest growth rate it has special ed in our schools for students so Mister chair if we could I would like for somebody from the department of education doesn't have the right now to help us understand what what are the major contributors to the growth like what kind of needs to we have if you already know you can tell us that but I want to have some understanding of where that's coming from okay we will noted Department of ed you've heard that so after the end of the presentation will call department of education thank you and if they don't know already today madam chair I mean I can get some other time but that's just something I think we need to know okay and Adrian will address some of that in in the presentation okay okay thank you all right and. Well I was just looking to see if I have done everything in the right I think I think I got a response to my last one but I didn't have to ask. Yes madam chair I can. I can wait on the other sports Marcus I think I heard a note that it was going to be address tomorrow so I am I think a lot of this is going to be address tomorrow representative fights the mind to second will turn you on I thank thank you madam chair I was just going to comment that when we opened up other health impaired to a lot of new categories especially with the kids with ADHD I think that I did a lot to our numbers in special ed that was. Approximately 20 years ago I think that we started that time seeing our numbers go up at that. Not saying that's good or bad this is what happened yeah all right thank you all right moving on go ahead and proceed. Okay thank you so we'll move on into the next section of the matrix which deals with a school level resources which are listed up here in that makes up about 9 percent of all major expending the first line is technology and for several years we've been the technology at $250 per student I'd in picus in the 2020 book that jasmine mentioned they'd recommend $250 over right on target there unless it we're trying to get to 1 to 1 ratio and then it costs more they do not really wrecked and recommend that per se because there's not any research out there that shows when the 1 actually adds to student achievement although they do say that they reckon recognized that and students are testing more in a digital environment and this was again before COVID when students were learning a lot more in a digital environment so that that's when C. and example of where things may change. I'm superintendents do feel there is a big need for and technology committee and this was last spring said this was and the survey that we gave out during the times. The M. we also have some other questions on our survey and that this won't surprise any of you I know that the the superintendents and say that community broadband is much more of an issue for them and their school broadband their school broadband is actually good and that that access to broadband really became an issue during covid and I feel like you know the the haves and have nots for separated the rule in the urban's got separated so that that was an exacerbating factor for many students I'm just I'm just gonna put pen right here real quick and say that we need to send the Arkansas broadband now survey out to every school. In Arkansas and they need to send that out to all of their. Teachers but also to their kids because that community broadband issue we need that input in the survey is available and it's online so I will need. That survey and I can send you the link to it but that needs to be sent out to all schools and they can send it to all their students they can send it to their entire faculty and that will be very important for us to have so I will do that right now correct. The next line is instructional materials we find that out when 88 per student evidence based model such as 225 instructional materials include everything from textbooks to technology for an software evidence based model breaks it out 74 the instructional materials $30 for library materials and then $25 for interim assessments. Our superintendents to say they need more money for instructional materials this is a quote and and this was not representative of everybody that we did thanks and this one jumped out at us that there's some school districts that have not adopted new textbooks and said teachers are left to Google to get materials to use for their kids. Michelle can hear me before I get started. And our next need to sign is actually duty finds that these are fines for extracurricular is at you can see that for 2021 refining $66 per day and the evidence based model recommends as $300 per student advocates grades K. through 12. And so there's no common model for allocating this upward and across districts at but the research is clear that extracurricular benefits you have access to these you have benefits at for our students. In the majority as superintendents report that they need more funding for extra duty means. Okay I Nicks lady supervising aids and you can see that we're finding at $50 for seating in 2021 and is there any to handle I Lynch UT at recess by see before and after school and Senate bill are probably like me I have no recollection is supervising aids and I have a very clear regulation and my teachers providing all of these things being with us in the classroom in particular in third grade classroom that cafeteria rules were very different depending on which third grade teacher happened to be supervising have Terry AT ACT and there's a reason for it as I graduate from high school in 2002 and see thousand 3 the General Assembly change the law and we now limits teachers to 1 hour per week of 9 instructional DVD so we're limiting the man's hand it's teachers can perform these kinds of duties so in most schools these are absolutely necessary position but they're not required physicians they're not sending you to see and the standards of accreditation. Okay so there is there any research shows that these are necessary to monitor students and but there's no benefit to seeking achievements. And again the majority superintendents say they need more funding for supervisory Eads this is not unusual in its south there are a lot of lands very scene is superintendents are saying that they would like more funding I haven't this is I mean the point is now specially because this is gonna be interesting and when we get to spending tomorrow and this is going to be an interesting line. I next lane and substitute teachers I don't have to tell you as as we know is that it's I and we're finding and $72 per day for 2029. And there is there says that most states are providing about 10 days and so that one 's a pair and maintenance teachers contact similar to you and what employees in the private sector or government would provide and that's what we get is state employees at the bureau and we get you know one day for every month that we're working. And again this is a race at superintendents say they need more if any this is an area where we'll see and tomorrow that COVID has really made a difference and one of the because we had said superintendents said they were frequently having to combine classes to make it through the day at because of a lack of available substitute teachers. So the third and last section of the matrix is for district level resources and that includes the resources necessary for the eagles operations and maintenance center office and transportation and this section of or the District of a resources rather and constitutes 22 percent of our authentication funding. So for operations and maintenance you can see the 2021 totals there and this includes the staff or the resources necessary to maintain school facilities and grounds keep school buildings clean heat and cold and the funding level is based on 9 percent a foundation funding plus the cost of property insurance and funding for operations and maintenance over all accounted for 10 percent of foundation dollars. So in terms of evidence the evidence based model and the formulas used include competing the number of operations and maintenance staff needed as well as the cost of materials and supplies to support all operations and maintenance activities it also takes into consideration the number of teachers student classroom square footage of buildings but this is not we Arkansas does not use this type of a formula and this was another area were superintendents indicated that more funding was needed I'm just wanna highlight one quote though and because they indicate they didn't need more funding and the the quote is reflective of the reason behind that which is please keep in mind we don't have buildings we're virtual so we don't have school facilities only a central office and so virtual schools do you still receive operation and maintenance funding even though they do not have broken or schools. So that brings us to central office expenses and this makes up about 6 percent of all Foundation fines which came to about 200 and 9000000 in 2021 and these include district level staffing and expenses like superintendents but keepers and technology coordinators. And there was a pretty even split on whether districts reported they needed more funding on central office expenses. And the last line is for transportation so am by state law does not require the transportation and be provided to students we do provide funding and 2021 and the per people out was 321 Mr Hensley $1 you can see the total amount there and this accounts for about 5 percent of total foundation dollars. So the evidence based model doesn't provide a specific dollar amount but recommends providing a on the categorical basis defined by a formula and while we do have enhance transportation as as a separate categorical which Julie will speak about later on the presentation we obviously still do have transportation included as a separate line the matrix. According to research for me the school bus is the only means of transportation to and from school making it vitally important to educational opportunity but as you can see here or transportation costs have have risen significantly 73 percent since since 1980 and I'm not gonna go into all the details of these different of the different funding mechanisms used by other states by your this is an overview of those the details are in the reports and different state she's actual state or cost or formula finding other stations that flat rate per per unit finding and then others use multi very calculations. I'm another area were superintendents indicated they needed more funding and one super intendant indicated transportation funding should not be based on per pupil numbers. And I think this was where we were going to stop for questions as well if there are any. We can stop here we can keep on that's that's the end of the matrix spending lines okay. I'm gonna start out so transportation's gonna we've been a little. Animal that I've worked on for last 8 years you're doing this and coming up the supplemental so as as everyone looks at this and you look at things how much more they want and they would you know it's always in the and everybody has a need and we try to help rule schools in one 's really suffer in this you know I was just looking at the actual cost of formula flat rate per unit you can never do a flat rate he per unit because it really is not on yes it would it would kill a rule schools of a blade terror buses up too quick on the rough roads have to me miles stuff like that so we worked on trying to do this and I'm just saying it's basically for the ones that are here in this room that are you working on again and. Very tough situation we want to take it out of the matrix and and tell the tale much we have not come up with a formula that would be fair to everyone so that's going to be an animal will have to address again and see if we can come up with something but the superintendent's I'd love to hear from again if they got a good plan this time. You heard it in my. Okay of representative makes. So I my question is pretty brief on the the. The questions from the superintendent about do you need more funding or not I'm wondering how. Our objective that was because if I got a survey that said you need more money for transportation sure you need more money for operation sure any more money for sure sure sure. Was there any justifications or were they required to provide any justifications for those needs or was it more of a an opinion based how did they so when we look at these numbers you know how much faith can we put in them of that okay this is really need versus needs versus want maybe that's a better question. Yeah we don't we didn't try to differentiate or make them differentiate between that this is a question that we asked on I mean for years for a while back we changed it to where they had to rank one through 17 that got very confusing to both analyze and then to present for it was very meaningful so we it would put it in this way and I was afraid that we'd have you know 100 percent yes we need more funding but you really do see some variation in there and there are some areas for the minority side there's more pending so there's an differentiation but we can't and in and didn't attempt to separate want versus need we just let them have some impact. The representative back. Thank you Mr so that I'm not gonna ask questions if we get a little bit deeper into this. On the superintendents were or all like I superintendents input was they're all created equal right and so do we of the we differentiate against maybe the responses from us schools that have less than 500 versus. How superintendents that maybe had 1500 more students and how they might have changed on all the different things that we asked do we do do any of that data yeah that's a really good question and that's something we did talk about. We. Ran out of time but we would be glad if that something that you would like to see we would be glad to try to do some of that announces because we we can Marcin datasets and come up with those answers and I think that would help us with the trap with the transportation and things like that because you might find that these rules school districts and yeah they that they would they might be up around 90 percent of our something we need more funding and then maybe some the larger metro areas might say now we're fine with the transportation I think that what else is where it is usually rule schools need a lot more funding than the metropolitan school some of make a little money on that not not all right. So I would be interested in that if we can okay right now. May not have it by tomorrow but we'll get it for you senator. I'm up for Mr thank you I am I don't know who might give us these answers but I'm assuming the professional organizations and maybe Department that Mister chair but just as technology is it is an obvious one that things may have changed since the study was done that the funding might be. Maybe adequate or maybe not adequate but we need we obviously we know we might need to do some things differently Census the Society voice was done and I'm just wondering Mr cherry if we can find out from the associations of from the department of education are there other issues that have been impacted by COVID that might cause us to give another look at any I by the items that that we are funding I don't know that's the case but I'd like to I'd like to just find out from people we we could look at that but I'm as we know codes things that impacted by code only temporary they're not gonna last forever so I don't know if that's something we can figure into adequacy as a permanent but it could be I mean I think that's what they've been doing is just putting money where the things needed that COVID has affected each year and the last 2 years anyway so we could talk apartment right they have and I guess what I would do what I want from in their professional judgment is did anything happen COVID related that we know will be ongoing perhaps even something like you have social emotional learning that that's what I want to know from them thank you thank you a better track record yeah yeah okay thank okay. Person Godfrey. Thank you Mr chair I'm a little bit nervous to ask this question because I'm afraid I might get an assistant principals mad at me but. In talking about kind of the supervisory roles in these extra duty find it's making me think about just the conversation we had previously about and the role in student achievement having a really effective and strong principal and then also the the role of instructional facilitators and how impactful both of those roles can be presented to minister actually for struggling learners and then you talked about having assistant principals maybe find out of that same instructional facilitator. Funding and so I'm wondering. Is there research on the effectiveness of assistant principals I've seen first hand the dentist of us as a result I would be very clear my child this is a personal call me last week and had a very in depth conversation with me about my kid and I know that when assistant principal server eyes really instructional leaders rather than supervisory or administrative there can be a really incredible impact in student achievement but I also wonder. If. If there's I guess if there are best practices in funding or in in the implementation in spending for assistant principals and why is it because we need them to. And kind of in a sum of the supervisory and administrative duties that the principle that there's too much to do for that principle alone. Or is that that because they have the potential to serve as instructional leaders within the school under the same umbrella as as the instructional facilitator way does that make sense and my question is basically like why do we need assistant principal. I think that that I think your questions perfect sense I don't I don't readily have an answer for you but I would be more than happy to to provide me we definitely have research we just haven't collated and have anything this adjustable I think it's. But we would be happy to provide the research I read really was to have someone that takes on some of these other duties to free up the principal to be the the talent later for the school that I as far as the instructional facilitator role I I haven't come across that yes in my experience I've just seen it in both of those ways I've seen the A. P. roll be either supervisory or administrative or instructional I think there's value in both I think it would be helpful to kind of the. Which of those maybe has a bigger impact on achievement or if there's you know if there's a role for both for either and you know if you have 2 sets of principles and it just kind of curious based on our conversation I sure I I think the one thing that would be that would not be easy for us to identify with in Arkansas is in I guess this presents we surveyed but is having a clear understanding of what each president assistant principal's role is within the school because I know just anecdotally from the feedback that we received I can focus groups the staff that said those roles are very different appearing on the school some of them are serving as more you know building administrators in disciplinary except have verses serving as instructional coaching mentors teachers so that we will be happy to get more information on that thank you. Your back on this it. Okay so now we're going to get into or out of the matrix and basically we're pretty much out of the matrix we're gonna go into additional adequacy funding needs so it again is part of the surveys we conducted a ministry or to assess how well the current matrix meets districts needs we asked the Perrin tendance to identify which resource components of the matrix are most in need of additional funding any basically seen have seen those throughout the the first part of the presentation with those pie charts we wanted to provide a different type of visual so you can see M. what those top 5 areas where or in so you can see special education teachers was number one and then caught followed by classroom teachers transportation operation maintenance and substitute so those are the 5 so I have all of the superintendent responses that these were that the top father identified and of course will will provide that additional data analysis for you on that as well. But we also ask and superintendents to identify resources that are not included in matrix that they believe are important part of providing adequate education and these are the 5 the top 5 that were identified I mean it they reported so mental health services school second when when we say mental health services this is a grouping of anywhere that they identified like student mental health services behavioral social social emotional any of those fall under that header and school safety was the second one and that is inclusive of your a service school resource officers dyslexia support services was the third and special education support and so this is different from special education teachers because image and sick it's a completely different ball game and then preschool now I will talk about all of these with the exception of special education support Adrian will that's that's her specialty is special education and so she will talk about that in her separate report on special education but will walk through the rest of these here. So the matrix identifies resources for guidance counselors as we discussed earlier Arkansas educators and superintendents principals and teachers all report their growing student mental health needs go beyond the expertise of their guidance counselors and a specific mental health resources and supports for all students including additional positions for specialized staff such as social workers psychologists or behavioral specialists need to be identified and so that was this is specific that they specifically said this not only in the feedback that we receive from that the survey we conducted but this was also indicated in the EPA report when they did their and focus groups. Multiple data sources suggest the student mental health is an area of increasing need which might be to be considered for additional resources and as a reference staffing level recommendations by national organizations to support student mental health can be found I believe on page 28 have your funding report. So national statistics support the growing concerns reported by stakeholders research shows that each year nearly one in 5 school age children use me to meet the criteria for a mental health disorder yet less than 20 percent of those students get the help that they need. And of those that do receive mental health services more than 75 percent get that help in school that's that's where they're getting the help is in school. I am among the 3.8 adolescents ages 12 to 17 reported and major depressive episode in the past year and this was this was as of 2019 I'm nearly 60 percent did not receive any treatments. Additional research showed that by 2018 suicide replace homicide is the second leading cause of death and youth ages 10 to 24 in Arkansas the suicide rate among that same age group has increased by 45 percent. And this is especially true in rural areas the research says that rural areas see higher suicide rates for a variety of reasons but limited access to mental health services is one of the major contributing factors to that and we we actually saw quite a few comments from and different stakeholders indicating that that was a huge struggle for them was in their in their rural areas getting access to mental health services even those commute you trying to get locate this community based partnerships. And we we did want to say that. The staff were published prior to covid several recent reports indicate mental health issues in school age children had been excuse me exacerbated by the pandemic. So according to the American school counselor association without paying intervention students exhibiting early warning signs can often experience many obstacles including and social emotional development I am set backs in their academic performance and this I meant this admit mental health and needs can also compromise school safety and students age 166 using 6 to 17 with mental emotional or behavioral concerns are 3 times more likely to repeat a grade. And high school students with significant sentence or depression are more or more than twice as likely to drop out of high school. So not gonna read all these to you but there were again there were numerous quotes and this is just a selection of some of those quotes from various stakeholders and we try to provide examples from superintendents principals and teachers. Second one. Oops so school safety the majors is not provide $1 amounts for school resource officers and stakeholders identify this is an area that is being covered by other funding and including the ESA finds that they receive and according to the 2020 a pair for community committee members in particular and provide feedback that they had increasing concerns about safety in the school. And this is a high priority area for districts without a direct source of funding. These are some statistics for 2019 from the national center for education statistics schools that year had close to 1000000 violent incidents and little over 470 6000 non violent incidents and 71 percent of public schools experienced at least 1 violent incidents. And here you can see that there are an additional examples highlighted for the need for SROs there were numerous examples of principles indicating they only had one S. R. O. for multiple schools that there have if they have to rotate them across campuses and that it once said that we currently rotate with having one every 3 days and there were some comments indicating that they do have partnerships with local police departments and you know share some of the cost of but again they don't have a direct source of funding so they are having to to use other types of funding. So does support services I'm status that's your rules require screening of all students in kindergarten through second grade and third and 5 if teachers that is a deficiency and if and if if ever screening in need is identified in services are supposed to be provided and each school district is also required to have at least 1 individual service a dyslexia interventionist and these resource requirements are not currently funded in the matrix and so there was a lot of feedback and it was also providing the APA report 2020 that this was an unfunded mandates and that they're having to use categorical funds to address their dyslexia needs. According to the Yale center for dyslexia and creativity children with dyslexia often struggle with learning to read words sounding out words and and. Continuing to to remember the words that they've already been taught I'm sure does I see have an unusually difficult time learning to read and it is estimated that as many as one in 5 kids has dyslexia. And 89 percent of kids with learning disorders are kids that have dyslexia and research indicates that early intervention is critical and that any gaps between intelligence and reading actually are clear by the first grade so the sooner that those can be recognized interventions we can be put in place the better and it also research also any indicates that intervention is important to boost kids self confidence so that does not continue to be damaged by struggling continue to struggle in school. So I wanted to provide 10392017 requires school districts Report annually the number of students they identified is exhibiting the characteristics of dyslexia and the number of students who received intervention asking of these reports across districts show a significant increase in the number of students that have been both identified in or receiving services and since the enactment of this and here's an example from Fort Smith school district was able to purchase to get. Its total state statistics but I wanted to highlight at least one school district in this this is seen across the state that whenever you look at the individual numbers are published on school district's website servers tremendous increases in the number of students since the implementation of this law that have indicate Clerk clearly that there's a lot of students out there that have dyslexia. And here are a couple of quotes related to you or comments yes from prince of for a principal and a teacher related to the need for. Dyslexia services and you know that it's if it's going to be mandatory then funding is needed. And if there's going to be kids identified as needing the services then we need to be able to provide services. So preschool is was the the other resource that they identified as not in the matrix that they believe is part of an adequate education and the matrix is never included the priest at preschool because the student's education that age group is not constitutionally mandated but it is something that the stakeholders identified and you can see some a couple quotes there. Senate is conducted by the learning policy institute found a preponderance of evidence demonstrating investments in high quality preschool programs reach. Positive and benefits and walks of cost savings study is the largest Chile of the students have gone through high quality preschool programs have shown that they experience of central learning gains they're more prepared in comparison to students who do not attend preschool they are less likely to be retained they're also less likely to be identified as a special needs students all of which equates to tremendous cost savings in fact the ones that have been tracked longitudinally meeting from preschool all the way through matriculation there's estimated return of $17 for every $1 invested in high quality preschool programs and even for the students that were tracked just through elementary school and the study show a return on investment of 2 to $4 for every dollar invested. So there are other resources deserve that now moving out of the direct feedback from stakeholders there are other resources not currently found in the Arkansas matrix but that are identified by on in pike is evidence based medical model as critical to the poor educational program and for student success and these have been the these have all been provided whenever on impact as have been part of the adequacy study process in the past and that includes corps tutors for the for the core instructional programs this is not for students that are at risk you know have academic deficiencies that their research shows that providing tutors for all students is a huge benefit to you Sir outcomes and performance and they also recommend per people resources for career and technical education and gifted and talented education. And by the way and the reason the specific resource recommendations that they make for these are all in the appendix and of Europe worked. Now they do provide additional recommendations for what they call struggling students and so that's a by a first for students that are and you know have academic deficiencies and they provide resource recommendations for 2 years for those but also additional people support staff extended day summer school and ESL programs. You. I'm sorry but it was done. The research has a consensus yeah this is this is tied it back to our successful schools this is get stacked and research has consistently found number of strategies and school teachers effective improving student outcomes especially among at risk and struggling students and you can see those listed here so pre K. programs full day kindergarten small class sizes tutoring extended learning time and then those affected social learning programs and if you look at that list so many of those directly aligned with all of those all of the previous flights where and stakeholders identified that we need we have needs or on a pike as have identified there are additional resources that are needed and they're also features an effective schools and that gets into your this effective leadership you know your your principal or instructional coaches high call quality teacher work force and the curricula high expectations for all students and the school culture and ample opportunities to learn and re learn so that before and after school and what we heard whatever we spoke to all other groups is successful schools that respect to these are all a part of that this is direct feedback every this is us because we interviewed identified all effective school features listed here and they also provides a really great examples I have the strategies that they use. And your 7:00 AM you again want to highlight some quotes directly related to their additional resources that that we just discussed and I'll let you take a second and then adri will get into chaotic start us off categorical funding. So we'll move over to categorical funds and it's really not earlier these are targeted for certain populations are certain needs and and there are 4 of the real quick this is a they make up 5 percent of all to hold you up to 6000000003 questions on that past. Parts of fully get too far away I guess we'll we'll get to represent 11. Thank you Mr jasmine you mentioned earlier your presentation which about mental health issues that one in 5 students in public schools in Arkansas. For quite. It's 15 that's nationally Nash is on Arkansas yes sorry and then you also in 1 of the reasons slides to talk about dyslexia that it was 15 do we have any data to show if there is a cross over there. That's a really good question I don't I don't have on hand. That information but I would be more than happy to do some research to see if I can find me as a if we don't if we don't have the date data to support that there's no crossover. Then what we're to assume is that 2 out of every 5 students nationally in a classroom either either have mental health issues or dyslexia. So I. What. That leads back to see that there's years across our certainly there's definitely cross over there between students that are diagnosed with learning disorders and certain need for special education and dyslexia but I that's a very interesting question about the mental health I'll be more than glad to research that for you Sir thank you thank you. President Bragg. Thank you Mr chair over here your far right you of mention pre K. and and qualified the success of that well here based on high quality pre K. programs is this is that imply that there's low quality or or their standards for certification for pre K.. I'm at. There are definitely best practices for. The what make a high quality quality pre K. program and yes certifications are certainly I'm a part of that is a state certification for a pre K. program or. Thank you specific teacher I I don't know if we do that Arkansas but there is there are specific into specific teacher Lysanders for pre K. you know that they specialize in that early childhood and but they're definitely I don't have them off he I don't have them with me the characteristics of high quality but there is a distinction itis a low quality but there there are distinctions between whites at the yeah research center says is a hot makes I have a high quality pre K. program I'd be happy to provide those okay thank you thank you Mister senator Hammer. Thank you on the a question on the dyslexia. When when a child is diagnosed with that that is done from a independent source that makes a determination or is it from of somebody affiliated directly with the school. I don't I don't have I can't answer that for certain that might be something that we can find out or the 8 or does he might know the answer to that okay am I would I would think it could be one both actually depending on if the if it's a parent chose to get their own testing done versus a school you know within the school itself. And this is not anyway an implication of somebody has dyslexia but I'm wondering do you do any research to determine. If those are diagnosed with dyslexia have maybe a funding source for treatment whether be Medicaid private insurance or anything like that they could step in and help. With funding to meet the needs of the students that's diagnosed you do track that data. I don't I don't know if that's something that we can obtain I mean we certainly have expenditures that shadow. Medicaid Medicaid related but I don't think there would be any way for us to track that back to assist an individual student level and then being identified as dyslexic. If that makes sense but we I would be happy to look into that for you to see if there's a way to capture that will make it makes sense I was cast sensitive but at the same time before looking for funding source and they've been diagnosed with that that maybe something would pick up another elect DHS to see what we have to make sure they get funding necessary to take care of it and and that's why I was asking what will what will definitely get in that a dream house of that well I was only going to add that if some students of this some students with dyslexia can qualify for special education not all of them some of them do qualify use that this looks that will qualify them for special education depending on the needs and that case federal and state funds would kick in to help with that but back her she's right we can't really track it down to expenditures back down to a disability level now but there are some funding sources for some of those kids are thank you. Sir Clark. Thank you Mr everywhere that I've been except for 2 discussions there was really and there's ask about pre K. of but one of those we serve some of for education reform the other was a sorry be. Of William former education secretary William Bennett said that if you're making a bet on what adding 2 X. 2 a doesn't seem to make it any better. The. Is there been a more exhaustive study on pre K. than Vanderbilt's. Which never seems to be mentioned. I'm sorry I didn't hear worse also study own pre K. than Vanderbilt study. There's been some studies out of Harvard and there's been a lot of and child development brain science studies to that that such a formative age and having access to preschool and both the security an education in the structure that you find there are beneficial and there's lots of research that I've come across and because preschool it was one of the original ASA and I'll get into that just a minute approved findings for that many with that we call a essay now and we also in our grant many free essay that we reimburse schools that's one of the previous expenditures so that is one place that is a state that we do address preschool 3 the schools what we come back to my question has there been a more exhaustive study than the $6000000 the Vanderbilts spent. At the back I probably can't answer that I can say there's lots of research out there I don't know if it's more exhaustive for or not what was a pretty exhaustive study and somehow it never gets mentioned. Of. And they of those who got the extra year did enter kindergarten more prepared by the first grade there was no difference at the end of the first grade co investor Gator to help parents as the pre K. students were measurably less excited about school. By the third grade the pre K. students were being outperformed by those who got the later start. The they took of in Tennessee that was 700 kids because they were looking at going to universal pre K. there were the governor was were excited about the program that they had their of and as far as I know there is not a more exhaustive study the vendor bills but we talk about ever other study but Vanderbilt of. The the and everybody continues to be excited the. I'm just I'm interested on and why we always leave the study out. I would be happy to to look at that study I don't know when that study was conducted but I would be house in 2015 okay and the the the the I believe there's an update to this what I'm reading now this year. Okay I would be happy to review that and look at that look at that the. The differences between that study and the study that was providing here for the learning policy is you haven't looked at better but I have I've looked at it but I didn't I haven't I didn't put it into this presentation at it and use it as a as as the research behind the pre K. thank you. Reserve all thank you Mr chair first I'd like to ask that this what you're sent into the representive R. AG be sent to the chair so they can send it to all of us on the high quality pre case if you don't mind. Can I go back I don't know I might have let this get too far gone but about the mental health behavior health problems that we're having in the schools I know that I noticed that there was quite a bit of feedback on that did they give you good. Ways to fix the problems that we can work on to fix those problems in our schools did they give you back the back on. I'm in. The basic feedback is that they need do they need staff they need staff with the expertise to help address the problem and I noticed that you told I think it was a representative makes that the same maybe enroll Arkansas we're having more of a difficulty using the same resources that they might can use and municipality top school districts is this correct it sounds like a from a common design like that the rural areas are struggling with finding and those professionals in their in their areas so I know that DHS does have a lot of those same manner capabilities is it a bridge that's not been finished from schools to DHS so that they know that they can use those kind of programs that they might have through DHS. If that's possible I do know that there were there are some comments I would have to go back and dig back in the day that to see but there were definitely comments where there they are partnering with DHS and but just off the top of my head I can't remember exactly how how much of that is happening and but I would be more than glad to go back and look at all those comments in the feedback provide specifically on this mental health mental health questions to see if we can come up with with something means I yeah I would appreciate that I've got an I. S. P. that I'm working on for mental behavioral health for schools in our jails and and in reality everybody who might need mental health issues addressed and I think that might be helpful in my I. S. P. if you wouldn't mind Mister chair I have one more question if you would've allow so I know we talked a lot about dyslexia what about autistic children do they automatically receives a special. A educational type help that they might need or is it something that's tested in the school or is it something that the parent has to do on their own and bring to the school and show the school that they do have autism. So I know the autism is one of the required it's one of the. Qualifying conditions for special education I don't know necessarily if it automatically triggers that looked into I would have to look into that a little bit more but I know that typically they are I think usually special education read the other part of your question I'm sorry about autism I am did that parents have to test for it or is it tested in the school is it something that teachers notice like if my child is dyslexic a teacher might notice it I might not notice it she might suggest that the child needs to be tested is it the same way with autism. I think so I think and there's been a lot of there's been a growing push toward I think identifying students who are autistic I think that's led to an increase in some special education numbers without when addressed later but yeah I think that's identified as what I would have to double check that that's my understanding and I'm not trying to take anything away for dyslexia please don't misunderstand statement I just know that a lot of kids also are going on diagnosed with autistic measures and I'm wondering how we can deal with that also thank you Mr well I I can speak from personal experience that as a parent with some for the child that is at is a high functioning autistic you I was the one who got my child estate so and that that's he's a lot older now I need you know things going to change but I think it's when those situations that depending on you know who recognizes that there are there's something going on and he can he can for me they want the parent or orange I mean I didn't know we test for eyes and ears and stuff like that at school that's how I found out my children needed glasses per se and so I was wondering if the same thing happens with autistic thank you. Sir do it. I lost myself Mr I just wanted to suggest it what with the pre Katie a sunny that we might want to look at as well yes I'd look at the Vanderbilt 1 and I know that I think is 2018 Harvard was going to do in excess of 1 up not going back and look at it I don't know that originally when we invested in pre K. we invested according to that 10 major are parts that were needed components that were needed for a great pre K. and that is done by the National Institute for early education research and we were 1 of the 2 or 3 states in the country initially who met all 10 and we just funding kept moving back in back until we made the at 6 or 7 now so I think that be important to include any further discussion that we have thank you Mr. Category. Let's do it so categorical funds so they can. Okay no one. Yeah just just one other thing on the the mental health issues and if you don't mind also finding out if we can if schools are spending any or engaging in any outside. Because I don't want to say curriculum but maybe program I know that schools are doing this that they're engaging in an outside assistance and kind of going through like a program and that the principles are learning this program and then the teachers are going through it I'd like to know how many schools are actually doing that in an engaging and not I know that the schools that have lost students to suicides I have really focused on this because of you know what they've personally experienced with the students to have committed suicide but I'd really be interested in knowing how how many schools may maybe doing night and then what they are and how you know what their feedback is about that because sometimes sometimes we can sometimes that may be more of an intentional spend is supporting those types of proven. Programs that can come in and train our principles and our and teachers on how to an students actually on how to deal with would deal with that and so. I think that would be something I'd like to if you can find that out thank you. My 2 guest speakers on the 4 riders is your needs pressing or can you wait on those. Sir Clark was shorter before use all go there. Sir Clark you're recognized mon was just if we're going to add other things to look at was the the had a ranking of the before going to look at anything else on pre K. or equal to 200 52 influences in effect sizes related to student achievement of and says that you need to measure at least a point 4 over to make a difference in that retailing major point 28 but if staff will look at some other things I should look at that to. All right. Senator Hammer. In your data do you collect information and dollar values of mental health services are provided by firms outside of the school for example downstream county we have the counseling center and they're throughout the state and they actually provide mental health services to the schools some schools even contract with third party to come in and offer it do you calculate that in any of this data is first dollar value and that service provided to schools. We now there are a lot of partnerships out there I don't think we asked perhaps the last time we did ask how much you're spending on outside services I don't think we ask that question this year but we do know that there are quite a few partnerships out there would that not be relevant to us making decisions knowing that some schools are having mental health services come in and work with those kids if run have this discussion when we need to know that information to have a full picture. And. I said I would have to go back I think we may have asked that question I just I need to go back and look at the survey to see what what all we asked. And if we did not ask that question we can certainly look into asking that you would be great thank you thank you Mr. Just a note to the committee and I know you probably will shall know this but pre K. is not figured are adequacy formula so um we're talking a lot about it so I just wanna let you know that it will not fall into the the matrix unless something drastically is changed to put them into that matrix and so I'm not sure that that would happen but it is always up to the legislature to make those decisions so just a little word of information thank you you may continue. I will add we did ask that question so I'm sorry I was wrong in its and the question 21 A. M. B. and the superintendent survey and on average the mental health if TV's 146 employed by the district in 213 employed by others who came into the district work. Okay so now I'll get into categorical funding. So as a reminder this makes up about 5 percent of funding that districts and charters are receiving and there are 4 different ones we have English language learners of funding for alternative learning environments enhance student achievement and professional development and we'll go into detail about each 1 and how these are funded starting with English language learners so as representative Godfrey noted this is a per its funded on a personal basis strictly on those number of English language learner students which is that right is currently at 300 $52 which came to almost $14000000 in 2021 and end their evidence based that right recent evidence based model from on in pike as they recommended 1 English as a second language teacher for every 100 English language learner students though that is often combined with other resources for and the struggling students that we discussed earlier to the usually grouped in with other resources for and. Those struggling learners students. And in terms of how other states are funding this population the most common method amounts are top performing states with using a flat plates and some of the criteria of berries of some of those top criteria is that factors that were used to determine their weight system look at grade levels and the level of English proficiency or the concentration of students within a particular school or district. So the next. Microphone the next categorical is for all the alternative learning environment and you can see that 2021 per pupil amount was 40 $700 and that's based on we find and 1 it's a 1 F. to 15 teacher at the student ratio. There you can see next to that evidence based model recommends one at T. assistant principal and then there are their preferred student to teacher ratio is one to 7 with a maximum of one to 15. In the final group of students that are in the struggling great for our students of poverty and we find this a little bit differently back in 2003 when this was first created is called national school lunch bending which was confusing it's called that because it's based on students qualifying for free and reduced lunch which means that they live in families who are at 100 35 percent or less of the poverty line this was changed I think data Senator Clark to try to make it more clear that this was not the federal funding but it was a state stream vending so 5 or 6 years ago it was changed to enhance student achievement funding it's again it's funded on those students who meet the qualifications but it's also based on the concentration of property within the school so you can see that schools with lower percentages of property which is 70 percent or lower get 500 26 per student on free and reduced lunch that's highest ones obviously get more and it's 1576 and for 2021 which is the or stating when APA came 2 years ago they M. grass to look at this without providing any funding recommendations and so their suggestion was to make this a weight on top of donation pending so that it would move smoothly as foundation funding made so I wanted to look at what and we translate hours to weights what that looks like so at that lowest level it would be a 7 percent and at the highest level we would be meeting the 22 percent wait per student over foundation funding. So that brings us to professional development and of this is funding as provided a little differently than the other categorical is and that it's not just provided to the districts that separated out in 3 different ways so first it's going to districts and charters they can provide professional development for their teachers and staff it's then going to Etienne for the Arkansas ideas program and this is the statewide online PT program and then finally solution tree for the professional learning communities or the PLC program and because of how that the funding methods are different and how they're organizing adequacy funding worksheet written talk about these into different sections so first right now I'm a talk about the funding for districts charters an ATM and then a little bit later in the presentation today I'll get into the funding for solution tree in the PLC program. So looking at that the district charter and AT and funding so districts and charters are funded on a per student basis in statute and on the ad adequacy funding worksheet that amount is set at $40.80 however that is that maximum amount the final amount that they get funded depends on the funding going towards AT and and then solution tree so simply once those funds are determined that a meeting that remaining amount is then calculated and they can say they can create that person an amount which was $36 and 2021 which came to about 17000000 that year and Etienne received about 2.7000000 of their amount is capped at 3.5 in special language there mount has actually been decreasing in recent years and in their most recent evidence based model on impact as recommended funding at that 100 $25 per student and that includes multiple different elements so that includes central office PT staff outside consultants they may bring in any kind of registration reimbursement fees are outside or any kind miscellaneous administrative materials or transportation costs that may come along for schools. And there were wasn't a whole lot of comment from fire educators about this funding but I do want to highlight one from a superintendent just to illustrate there are some president of element funding needs. Interop a categorical funding when I know that while they are restricted within each use they can be transferred amongst each other Memphis categorical so this gives you an idea of what those transfers look like and you can see that a lot of it is coming from ESA funding and then supplementing the ale leave programs and that you got ELL programs. So that brings us to supplemental funding and this is funding that is been added over the years or has been in fact right some of this is older than adequacy to help schools read adequacy and equity. And it makes up about 2 percent of all funds that districts and charters are receiving. The first 1 is isolated funding and you heard Elizabeth talk about this last month in the history report it dates back to the eighties it's a parts of it are fairly old I will try to get in history today are all the changes though that is noted in the history report if you're interested of but I want to know so again like I said supplemental funding makes up about 2 percent of state funds and this isn't even smaller portion of that so it's not a big pot of money however for the districts that are receiving it again can be pretty significant so for example and you're not Judy isolated especially as isolated funding made about 23 percent of their total budget in 2020. As I think we've noted this is a complex in front of a better word walkie form of funding so do my best to explain how that works. How it works and how the funding gets distributed out. So the first part of so I'll start with it's broadly given to districts with either low enrollment and or geographic challenges like having a record road system more lows student density and is distributed out in 3 different ways so it's first isolated funding special needs isolated which include small district and then special needs isolated transportation. And okay I'll go over kind of each one of these to what these kind of criteria for each one of these are because they do very. So starting with isolated funding. This is this is the one that kind of dates back to the eighties so this piece because back in the eighties I in 2003. What legislation passed identified several different isolated school areas and created pursued a funding announcmenet to correspond with those particular areas that list and those person amounts are still in statute is a list of that I think an appendix G. of your funding report if you want to see the full list and those amounts have not changed since since then but these are districts that are typically characterized in the traditional sense of what I status will not look like have long distances hi number of square miles geographic obstacles low ATM there were 14 districts that met that criteria in 2021. The Texas of the first part of this funding process so there's this is the first group that funded so we start with almost $8000000 and 2021 so those 14 districts baseness person funding announcmenet they got just over 2000000 of those particular finds that left the remaining on little over 5.5000000. That finding gets moved over to the special needs isolated back at. So these districts meet those additional those previous isolated criteria with some additional ones so they're either consolidated or annex due to the public education organisation Act of 2003 or it was determined that consolidation annexation just wasn't feasible. They're funding rates also have conveyed depend on a nother subset of burying criteria that ranges from 80 am to how many isolated schools they have in their district or an student density so based on those criteria though receipt either 201510 or 5 percent of the foundation funding rate. That 5 percent category is known as also known as special needs isolated small district they're a little unique from the others and that they don't necessarily have to have an isolated school area they're they're criteria involves having a low ATM and low student density. There were 14 districts that met that criteria in 2021. So that takes us to the next part of the funding process so the move over that 5 and a 5.6000000 over to the transferred the special needs isolated bucket we have an additional 3000000 added. So give us almost. Little just under $9000000. Those 26 districts meeting that criteria they receive almost 5.5 of those 0 of those funds which leave the remaining 3.$3000000 that funding then move over to the transportation back at. So this funding is given to the districts that meet the 2015 and 10 percent funding categories within the special needs isolated there are 12 districts in 2021 and their findings essentially determined by whatever is left over so those that funding is an equally split up amongst those 12 districts and that wraps up and then that eats up the rest of the special needs an isolated funding. We look at other look at how other states are funding these types of dentures and schools we see that 36 states are providing either some form of isolated or small district funding and it's a lot of different ways that states are doing this so summer using a weighted formula some are using a resource allocation method or other including some of those criteria and our transportation funding or they're using some kind of hybrid and it kind of makes matching whatever and finding out that they need at the time. Lot of in the criteria that they use also varies pretty widely across state so some of them look at travel times will kind of geographic barriers they have student density class size and overall student enrollment. Not pass over to Elizabeth. Okay I agree funding is seeing growth than me and I like isolated ending this is a very small amount of spending and but it can be very important to the districts that receive that and Furthermore as we know we're guided in all things at I. adequacy statute and this is one of the area one of the topics that were required to cover and you adequacy statute NO here you'll remember the heating of the presentation Julie slows you that we find school isn't based on prior year average daily membership and that's important for seeking grant funding in declining enrollment funding which has taken that next as this in good standing like it sounds is sending for students that are districts that are gaining students and since we funded based on prior year at districts that are growing have not yet received foundation funding for those students that they're capable this is funding provided to support this additional students and this is funded based on a formula and I'm not gonna go into the details of the formula there are 3 important things that you need to have and this is looking at the current year compared to the prior year and this results in about the full foundation funding amount for each you will gain and this is based on quarterly average daily membership and that's going to be important when I talk about declining enrollment hearing and. So I sent them a history report that I grew up in spring down so when I first came to the bureau and I hear about us you can get great sending I think well this is for districts like spring now they're growing by big numbers over peer 80 years and that's totally train you and this district that received the highest growth payments for 2021 is that now and they received when it more than at 1.$8000000 but you'll notice and this table that in 2020 103 districts received growth finding that's 44 percent of our districts and this month's payment was just over $2000 so what is this is a receiving this money this money they're just receiving it in very different amounts. So as you may be looking at this and noticing what I noticed when I pulled these numbers and that is that these 2 pretty consistent between 17 and 2020 and then we have a major 45. So I look at that and I think what's going on here will obviously COVID is what's going on here right I thank we know is that there is a huge number a huge difference charters are receiving much more this season okay ending I well to virtual charters are receiving about 15000000 of that charter seeking grant funding and so again we believe that this is related to have it and will be curious to see and in the next few years how that how these changes and and if we go back I see the pattern that we had before where where the student growth ending its campaign to our districts. Okay so what is them in Roman numbers here and you'll notice total district enrollment is falling by about 6000 students from 20 to 29 I are combined state moment destruction charters at is falling and I I'm sorry I total enrollment is falling at about 6000 students district enrollment is falling about 10000 students. Our charter enrollment rise as about us 3700 students so what's the effect of all this the effect is that are seeing growth payments increased by more than 3000000 from 20 to 21 I'm just by having an overall statewide decline in enrollment it's. And again some of this we believe services is absolutely G. to have it and will be curious to see how this at changes going forward. I would like it other state agencies seeking grant funding so it must not have seen growth funding only about 17 states at so when action and it's just defined based on the current year and that's why a lot of states don't have student growth any because they're finding based on current year enrollment and the other options are defined I. is slightly different formulas and we need you to find it based on a percentage of gross or a period of growth over several years and looking at a couple of years there are multiple years right and Jess and the preceding year. Our next category has had declining enrollment funding and this is funding provided districts who are leading students And so why we've providing funding for students who aren't there. Well there's a reason and this is in recognition of the fact that there are lots of costs that are difficult to reduce it's pretty easy to read years instructional materials you don't buy as any tax effects of the disease may lose have to lose a lot of a lot of students at before they can actually act had a teacher position this is finding and Nancy you keep districts from having a heck highs but it's allowing them giving them medication and in recognition of the fact that not all past you hi skinhead immediately out wasting this formula is in your appendix at but I'm not going to go into great detail but again there are 3 things that you need some matter this is looking at the current year and the previous 2 years it's getting results in half offending Foundation and that for every student last and this formula is based on a yearly 80. Such causes seen growth form finding is based on quarterly 80 so this little quirk means that it is possible for a district to qualify for both student growth ending and declining enrollment ending in the same year. I have been entered as the roles we only award them when at type of funding and we aware that funding that would result in the most money for the school districts we know here also that as I have the General Assembly hassle lie in this last session I that districts can now receive declining enrollment in special needs isolated funding in previously districts where it limited to one in the ad there and again they receive the committee that this type of funding that would provide them at the mass mental. Okay and you see here and the number of districts and charters receiving funding for 229 and again hundred 10 districts are receiving I need and so that's about 47 percent of our districts semester registers or receiving 1 form offending or the others see more growth or declining I need to hang enrollment ending. Okay there's several other state approaches and declining enrollment funding and a lot of these are also meant to address isolated finding or they're they work in combination with some of the pages that agent told you about a few minutes ago one is a hold harmless provisions and kinetic it they've identified as 33 as their worst performing schools and and those schools are never and never receive less funding there always find it at a minimum rate and there are small districts that disease at minimum allotment for categorical funding and then lay seeking growth and having a slightly different formulas that leads you and looking at a different number of years or at percentage of finding. So next we're gonna talk quickly about enhance student achievement grants which we already mentioned in 1 of the answers that we provide 5.3000000 this is given back to districts on a reimbursement scenario so dizzy looks at their expenditures for the previous year and any expenditures on preschool tutoring before and after school they can be reimbursed for in 2021 I believe 100 92 schools qualified we're and to get the money back there's actually more expenditures in these areas than the 5.3 fending provides for so they were reimbursed at a a 25 percent rate. Not to reopen the preschool discussion again but this is an area where policy has led to some consequences and M. as jasmine said we've always left preschool out of the adequacy discussion is represented Cozart said it's not mandated in the constitution and. Back in the early days there were 7 preschools that are stand alone programs and it was very easy to slice them out of that our analyses of of where the spending as since this law was passed in 2017 I think it went to affect 2018 there's been growth of preschools embedded in elementary school 72021 there were 100 23 at these programs and where it does get a little messy for us and we're looking at expenditures is you can't pull out all the special ed in no they're going to kindergarten students only or does preschool another place that makes it Maddie is that those preschool enrollments are not logged into that skin System so we really don't know what that per pupil funding looks like either so as tomorrow as we go through the spending we've done our best to the pull that money out and where we can but it is and the picture is getting a little. And there's just more pre schools in schools these days. So that Texas is me that takes a special education high cost occurrences and before I get into that I wanted to go that Senator Elliot questions about special education growth in the number of students that are increasing so I was able this is not an update as of this is as of 2019 but we did an analysis and our last that report and the top 3 there are 3 categories we saw the top percentage growth over a 5 year period that was autism which grew up by 55 percent over 5 years emotional students with emotional disturbances 44 percent and intellectual abilities those that grew by 35 percent over a 5 year period I'm and that's something we'll update when we do the special education report later this year. But that so going back to special education high cost occurrences this is previously known as catastrophic funding you can see that was funded at 30 just over 13000000 in 2021. And this is provided to districts for students with disabilities with unduly expensive extraordinary or be on the routine and normal costs associated with special education and related services. Yeah. So before I get into I want to kind of there's been some changes that I want to go over just briefly one going to the whole history of this funding I want to know a change that happened a couple years ago with the how the funding was calculated their the amount going to districts so it's a this is a reimbursement system in which districts will submit claims 80 E. though use this calculation I'm gonna go over to determine what can be reimbursed and use available funding to reimburse as much as is it is available so previously districts could be reimbursed 100 percent of the first $15000 per student. Next they could be reimbursed 80 percent of the next not going up to $50000 per student and then they can be reimbursed the next mount up capped at $100000 per student again this is dependent on available funding so they don't necessarily get that full reimbursement amount it depends on what funding is available which I'll get into here shortly. But now with this new role changed the rule change was designed to promote a more equitable distribution of resources for those students with again the most and duly expenses an extraordinary special education highest so now districts are responsible for the first that 0 percent of that first $15000 so. An officer that first part of the previous formula then they can be reimbursed 100 percent of that next level going up to $65000 per student and then 80 percent of that next level going up again to the capped at $100000 per student. And there's a more detailed version of this next table in your report press one highlight kind of the before and after so going back to 2017. Districts is submitted just under $33000000 an eligible claims. Of that using that previous formula almost $30000000 of that was eligible to be reimbursed. So with the billable finding of $11000000 districts forgetting about 37 percent of that reimbursed back to them which left almost 22000000 of those eligible claims unfunded. 2021 with that new formula in place number of claims the amount of claims increased to almost 30 $9000000. Using that new formula that 16000000 of that was eligible to be reimbursed. With the total funding increased to just over 13000000 that left that meant about 84 percent of those reimbursement eligible claims for reimbursed back though that still left about $26000000 of those initial eligible claims and funded. And I will pass it back for enhanced transportation. So enhance transportation is bending that's outside because transportation is at 300 $21 per student within the matrix so all schools get that many about probably now almost 10 years ago there is a formula developed and it's a complex formula but it starts with the regression formula to try to predict districts transportation needs it's based on 80 M. bus riders and bus route miles together that can predict about 90 percent of the variance between transportation costs so it's really as far as statistics codes it's you know a really of valid formula the offending then or after those costs are predicted for each district there is a are compared to what district is already receives through the matrix and what its actual expenses were and then it determines okay is there still some needing laughed some needs left there and how much of that are we going to meet so in 2021 5000000 was given out in enhanced transportation that ranged from $73 for for the rector school district at 240 8000 for the Caddo hills school district there was however is in need laughter predicted need that was left at the end of that. So that brings us back. By the member sometime read this back to the third piece of our professional development categorical funds this is the funding provided to solution tree for the PLC program. And we talk about this a little bit differently because everyone it's funded differently and it's I have 1 of the more recent pieces so this is why you'll see referred to as additional PT finding that it is still coming from the same 1:00 PT categorical bucket so you can see that in 2021 solution tree received 12.5000000 for the solutions the PLC program and briefly that is that program is a partnership between does Ian solution trading which is a private organization that provides PD resources training and support to K. 12 educators and I'll get to more details about this program in a later report but essentially this program is job embedded professional development for teachers but for now we're going to focus on the funding piece of that program. So I want to take a look at some numbers regarding that program so undisclosed goes back to 2018 at first year the program was implemented C. as in the first row this is the number of participating districts and schools that are closed first cuore hold first cohort start in 20212018 excuse me. Then we added a new cohort 2019 and 2020 each cohort participate in the program for 3 years see see by the end of 2021 and cumulatively we have 43 schools and districts that had either participated or were still participating in the program. We also want to look at how that student percentage in those schools compared to total statewide population so words statewide student enrollment so you can see in 20181 percent of all state students were in a PLC school or district thank you want of Lee 6 percent had either been in a PLC school or were currently still in a PLC school or district. And then you can see how that funding has varied over the years so getting that 4000000 that first year funding increase each year with additional cohorts of schools that were brought in so the amount of Lee again as of the 2021 school year solution tree received 37.$5000000 which was roughly about 31 percent of all PT categorical funds during that same 4 year time frame. So I wanted to bring all of these back together and talk about PT categorical funds as a whole again so again we have funding going to districts funding going to AT and and then solution tree solution tray receives about 39 percent they're getting at a flat amount SMS ATM by getting a percent of those categorical and then districts are getting that pursued an amount again at making about 3053 percent of all he categorical funds to make up that 32.4000000 total that was provided in 2021. So I want to look at that those kind of percentages historically so going back to 2017 this was the last year prior to the program so districts receive 78 percent a pediatric oracle's AT and getting 22 percent. So again if these as the years progressed that read part that district percentage decreases Baptist again 53 percent are going to districts solution trees getting about 39 percent you'll also see their work increases in total funding some of that accommodated for the extra funds for solution tree some of that was due to a pursuit an increase at the district Scott that went from $32.40 to $40.80 and 2021. Not brings us to. Now we have the educator compensation reform program and these are restricted funds used to assist districts with meeting the minimum salary requirements for the teacher's salary enhancement act and 2223 will be the last year of funding for this program. Then we have teacher salary equalisation and these are restricted funds again dedicated to increasing teacher salaries and districts and charter schools that have this is related to average teacher salary not Minturn teacher salary it's to help them get to that average teacher salary set by you all act right now it's $51822 of course it's always subject to change. So that brings us to our final category which is other local state and federal funding which makes up about 30 percent of funding for districts and charters. And I also know that this amount includes the local millage above that that you are T. that 25000 for the or T. as well as the additional state and federal funds. And those other state funding there's multiple there's several different sources here so what was all of them but some of those top ones include adult ADD gifted and talented Health Services your ship training and special education others others such as special education state funding and knows made up about almost 250 $8000000 and 2020 this is the most recent year we had available for this compilation of data and then our federal funding the district received about 590 4000000 in 2020 there again there's multiple not listed here some of those are more find that in your report but some of these top. Uses include a special education title one funding for English language learners and career and technical education. Impassive after June. So again we just wanted to remind you what that total pending picture looks like tomorrow will go through all of these it'll be a little bit quicker I promise but together 3 the spending patterns and how that looks at schools and again some of our major take aways from today is again the foundation funding of course makes up the bulk of your funding and funding for schools others about 40 percent that comes from other sources and there are those other resources that you've heard as mentioned that both research and education safe may be important and are presently included in the matrix. And then also we wanted to get and point out those issues with the matrix and how those per people expenses down always add up to the resources that are needed in schools and how that can cause an issue especially for smaller schools and school districts. We have one last quote that and had to do with spending and this because there was an this is COVID related to bet there is such an influx of federal dollars that this principals saying you know this year it really was much more possible defend all the needs of this or her students in a service man or woman and and so please let the legislature know that so we did and tomorrow is a civil go through this and I don't be interesting to see how the expenditures occur against that Legislative intent that set in the matrix and then also for some of these other items. And and we've already got quite a few 2 days but will be glad to take more questions or today's. We have a few questions represent got for you're recognized. Thank you Mr chairman thank you so much I know that was incredibly thorough but incredibly helpful and one questions for ya and then one question is actually for the department and I don't know if it may be better to talk about tomorrow with with pending but it is a question I wanted to follow up on an estate of oracle FOR you all I'd like to do and with that solution treat the PSE is issue 39 percent of that PT categorical is going to to find that initiative what percentage of teachers have had access to that professional development. That's a really good but I know you said you're going to give us more in depth information about that and I'm happy to wait on it no and that's something we've talked about I think we had a I think timing kind of got away with this I was a little more tricky to calculate exactly how many school teachers or any school that's uncertain something we could try to look into and try to get I think it be helpful if the significant investment but I also know it's a worthy investment I'm I'm very supportive of PLC Institute but just knowing what that match up is on how many teachers have had been able to access that and my question about yes they funding perhaps it's better it's or by the Department we can wait till tomorrow and but I know that during session there was that a bill to kind of change and the language around the requirement for that is used at ESA finds that the language was struck and that this act had to be used for low income students even though those funds are given because of low income students I know that doctor having and I had a conversation about ensuring that either through your rules or through the requirements at school submitting their plans to use their seats if they find that you would include some language about ensuring that those funds are used for students who are low income who or what triggered the allowance of those funds in the first place so I would just love an update on that because I know that all other categorical those are restricted you often have to be used for yells 80 funds have to be used for PT Ellie fights have to be used for a day yes they finds I do want to make sure that since they're funded for students in poverty that they are indeed as category categorical funds being spent on students property thanks. Represent McKenzie. Thank you Mr chairman just a couple questions. With regard dissolution cherry I know that you all reference to the candidate and you said it's going to be at a later presentation first I know that the slide that we had there it showed the 37.5000000 but for clarity this is $100000000 contract it's a 7 year contract 2017 through 2023 so I I want to make sure we're not confused it's $100000000 and so my question is. When you said we're going to develop because I know we fast I've asked and others have asked for more information more data. But this is up for review I believe last year the I think it went before the Legislative Council for that contract renewal in April. So I hate to see S. portion back and pushing back are we going to touch base on that tomorrow on on the data. And so yeah you're right yes you're right that this is just a portion of this is not a representative of the entire contract resolution tree. The spending report bonuses early get into that but we are planning and analysis of in our later Christian available report looking at performance of the students in those schools versus students in schools that are not considered peels or part of the program I should say so we do plan analysis later this year will be tomorrow we are planning to do some analysis on student achievement and those PLC schools what do when you see my concern I'm trying to to to raise the flag of awareness of is working to make a decision on think 16.5000000 this time in April likely so if we don't dig down into that until later this year I don't think we're being very good stewards of this program and I know I've been asking for this this information for over a year and I think others have to so I guess my question is can we make time to do it sooner. For now that requested it can certainly do that thank you appreciate it up our list thank you very much follow up on that do you have a list of the schools that participate in PLC yes can you just send that to me absolutely send us mail sent to represent a McKenzie and then she can go on to Arkansas reads the order again you can like yeah I in you can compare and contrast The reading reading this course maybe as one perhaps indicator but I mean because I know the schools that you know I have a familiar with the participated or just you know. They are achieving incredible things under it so but that that might be 11 thank you thank you for that I have already done that I've been trying to do my research and trying to be as fair as I can so that's why I want to see you know what information you want as well so I appreciate that thank you. All right the one other thing you can you really thank you I I appreciate all the clothes create your very detailed work on all of this just to you know and I appreciate the quotes about funding at the levels that they received during the pandemic however that's completely unrealistic and so I just wanna make sure that I state that because there is absolutely no way we could as a state funded and at the same levels that they have received just unbelievable amounts of money from the federal government due to the to the pandemic I mean that's that's a. That that would you know I don't even know where to begin that would look like it comes from or has a budget you know for a state visit I mean that's just I appreciate that and I know that the code funding has helped tremendously however you know we cannot start that talking point in my opinion because it's incredibly unrealistic to the state budget and to the state spends. All right any other questions. Seeing none thank you ladies appreciate you today and a good 3:00 hours of discussion. And mostly from you also you did really good all right tomorrow morning 9:00 everyone the. These invite your other committee members come with you tomorrow and we'll see tomorrow your we are adjourned.