Education Committee - Senate

April 7, 2025 ·8:00 AM ·Room 207 ·4:36:22

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Senator Jane English Unverified 0:00

Good morning. Welcome to Senate Education. This is going to be a busy day. We have a number of things on our schedule today. Let's see. Is Alan

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Speaker 5 0:15

Clark here? No. Kim Hammer here? No. Let me see.

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Senator Jane English Unverified 0:32

Senator Irvin, she has Senate Bill 618 and Senate Bill 619.

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 0:40

If you'll identify yourself, you will be recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. I'll begin with 618. This is to Senator Missy Irvin, District 24. Good morning. Senate Bill 618 is to amend the Arkansas Student Due Process and Protection Act. If you'll recall, I passed and wrote this legislation a couple of years ago to create the Student Due Process and Protection Act for any student on the campus of higher education that may be undergoing any type of an investigation based on student conduct. I worked with the University of Arkansas systems. Melissa Rust is here, and we just needed to advise, to revise this to where they have seven days after student organization that an appeal shall be filed within seven days versus the 25. The reason why is because if it's at 25, it could extend into the next semester, and so we want to be able to get these investigations and these appeals wrapped up in a more timely manner. And so the main change is to change the 25 down to seven days for the appeals to be filed. What was very important to me in order to change that day time from 25 to 7 is to make sure that these students are advised that they may retain, seek representation by an attorney from the onset of an investigation. And that's critical to making sure that their due process and their constitutional right is protected and so that the institution will advise them to seek representation by an attorney at the onset of an investigation. So limiting this appeal time down should not be problematic for them. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Other questions from the committee? senator flowers

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 2:52

so senator Irvin how long of a process is it from the initial complaint or the start of the investigation

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 3:06

yes ma'am a hearing well it it it can last up to probably four or five six months depending on the length of the investigation and the hearings that are involved and

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 3:21

the student would receive notice that they have a right to seek representation or an attorney at the initiation of the investigation yes ma'am and I I would think that that would be in writing doesn't say yes

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 3:46

ma'am they would have this in writing that would be consistent with the rest of the Student Due Process Act that's not listed here but it would be in writing.

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 3:58

And would they be given notice of what the subject matter is? It says that they'll be advised that they're the subject of an investigation. Yes. Would that include what it is they're being investigated for? yes ma'am it would and our rules gonna come out of this legislation that would that would a specifically writing and also what the allegations are yes ma'am

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 4:42

I'll have Melissa rust come and make assurances because I absolutely agree with you, Senator Flowers. And so, yes, it all needs to be in writing. I understand my

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 4:56

question. I want to know how is this going to work? Is the division of higher ed or the university? What happens? How are

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Speaker 49 5:09

rules promulgated? Sure. Melissa Rust with University of Arkansas System. Senator Flowers, a couple of years ago, Senator Urban approached myself and some others about wanting to address and better advise students when there are allegations of misconduct that could result in suspension or expulsion, you know, from an institution. And so for the last two years, this law has been in place and there are rules and policies at each campus to address this particular law. And the specific piece that Senator Irvin is bringing to you today is just an issue that we noticed that came up over the last couple of years that we wanted to make sure, you know, was addressed. And to give you a sense of this, the FIRE or the Foundation, excuse me, for Individual Rights in Education, this law mirrors FIRE's policy in large respects. And so the seven days is consistent with that model policy as well. But each campus has policies to implement this particular piece of legislation. So I

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 6:24

would think then that they would try to comply with all due process rights of an individual.

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Speaker 49 6:32

Absolutely, especially when you are considering that someone is being accused of some action or misconduct that could result in a fairly serious sanction that the policies do provide appropriate due process for both the person that has filed the complaint as well as the individual that's been accused of misconduct. Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions from

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Senator Jane English Unverified 6:57

the committee? Is there anybody in the audience would like to speak for or against the bill not hearing seeing any what is the will of the committee second their discussion on the motion all in favor all opposed thank you very much I think you have an amendment to 619 yes me I might do signing it right and Kirsten will have personal have

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 7:42

to get you to sign that thank you members this is Senate bill 619 and the amendment the amendment further flushes out some of the details of how exactly this legislation Would need to be worked. So we've worked over the weekend on this amendment And so I would just ask for the amendment to be adopted and then I'll explain the bill as amended Hi, I see a motion Second All in favor Thank you all opposed go ahead Thank you. Thank you again, Senator Missy Irvin, District 24. Good morning. Members of the committee, we worked last week on this piece of legislation, and what this legislation would do would allow for an isolated school district to be formed. This has been an ongoing challenge since annexation in Act 60 about 20, 21 years ago. This legislature and this government has embraced educational freedom, meaning that we are focused on what is in the best interest of the student and the best ability for them to get a good education in the state of Arkansas. We have encouraged homeschooling. We have encouraged micro-schools. We have encouraged choice and freedom for students and their parents. This legislation absolutely follows that philosophy. What this legislation would do is to allow these small, isolated schools the ability to stand on their own two feet. It's the ability for these small schools to be fully functioning and to be able to survive outside of the school district that they were annexed into. Oftentimes, there's a lot of conflict between a larger campus and some of these smaller rural isolated districts. And that conflict has created a lot of heartache and heartburn for communities. And I would argue, particularly from somebody like me and others that are sitting at this table that represent very rural areas of the state of Arkansas, that a school is a cornerstone of a community. You have a thriving network of engagement and community interest around those schools. I'm going to talk to you two of the, this would affect seven schools in the state of Arkansas. Umpire Kingston is one of those. I'm going to talk about the two that I represent that are in my district. Jasper is one of the most isolated rural schools in the state of Arkansas. Try driving there. It's tough. Rural Special, Timbo. These are very small, isolated schools. I want to talk to you about two young men that graduated from Rural Special School in a class of six. They only had six kids in their graduating class, Dylan and Dustin Stewart. These two young men, and yes, they have fabulous parents, but these two young men graduated from this very small rural school. One works for Arkansas Telephone Company in Clinton. Arkansas is now the preacher at his church that he grew up in, in rushing. The other one is a shelter insurance agent in Mountain View and is an entrepreneur that owns several small businesses. These two young men are community leaders. They are entrepreneurs, they are small business owners, they are developers, they are community leaders. They are engaged in policy at the broadband level because I've worked so closely with Dylan Stewart and Arkansas Telephone Company through Clinton and all the broadband legislation and all the broadband effort that we have put forward. Dylan's been right in the fight with us on the forefront of every one of those policy battles for getting rural broadband out into the state of Arkansas throughout Searcy County and Van Buren County and Stone County. That young man graduated from Rural Special School. He's in the fight. He cares about the state of Arkansas, and he's in the fight with us, and he understands policy better than anybody that I've met in a long time, and he graduated from Rural Special School. His big brother, Dustin, is a shelter insurance agent, Incredible young man, incredible family husband, but he's engaged in his community. He's fighting for his community and economic development of his county where he was raised. Why would we shut a school down like that? Why would the state of Arkansas not provide a policy path to allow those small schools to operate and to function and to stand on their own two feet? It follows in the vein of everything that we have done for educational freedom on the behalf of these students, what's best for them, educating them, making them feel like this sense of community for their community and their state. That's what this bill is doing. We were very careful in the way that we wrote this legislation, and we worked on it all weekend, which is why it's amended. and we will continue to work with the Department of Education if any changes need to be made because I know time is short but there's in in 24 hours we had a thousand people sign the petition in the state of Arkansas in support of this legislation all around the state of Arkansas in all these different areas 24 hours a thousand people sign that I think we're now up to 1600 people that have signed this petition. Representative Stephen Walker's here. He's my house sponsor on this bill. Let me tell you about Stephen. Stephen grew up in Izzard County. Small, small, small little area. Used to be in my district. Graduated from Izzard County Consolidated School. Where is Stephen Walker right now? He's sitting at the table with us. He's a state representative. He graduated from Isard County Consolidated School. If that's not a testimony to the value of these small schools, I don't know what is. And so this legislation has been formed. I think it's absolutely necessary and I know there's people here to speak for it. I respect everybody on this committee. You're very good policy thinkers. I've spoken to Secretary Oliva about this bill. I will work with him and department every step of the way but let these small isolated schools stand on their own two feet let them work hard to keep their schools in their communities and help educate those kids that's what we're asking for with this bill and I'm happy to answer any questions senator

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Senator Joshua Bryant Unverified 15:11

Bryant thank you madam chair could you walk me through how this isolated school currently functions and where I think of the question will lead to is isolated school districts and the amount of funding required on such a small whenever they're attached to something bigger they can have more access to funding so just address that

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 15:31

for me yes so we we did create this bill to where it would be revenue neutral for the state because they're already being funded so they these schools do receive isolated funding because of where they're located some depending on the formula receive isolated enhanced transportation funding as well so this bill has tried to walk the line of separating these schools out from their current district there's a process by which they would do that in the bill but that isolated funding would stay with the isolated school. And so it would also give the ability for them to determine their own millage as well. So they would be separated out from the school district and then they would be able to determine their own millage that they would need to determine in order to basically get the funding for themselves from that perspective. But they would still receive the foundational funding from the state of Arkansas, which they currently receive now, and they would currently receive the isolated funding that they currently receive from the state of Arkansas as well. Senator Flowers. So that's

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 16:57

from what you just said that would result in could you put your more

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 17:05

funding? Is that right? I know no, it's it's it The only the only issue as to where they would get more funding would be if that if they would create their own millage So if their millage was different from the existing school district that they're in that would be but from the state level We've written a legislation to where it's the same funding that

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 17:29

they they currently get from the state of Arkansas not more the current funding that the school district that they are associated and included in now receive for that particular area or isolated yet full

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 17:43

section yes the way the way that we find through the foundation funding is by student so we fund foundation funding based on student and so that amount of depending on their student population so if it's six students

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 17:58

they get under Senator English's bill about eight thousand some dollars for yes and that's his grant

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 18:06

that was his graduating class there's more than six students at the school but I would

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 18:12

imagine in an isolated area you're gonna have fewer

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 18:16

students yes ma'am you would have fewer students

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 18:20

yes you would be sufficient for that school district that's formed to have the educators the teachers that are necessary and all other services that might be necessary to those students and we do

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 18:37

have the superintendent from the Mountain View School District here that could probably better answer your questions I'd like

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 18:44

to know that and then I see in the amendment it pretty much cuts out the requirement for forming these isolated school districts said that was at next are consolidated with another school district so you're taking that out and you're just saying petition by voters in the area 350 at least are no less than 51% of the registered voters that are within that boundary of the isolated district so I just want to know why would you take out annexed are consolidated I have these schools been annexed or consolidated yeah many years ago yeah yes based on Act 60

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 19:44

I believe it was Act 60 why

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 19:47

would you take it out then if they've been annexed or consolidated will

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 19:51

be well that's the point of the bill they were annexed or consolidated many times because of that legislation that was passed many years ago this gives them the option of being able to de annex themselves but I mean

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 20:11

your original said the schools that are in those boundaries that could form an isolated school district had to be have had to be have been consolidated annexed so still there there the result of annexation are consolidation I don't

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 20:43

understand why you took that out because well that's the point of the bill they they don't want to be part of that school district anymore it gives it this

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 20:55

is giving them a pathway to leave that school district right I understand that part but I'm just so any district in the future going forward they not necessarily having been annexed or consolidated can petition to be an isolated school district if you've got 350 registered voters or at least 51% of your voters in that district so are we setting up a pattern for more small school districts to be put in place it seems like that to me no ma'am

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 21:35

I don't believe that we are and and I there's some other folks here that could probably answered like to hear from them yes ma'am madam chair do you mind if I bring up mr. Nekar plant be fine thank you who is she bringing up Renee Carr

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Senator Jane English Unverified 22:04

she's she was with me identify

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Speaker 97 22:06

yourself I guess you identify yourself you'll be recognized I'm Renee Carr community member from the rural special school speak up I can't I think your question deals with the amendment that you're wondering why language our intent was to that this is limited to only existing isolated school districts with k-12 campuses and there are

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 22:32

you figures only limited to existing

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Speaker 97 22:38

that's what the the language says about an isolated school district we began with 56 back in 2004 now we're down to 11 only 11 schools that are have k-12 still qualify are still open with k-12s so this bill is limited to those those schools well

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 23:05

this bill deals with related schools taking out the word district in the amendment so we're only dealing with isolated school and I guess I don't know if it's defined is it defined in our law what an isolated school is

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Speaker 97 23:27

yes and and there are only what is it well there were criteria that the schools had to meet back in the beginning it had to do with the distance of or at least the unpaved bus routes and student density and various things that were set about. I mean, this dates back to Arch Ford's date.

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 23:56

Is there a statute that defines isolated schools? Yes.

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 24:03

I'll see if I can. Thank you, Mr. Rush. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Rush. Yes. Isolated school district means a school district that meets any four of the following five criteria. Number one, there's a distance of 12 miles or more by hard surfaced highway from the high school of the district to the nearest adjacent high school in an adjoining district. Number two, the density ratio of transported students is less than three students per square mile of an area. Three, the total area of the district is 95 square miles or greater. Four, less than 50% of bus route miles is on hard surface roads. And five, there are geographic barriers such as lakes, rivers, and mountain ranges that would impede travel to schools that otherwise would be appropriate for consolidation, cooperative programs, and shared services. That is in code as amended by Acts in 2005. What's the section of the code and I don't see the first part. It's - 20 - 601 a six Hold on just a second six six - 20 - 601 a of the code and

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 25:27

that definition is for Isolated school districts are isolated schools schools isolated it says

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Speaker 114 25:37

isolated school district so that's what

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 25:44

an isolated school district is your amendment deletes isolate in in this page one line 28 where you pretty much start you're deleting the word district and you just say an isolated school may be formed yes they an isolated school may detach I'm sorry from a resulting or receiving district that should not if the isolated school submits a petition so isolated school yes ma'am I think is the same thing necessarily as an isolated school district that's contemplated in this definition from that statute you just read from it

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 26:37

may have been just a misprint of the amendment well you

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 26:43

I think the district a couple of times in your amendment from your I

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Speaker 124 26:49

know your flowers one place it's deleted because it refers

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Speaker 97 26:54

to prior year ADM that would be used for funding and in which case the prior year it would not have been an isolated district so I think though it covers it well I'm reading the amendment here an isolated school may detach there are only 11 of those isolated

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 27:17

schools that is isolated school that term defined in the code as opposed to what's defined for isolated school districts I think it's a difference and to me depending on what you think of an isolated school I can think of several isolated schools in my district that are have the distance in terms of mileage between where where a high school is they I mean so I'm just saying I mean I can think of Humphrey kids going either to DeWitt or Stuttgart you got down south east those kids that are going to

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Speaker 97 28:18

Dumas I think Lincoln County right and some of those you mentioned like I'm free work we're one of those we're on that list what I'm free that you mention what's on the original isolated school list well they don't have a school they've been closed and that's the situation that's happened of these 56 original isolated schools

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 28:40

only all-timers I'm sure oh like a whole bunch of schools down there in southeast Arkansas but what I'm saying is the terms that you use here when you strike the word district when you refer to isolated schools well we're talking about a different animal to me because it's not just that you struck it on page one when you start yes ma'am no no also on

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 29:13

because because it actually would not be a district I mean it's it's a school it's a stand-alone school that's

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 29:22

my point the code defines what an isolated school district is it doesn't define what an isolated school is I haven't heard that definition and so when you're striking that word district you strike it on page 2 line 1 it's stricken so here we go just isolated school applies under this section and then you got it deleted on page 3 line 2 yes ma'am district is deleted so and then page 3 line 15 you delete school districts page 3 line 15 school district so you were just talking about to release ownership of the isolated school to release ownership of the isolated school correct so it seems like something is missing here so that at least I don't understand what would constitute an isolated school that could petition to form an isolated school district do you understand what I'm saying I just think because depending on what you consider isolated school without going back to this list of isolated schools that were mentioned in the isolated school districts you don't have a

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Speaker 124 31:14

definition I don't see one I Don't know if anyone would be here from

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Speaker 97 31:20

ADE to clarify this, but it's my understanding that The isolated status was determined. It's not like people can come in and and qualify for the original isolated funding Currently as an isolated school that those schools were defined and listed as isolated schools uh the other the other reason too behind what we're

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 31:45

trying to do is that I understand what you're trying to do but I'm just saying what's going

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 31:52

to prevent going forward school districts that feel isolated based on some of the criteria that you mentioned for that's in the statute for an isolated school district from petitioning to be separated we'll have more and more schools that have these smaller student populations that really the consolidation acts back in 2003 2004 that's what they were designed for to have a certain population yet

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 32:30

we've also passed legislation though that would allow I think it was senator Payton's legislation that that this body passed in two years ago four years ago years two years ago that that eliminates that population I'm

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 32:48

just trying to understand you know and not put in place in our code things that confuse I understand I understand

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 33:01

what you're saying I think I I understand what you're saying, but this is the ability for an isolated school to be an isolated school and stand on their own two feet. It's not that they're going to then form an additional district. We don't, this isn't a formation of new school districts. This is allowing for a school to separate itself out from the district and stand on their own two feet. Which would be a new school district?

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 33:34

mean Well, it would be a new school district. They can have vote for millage. They form their own board of directors I mean, so I don't see how you can say that but the other thing is With you keep mentioning these isolated schools that Came up under older law and that was because of annexation and consolidation but you take that language out in your amendment so like I said it seems like it needs to be narrowed to what is considered an isolated school because you've taken out the word district and so you you seem to be focused on a particular area whether by

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 34:40

we're focused on the schools that qualify for the isolated funding which currently there are only 11 I just

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 34:50

don't think this bill does just that so if there is somebody from the department they ought to be able to answer they'll come to the table nobody in here okay well I would like to hear from the department

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 35:18

of the it thank you madam chair my my question actually kind of has to do with page 2 the section there on line 6 through 20 where it talks about the the terms of Board of Directors and there is another House Bill 1724 that's going through that realigns the Board of Directors to four six-year terms that that House bill I just looked it up and it is it had a Senate amendment it's in the House Education Committee so it's more than likely I would assume going to make it back through the House into the governor's desk so assuming that becomes law this would kind of conflict as far as a different type of way you elect school board school district boards of directors for isolated districts rather than the rest of them so I would just suggest I mean that's if we make it through this process today and you make it down to the house and that house bill gets to the governor's desk make a

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 36:32

house amendment to align them so yeah what's the house bill number house bill 1724 yeah yeah that's not

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 36:41

a problem to align whatever that happens to be and and then just as as far as the discussion that we were talking about on page 1 line 27 well I I think I understand what Senator flowers is talking about as far as your district especially with the amendment strikes out district in several places so you are talking about an individual school but that individual school would be forming an isolated district. Yeah that's correct. So in essence the definition would go with the isolated district. That's correct. The new isolated district correct? That's correct. Okay thank you. Thank you. Senator Davis. Thank you Madam Chair.

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 37:29

Senator Dodson asked one of my questions about the school board elections. I think it'd be good to align with that but generally I agree with what you're trying to do here I think it is fair and and does make sense for those 11 schools that are left if they choose to do so do we know anything on cost like if this will cost the state if all 11 schools decided

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 37:53

to do it what the additional cost will be I don't have that information but again if the department's here I don't know if they can make some estimation i think we wrote the legislation to make sure it was revenue neutral and that's the intention of us it's to make sure that this is revenue neutral we're not asking the state for any more or additional funding the superintendent of the mountain view school district is here and maybe could better answer that question if I thank

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Speaker 167 38:33

you I'm Mark Rush current superintendent of the Mountain View School District we have if I could explain our situation we have a very unique school district in that the Consolidation Act of 2003-2004 forced schools under the population of 350 students to either consolidate or administratively annex with another district in order to stay open. The Mountain View School District administratively annexed the schools of Rural Special and Timbo. Both of those schools operate as, even today, as a part of our district, as separate entities. They have their own K-12 campuses. They have their own athletic teams, very good athletic teams I might mention, very, very good academics. Rural Special is one of the most highly rewarded or awarded districts academically in the state year in and year out. Those districts operate under our umbrella, but they are totally separate entities, if that makes sense. They have their own bus routes. Again, they have their own athletic teams. They have their own extracurriculars, but they do operate under our umbrella with me as a superintendent, excuse me, and an assistant superintendent. Both of those schools, again, have about a population of 200 students. Historically, we have operated very well, but we are facing some financial decisions, I'll just be totally honest, at the Mountain View School District. We operate three K-12 campuses in one county with the second lowest, or lowest now, millage rate in the state at 28.91. We cannot continue to operate the way we have with that millage rate. We have tried repeatedly. I don't know how many times in the past. This is my first year as a superintendent of the district, my sixth year with the district total, but we have tried repeatedly to have millage increases, and they have repeatedly, for whatever reason, been voted down. Due to the economics of the world, and I'm sure you're all feeling it, We're going to have to make some tough decisions. And the Educational Reorganization Act, and I'm going to give you my opinion, of 2003 and 2004, cut a lot of throats because of a number. I was working at a Class A school at the time. This is my 35th year in education. I was working in the Concord School District at the time. The number, I remember it well, the number was 500 students at the time. That would have cut Concord, another great, outstanding Class A school. It eventually fell to 350, but we had to annex a neighboring district at that time, the Wilburn School District, because they didn't have 350 students. Now, I can understand personally, again, this is my opinion. Personally, if you have under 350 and you're failing, you're not meeting the criteria that's laid out by the state, then I can understand closing a school, but not based on a number of students. There are class 6A, 5A, 6A schools in the state that perform way below what Real Special and Timbo and Concord and Wilburn are performing at, and they're not going to close. It's not going to happen because they have beaten the number. And again, personally, this is my opinion. You shouldn't close a school. You wouldn't close a business. And you shouldn't close a school simply based on a number. We have two of those schools in our district that are performing above and beyond. They have never been in fiscal distress. They have never been in academic distress. But because of economics and our millage and our failure to raise a millage, we are facing a cold hard truth of possibly having to shut down two campuses that do not deserve to be shut down. Again, this is my 35th year in education. I've spent a third of it, and I know Representative Carr here, He and I had some battles on the baseball field back in the day. He comes from, he works, I assume he still works at one of those schools. So he and Representative Walker know what I'm speaking of. I am passionate for education. I've given my life to education. And I'm passionate for small school education because I know it works. And if you've never had the opportunity to work in a small school, then you don't know what you're missing. And again, I'm passionate about this. But I'm also a superintendent who, besides having, number one, to provide a safe and quality education to the kids. I have to be a good steward of the district's money, and we're facing some cold hard facts if we try to continue to operate three K-12 campuses in Stone County. So I hope that answered some of your questions. These districts, these schools, and I think there's some terminology here, these schools operated as their own independent districts, and when we academically annexed them, they basically kept their districts. They run bus routes within their former district, which is now operating under the Mountain View School umbrella. Timbo runs five school bus routes in Stone County under the umbrella of the Mountain View School District. We are unique. We are a very unique district, but we also are a very successful district when it comes to academics, when it comes to extracurriculars, and bottom line, when it comes to serving kids. So I will be happy to try and answer any questions that you have. But again, this is something I'm very passionate about. Thank you. Senator Flowers.

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 47:02

Thank you. I appreciate your testimony. Yes, ma'am. and you know I heard you say it's basically about economics that you want this to go forward yes ma'am and

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Speaker 167 47:20

so no it's basically about it and I don't want to cross anybody but it's basically about the kids yeah I was districts the same thing with

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 47:30

what happened in my district where they chopped up all the schools and took them under state control and they got worse and then they had to just get rid of them consolidate dissolve yes ma'am we had good students too yes ma'am and but for this legislature in the state of Arkansas changing up how you determine whether a student's assessment and their performance going forward is gonna be good or not that's what happened that's my take yes but my point is what you were mentioning about the economics of it and the millage right and failing to get a higher millage yes ma'am so you have a vote that is comprised of voters from the whole area the rural whatever Rural Special, Timbo and

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Speaker 176 48:30

Mountain View, all boats on those millage.

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 48:32

And they're stuck. They don't want to raise the millage. Yes, ma'am. So I'm just wondering, how do you think then is it going to be any better if they're under your umbrella now at Mountain Home? Mountain View. Mountain View. Then how are they going to be able to sustain their existence? I don't

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Speaker 176 49:00

see this. When we annexed the Mountain View School

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Speaker 167 49:05

District, basically, this is my understanding of what happened 20 years ago, because like I say, I was in another district. They agreed to accept, and somebody who knows better can correct me, they agreed to accept what was the lowest millage rate among the three districts. if I was told right. Who is they? The powers that be at the time of the Mountain View School District, Timbo School District, and Rural Special, in order to come together as an annexed district.

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 49:42

Did Timbo and Rural Special have their own millage at that time? Has it disappeared? Yes. So all three are under this 28?

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Speaker 196 49:57

Yes, ma'am. 28.1 or 9.1.

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 49:59

And so even if an isolated school petitions and is granted the status of an isolated school district. Yes, ma'am. They won't have a millage initially. Correct. So how are they going to exist except through state funding? They will,

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Speaker 167 50:25

as I understand the bill that's written, and I have not seen the amendment yet, but as the bill was written, they would establish, number one, a millage rate in their own district, which could be whatever the voters of that area agree on.

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 50:42

And vote for. And vote for. And also about, if you mentioned too, while you're talking about school property, since it's all under Mountain View. Mountain View. Now, what are they supposed

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Speaker 167 50:56

to do with facilities? That is written into the bill, as I understand it, the Mountain View School District would agree to turn over everything, property, including computers, books, desks, technology, buses. But wouldn't that have been if they had kept

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 51:18

the language about annexed or consolidated school districts? So now you've got an amendment. Does the amendment contemplate what happened in the past in terms of consolidation and annexation in school

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 51:33

property? No, the bill outlines that on page 3 of facilities and property on lines 12 through 32. This bill provides a process for these schools to leave their current school district. And we've established that with both the legislation and the amendment, fleshing that out for how that is supposed to occur in that process. The facilities and the property, as it's written on page 3, is how that would be transferred from the current school district

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 52:10

to the new one. And it also includes the debt on the facilities. So, again, you know your area, Mr. Superintendent. Yes, ma'am. Do you really think Timbo and Rural Special will be able to handle school debt on these buildings? Have they built new facilities? There has

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Speaker 167 52:35

been, I can't remember, Judge Stacey Aby is here, and he is from Timbo, and he could not tell us when the last construction on the Timbo campus was. Let me just tell

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 52:47

you, Senator Flowers, these communities love their schools. They will dig in for their schools. We love our schools

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 52:54

in southeast Arkansas, too, but for the state's interference. Well, I'm trying to

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 52:59

provide a pathway for these schools to stand on their own two feet and these communities to stand on their own two feet. We've ran the numbers, and those campuses, according to Mr. Rogers and the Department of Education, are very very efficient with the funding that they receive just from the state and we had those numbers i ran the numbers myself with mr rogers they are run very very efficiently rule special just raised i can't remember how what was the amount of money 250 or 300 thousand dollars to redo their gym all on their own they raised 250 thousand dollars within a couple of weeks time couple weeks time to redo their gym but they

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 53:45

have the ability I'm sorry but they won't raise a millage but up but my point is this and maybe since I see the Department of Ed they were in the room to talk about what I asked before about dropping the term district and allowing by petition for isolated schools to form an isolated school district.

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 54:13

Senator Flowers, I don't mean to interrupt you, but Senator Dotson was 100% correct. If you read the amendment, the amendment amends from line 28 down, isolated school district and line 27 remains. Therefore, if isolated school district formation remains in the bill under line 27, then the isolated school district that's in the Existing state statute code definition applies to that line and everything below it. Senator Dotson was correct. I disagree with that.

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 54:47

Line 27 is only a title, isolated school district hyphen formation. And then where your amendment starts on line 21, 28 on page 1, it says you delete what you had in here. You had an isolated school district may be formed. But here your amendment says an isolated school may detach from a resulting or receiving district if the isolated school submits a petition. So to me, and maybe I'm being too picky here, but one word does make a difference. Somebody said that at the well the other day. But I think it does make a difference here. And I'm wondering, how many more districts are we going to see popping up that petition to

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Speaker 167 55:38

become isolated school districts? Senator Flowers, as I understand it, today, currently, there are only, Senator Irvin read the definition of an isolated school district. There's only

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 55:48

11 districts. You said that several times, and I don't hear anything from the Department of Education.

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Speaker 210 55:57

Let me ask you Senator Brian has a question just for clarity Just for clarity,

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Senator Joshua Bryant Unverified 56:02

we're not deleting lines 29 below. We're just inserting all the dialogue of the new amendment I understand that and we're but we're leaving all the other district language in the bill It just pushes it below the amendment

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 56:16

No, if you look on page 2 line 1 she deletes the word district page 3 line to delete district Why can't the Department of Education come to the table? I think they will Courtney over there gapping about it

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Senator Jane English Unverified 56:41

You would identify yourself you will be recognized take

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 56:53

a leave a department of education Well, madam chair, I guess I need to repeat my question. He's standing in room. He doesn't know what I asked So I'm asking about the language of the bill. I suppose you've

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 57:10

read the amendment this morning Her concern is the line that we're trying to understand I'm trying to understand

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 57:17

What school can be considered an isolated school that can petition to become an isolated school district? Do you have a

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Speaker 229 57:30

microphone there? Is that better? Yeah. Okay, sorry. Might have

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Speaker 231 57:35

had it backwards. So, to my understanding, there really isn't a difference

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Speaker 235 57:40

between a definition between an isolated school and an isolated school district.

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Speaker 236 57:47

we do have some qualifying conditions under what an isolated district can receive for special assistance in in arkansas code and it's basically um five different criteria one is distance

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 58:03

she mentioned all those in 620-6018 but what i'm asking is that language when you delete the word district from isolated school may form by petition deleted all the reference to former annexation and consolidation she's how can you say that that definition that you were just referring to for isolated school districts is the same as for isolated school which is the focus of this particular bill so I But I think, from

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Speaker 235 58:40

my understanding, the intent is that they want to create that opportunity or

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Speaker 236 58:44

their definition for if there is an isolated school district and then there's a school that

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Speaker 235 58:51

wants to be designated as an isolated school, that's what the spirit of the intent is trying to do,

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 58:57

is my understanding. It may be the spirit, it might be

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 59:01

the intent, but that's not this language. No, the language, again, if you go back to what Senator Dotson said, On Line 27, Isolated School District Formation. That's the title. Correct, but part of an isolated school district means that there are schools inside of a district. That's your opinion. Yes, it is, but that's what the language is very clear about. I'll

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 59:21

end with that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 59:24

Thank you. Senator Davis, did you have a question? You did. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, I was just going to make a motion

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Senator Jane English Unverified 59:43

at the proper time. I was just going to make a motion at the proper time. Okay. I think we have a couple of folks to speak for the bill. Melissa Sutton? you'll identify yourself to be recognized hello my

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Melissa Sutton Unverified 1:00:12

name is Melissa Sutton and I am alumni and PTO member of Timbo schools as well as a parent of a current student that's in this small school located in Stone County my class my graduating class was 13 she mentioned you know Dustin is six and Timbo school along with another small school in our county real special was forced to consolidate with Mountain View School District when I was just a junior in high school in 2004 So despite both schools opposing the consolidation and not being financially necessary, we were merged with Mountain View. And so while we were grateful that we were able to keep our campus open, we soon realized that we lost control over our finances. And this consolidation created tension between the smaller campuses and Mountain View School due to the smaller campuses being overlooked and underestimated. Despite our financial situation being stable, we have been fighting to keep our campuses open, especially since it was mentioned this year in the school board meeting by a couple of board members who feel that it's necessary to close Timbo this year and then Fox or Rural Special the next year. Both schools, as it has been mentioned, has good enrollment with good testing. We have no financial issues. The reasons or excuses that was given has been disregarded of the validity and credibility of our small schools as if we were below par. The truth of the matter is Timbo School and Rural Special have had students graduate and further their education, resulting in numerous successful and fulfilling careers. We should not be underestimated due to our size. We matter. Our students matter. Our schools are the lifeline of our communities. You take our schools away and our communities will die out, and you take away the schools and our children will suffer. You take away our schools and you will rip the heart out of our community so please pass this bill to keep our school open and to restore control over our finances thank you today thank

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Senator Jane English Unverified 1:02:01

you very much questions from the committee we have another Linda kitchens You'll identify yourself. You'll be recognized. My

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Linda Kitchens Unverified 1:02:27

name is, excuse me, my name is Linda Kitchens, and I am from Umpire, which I'm just going to say a few things to let you know about how we are working to keep our school in our community. I can echo all of this, how important it is for our community to have a school, but I to just let you know that at one time umpire was paying 63 meals to keep their school in 2003 that magic 350 number came into being and we were forced to close we were financially sound we were academically sound as a matter of fact even today we are doing a wonderful job in 2023 we were awarded as the number one school in high ella growth we were number five in high math growth we were the number two most improved public elementary school we were number three most approved public high school last year 2024 we were rated the best overall growth scores in math and ELLA, and we were rated by schooldigger.com this past year as the number 10 public school in the state of Arkansas. We have fought hard to keep our school. We were told in 2023, in September, that our school was going to be closed. The board had voted to close the school. It was not unanimous. We came to the Department of Education, State Board of Education, for a hearing in December of 23. It was voted to let us keep our school. We have made many attempts to break away. We were told when that 350 number went away, we were told we could not break away. We could not become independent. It was not a choice. Now, this bill gives us the opportunity to do exactly that. It gives us the opportunity to take control of our school and our community. It gives us the opportunity to investigate the possibility. Can we become an independent district again? Can we have local control of our school? Can we have the opportunity to keep students from sobbing because their school is leaving? Can we keep students who are unsure about what their educational future is? Will they know where they're going? Will they know what kind of atmosphere they're going to be forced into? We're just asking you to give us the opportunity to have control and protect the most precious resource in our communities, and that is our children. thank you thank you

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Senator Jane English Unverified 1:06:11

very much you have oh yeah oh yes uh senator murdoch

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 1:06:18

thank you madam chair thank you for your testimony as i understood the the superintendent when he spoke the economic issue is really centered around the lack of being able to get the community to pass a millage what's to make you or make us feel like if you did these pullouts if you will or isolated pullouts that that same community would then vote to establish proper millages to help finance those situations when you have chosen according to the testimony not to do it continuously for the total the Mountain View school district as it sits But you'll do it for if I understand you correctly you would do it for and I don't remember the name of those towns But those one or two towns that will pull out you would do it for those But you won't do it for all as you currently situated and if the care is for the children and not for Something else whatever that may be even independence. I don't know But if the care is for the children and you're refusing as a community to pass a millage to enrich Enhance to better educate the children Why is that? What's the thinking there? Help me understand. Well, I

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Linda Kitchens Unverified 1:07:40

can't speak for them. Umpire, as I said, Umpire was paying 63 meals to keep our school. We were able to lower it

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Speaker 272 1:07:49

to 58, and we didn't see all the standards. Excuse me. That's not my question. Okay. My question is... She's

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 1:07:57

not part of the Stone County Mountedee School District. I'm part of the Howard County, I'm from

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Speaker 272 1:08:02

Howard County, umpire, K-12. So, well, okay, so, so these districts has been brought under

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 1:08:08

Mountain View. Not umpire. Not umpire. We're part of Casatot River. They're part of Casatot River. Yes. Okay. All right. So, but they, but they want to be, they won't, so they are not part now of this.

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Speaker 271 1:08:28

I think you need to address it to the, yes. I'm sorry, I can't address that because I'm not a part of

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 1:08:35

that. I'm trying to understand your existence. Yes, Umpire is under Cosatot River, so they're in a different part of the state of Arkansas, but the bill would still allow them to do this, too. Oh, this is just another... This

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Linda Kitchens Unverified 1:08:48

is another area of the state of Arkansas. I'm another isolated school within a district that's asking to be allowed independence.

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 1:08:55

Go ahead. I apologize, but Mr. Rush may be able to speak to specifically your question. senator murdoch and we also have our stone county judge here that could also speak to that um i i think and i will attempt to answer your question i think it's because those communities want to see the money spent there at their schools and so they're you know and and there's there's tension i live there in stone county and so there's tension between the bigger campus you know and they have a football program but Timbo doesn't and Rule Special doesn't and so you know which is fine let these people support their school and then let these people support their school or this part this group support their school because they're all unique and they're very different and so I think it it creates a problem when you have an undefined path forward on a millage I've been there the school districts in the in the past under the the previous leadership and administration of Mountain View School District, not Mr. Rush because he's brand new, but you didn't have a clear defined goal or path or purpose for a millage increase. It wasn't clearly defined. And so the voters didn't support it because, you know, the people at Rural Special or at Timbo would say, well, why would I vote for a millage increase when you're just going to continue to threaten to close our campus? And that's what's happened before. So They're not going to vote for a millage increase and go, yeah, we'll increase the millage, but you're still going to close our campus, so what do we vote for a millage increase for? Does that make sense? I hear

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 1:10:36

what you're saying. Let me not put you into that fight because I think in a sitting position that you sit in, it would be very dangerous for you to get into this conversation either way, so I'm going to leave you out of that. I understand what you're saying. I think there's lots of complexities in what we're trying to do for a single situation that's very important. hear what you're doing I hear what you're saying but there's so many other isolated situations that we could bring before the body and we have not like you've done so and so the complexity of this is existing districts the facilities as you go forward so that existing district have to release the facilities those facilities may be cold maybe it's not in your situation but in another situation may be code used by someone that's trying to pull out and someone that's staying so there's there's lots of complexities whenever we pass legislation to fix one situation so to speak I understand the intent but I just think there is some convolution and trying to execute this because we can't just take it and just apply it it's gonna go throughout those 11 situations, and depending on how you interpret this, maybe others depending on your interpretation of this, as Senator Flowers has brought out, that would become maybe a legal matter, but certainly I just see a lot of, I see the intent, but I see

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 1:12:12

complexities in executing this legislation. I understand, I think there's complexities in every piece of legislation. And yes, Yes, this is from Mountain View School District, generated it, but she's from Cossetot River School District. I get that, yeah. I understand that now. She's supportive of the legislation that it would apply for those isolated schools. And Ms. Carr, who was in here previously, she worked with the Rural Community Alliance, and so she's very familiar with all these different schools across the state. So I really do feel like the legislation is not specific just to the Stone County Mountain View School District, but that we really did try to take into consideration the very particular nature of all of these schools like hers in the way that we wrote the legislation. We did our very

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 1:12:59

best. I saw their respect and intent. Thank

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Senator Jane English Unverified 1:13:06

you. Are there further questions from the committee? Senator

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 1:13:11

Davis. Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Irvin, I think we all agree with what you're trying to do, and would you just be willing to make sure between now and when it, if it makes it over to the House, to make sure that everything is defined as it should be, to ensure that the district, so that they can be funded properly, and just make sure everything, I mean, we just are out of time. I know in session, and this is how it goes, but just working with them to ensure it's correct on the House end, and then it can

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 1:13:42

come back to us in its amended form. absolutely i i give the committee my assurances i've spoke with secretary oliva this morning he can shake his head and but we spoke about this this morning um it is late in the session but i have every intent to make sure that this legislation is buttoned up tight thank

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Speaker 301 1:13:59

you madam chair are there any other people here to speak for against um the stone county judge

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 1:14:05

and but but if the if the committee wants to pass the bill out with those assurances i'm happy to we're happy to close right

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 1:14:14

now if this if the stone county judge is um willing to relinquish his or her time then we'd be great with that he's

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 1:14:25

here in support of the bill and with that i

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Senator Jane English Unverified 1:14:34

can close go ahead motion do pass i hear a second second as amended yes are there any discussion on the motion all in favor all opposed thank

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Senator Missy Irvin Unverified 1:14:51

you pass your bill

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Speaker 246 1:14:54

thank you so much members of

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Senator Jane English Unverified 1:15:03

the committee okay senator davis Is Bart Hester

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Speaker 308 1:15:09

back? 6.04. And she has 6.25. This one's here.

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Speaker 310 1:15:18

4 and 6.25. Yeah, okay. 6.04 is what she has. 6.04. Go ahead.

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Senator Jane English Unverified 1:15:50

If you will identify yourself, you will be recognized.

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 1:15:53

Thank you. Breanne Davis, State Senate, District 25, presenting Senate Bill 604, and I'd like to ask someone from the department to be up here. Good morning.

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Speaker 313 1:16:21

Courtney Solis-Ford, Department of Education. Okay, just pull your

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 1:16:28

microphone closer to you. Thank you. This is to amend the course choice program. We are making some changes to the program established by LEARNS just to make sure that it operates and fulfills the intent of the program. So we've amended the definition of course provider to distinguish between public schools and other providers for the purposes of the program. We're also clarifying that the Arkansas School for Math sciences and the arts may participate and then also just clarifying that public schools may participate but are not required to participate if they have an a b or c school rating we amend the definition of eligible student we allow ad to promulgate rules to bring the program to full implementation in the 26-27 school year and then we set we set a more practical process When and how payments will be made by ADE and set a reasonable cap on the amount of a course at 8% of foundation funding And there's some details in there on that You know 50% at the beginning when they're enrolled and then the additional 50% once the course is completed I'm happy to take any questions There questions

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 1:17:52

from the committee Senator Murdoch yes thank you madam chair senator the exclusions that you have here the excess go ahead the exclusions that you have let's talk about the districts talk a little bit more about the program and how it relates to those that you are excluding, and why you're excluding those

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Speaker 320 1:18:21

that you're excluding. So, Senator, the intent of the Course Choice Program was

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Speaker 321 1:18:24

to make more quality options available for students in either a failing school district, so a D or an F school district, to be able to take a course from a private provider who makes that course available, or from another public school who might make that course available. And so, in a private provider, we want to make sure that they are meeting our academic standards and that they are you know again providing a good quality option so if it's a public school we want to make sure that it is of quality as well and so d and f school districts would be prevented from offering courses to students because if they're already in a dnf school district we don't want them just taking courses at another dnf school district we want to give them an option at a higher performing school all right let me make sure i understand

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 1:19:09

that again I heard what you said that maybe I didn't if you're excluding them from being able to do what you're saying then how do that allow them to be able

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Speaker 321 1:19:22

to do what you say maybe that's okay I didn't explain it well enough so a student in a DNF school district right could take a course at an A B or C school district but a student at a D or F school district could not take a course from another D or F school district because the the point of the program is to give them a higher quality option than what they're getting and so they would only be able to take a course at a district that was at a higher grade than

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 1:19:52

what they're at not at just another D or F school district but if if I'm if I'm understanding you correctly if the D or F school district consulted with or contracted with a quality provider, if you will, to provide that not only would enhance their presentation, if you will, of a DRF district providing something of a higher quality. It would bring their standards up. What it seems to be doing, in my view, possibly is separating, segregating, or isolating that DRF school from that good from the bad and not allowing the, in this term context, the bad to elevate itself by contracting with a quality eligible provider. So why even exclude? Why not just make the standard the standard for whomever provides it so therefore all school districts can utilize this program and as long as the provider is a provider that meets the standards so they are not

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Speaker 321 1:21:05

precluded from contracting with any private provider to provide courses to their students in their school district they could do that anyway without course choice what they couldn't do is let's just I'm not saying that they have a school district I'm gonna pick on Karen because she's here let's just pretend that the Bryant school district was an F. She could go out and contract with a private provider to provide math, to calculus, to anyone in her school district outside of course choice. What she can't do is contract with a private provider to offer that service to kids outside of her

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Speaker 320 1:21:40

district. That's what this does. But she could

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 1:21:43

offer it to anyone in her district. That's my point, what you just said. I just think it segregates totally because what you're saying is you can just deal with yours whereas that other program the other school the A or B school I think or C maybe or A or B for sure the kids from the bad school can go there and get

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Speaker 320 1:22:12

serviced. They could go to another public school

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Speaker 323 1:22:15

that is offering a program that's A or B or C or they could go to a private

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 1:22:21

provider. They can't go to another school. So what I'm what I'm debating and what I'm pushing back against is that reciprocal relationship because of what I think iron does to iron. So bringing that to that failing district and to allow if those students so choose to come to that failing district that has the provider then that in that raises that environment, that does a lot of positives to your D or F school that are sometimes environmental. Sometimes they don't ever get that in their situation. So what I'm saying is, from my view, and we're obviously probably not necessarily you, but you're explaining something that's been presented. I'm just looking at it different for opportunity to raise the bar versus segregation or separation that's the way i'm saying yeah and i guess i really i think it's really something for her to explain because it's her bill not necessarily ad it's not ad that i know of it's not your bill right

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Speaker 320 1:23:25

well and i don't want to argue semantics but as as a lawyer and i did assist with writing the bill what i would say is that in your situation they

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Speaker 321 1:23:33

wouldn't be taking the course from the f school they would be taking it from the private provider and so i don't believe that that's prohibited under this language. Oh, so

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Speaker 275 1:23:43

go ahead. Yeah. Jacob, we'll leave it at

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Speaker 235 1:23:48

the Department of Education. Senator Murray, I think we're saying the same thing. So if you're at a D or an F school, right, and parents are looking for high-quality choices, like we're looking for math, that D or F school can contract with a neighboring district, can contract with a private provider, meet the needs of their kids at that school what that drf school cannot be is contracting as a private provider to a neighboring district because they're they're already showing that they don't have the capacity to make sure they're meeting the needs so what you're asking for is what the intent of this is to do if that drf school

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 1:24:24

has the provider though they can come there okay that's correct thank

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:24:41

you senator flowers a couple of things i need some clarity on about these grading systems a b c d f you can stay at the table if you would mr oliva do we still have that i remember maybe it was last year or something we did away Sometime after COVID, we said we're not going to rate or grade schools by A, B, C, D, F. Sure. So we do still

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Speaker 235 1:25:10

have school grades. Now, they're in the- What is it based on? It's based on the grade. So historically, it's been on the state standardized, primarily on the standardized achievement test. The previous accountability system also has some other measures and factors in there. What's it based on now? It's going

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Speaker 236 1:25:29

to be based on the ATLAS assessment, the Arkansas Teaching and Learning Assessment System.

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:25:37

So if it's going to be, then there is no basis for determining the A, B, C, D, I guess you have an E, F school district or school right now.

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Speaker 235 1:25:50

Is there? Yes. Every school in this state has a school grade. We transitioned to a new assessment system. What

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:25:58

was that based on? The one, the grades that the schools have now. Can I just give a little bit of a historical timeline? Well, I'm trying to understand this, and if you allow me to ask my questions, and then you provide me with the answers, I would appreciate it. It would help me understand. So, schools have grades right now. Correct. that would be, this bill would subject these schools to. What is it based on

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Speaker 236 1:26:32

now? Primarily on student test performance, but there's other indicators that's called the student quality success indicators that factors in a bunch of myriad different components that may include average ACT score, the number of students taking advanced coursework, attendance, graduation rates. There's, it depends on your configuration of the school. Elementary schools are weighted different than middle and high schools, so that's why when you when you talk about what's in a school grade, it depends on the configuration of the school and the different buckets. We transitioned from an

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Speaker 235 1:27:07

ACT ASPIRE, a college and career rating assessment, over the past two years because that company doesn't provide an assessment anymore. It moved towards a criterion reference assessment called the Arkansas Teaching Learning and Assessment system. After that's fully implemented, it'll be primarily measured on our students achieving at grade level in science, reading, and math. Are they meeting their learning targets in science, reading, and math? How are the lowest quartile, your lowest performing students doing? Are they hitting their individualized learning targets in graduation rates and

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:27:40

are we offering accelerated opportunities? So can a school, can this system that is in place now that determines grades for schools I guess schools and also school districts just individual schools they determine grades for the current system

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Speaker 236 1:27:58

now is individual schools that's correct

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:28:01

so within that system that's set up can like a school providing kindergarten through third grade or fourth grade can they be different can can you you named all these things yeah so like

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Speaker 235 1:28:23

in an elementary school configuration like say a typical k5 they were all of them the same base the grade how it's calculated yes but every config every school districts, some have K-8s, some have K-6s, some have K-4s, but primarily like when you think of an elementary school, how that's configured and the grade is calculated would be consistently applied across the state. So it's not

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:28:51

necessarily consistent based on grades that are in a school. Is that what you're saying? No,

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Speaker 236 1:28:58

that's what you're saying. I know what I'm saying. The grade configurations of a school district aren't

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Speaker 235 1:29:04

standard school districts have control yes some schools that are k-12 it's a k-12 school how that grade is going to calculate they have graduation rates in it an elementary school is not going to have graduation rates because they serve k-5 so depending on when how you define elementary middle high school is going to depend on the cells of students it's going to be

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Speaker 236 1:29:26

primarily achievement levels and learning gains in those

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:29:30

schools. And also these DNF schools, are they mostly under, are all of them

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Speaker 235 1:29:42

under state control? No, I would say in fact the majority of them are not under state control. I think we have four districts that are under state authority out of 230. How many DNF schools do we have? Well we have 120 literacy coaches deployed to every single one of them in the state I don't have that exact number off the top of my head but I would say I don't even want to guess but if I had to say a number maybe 80 DNF schools

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:30:13

maybe more. 80 DNF schools out of how many total schools? Over a thousand just over a thousand. I want to say thank you Miss Ford Salas for calling me back over the break you didn't I'm concerned about this I'm trying to understand on page five it starts talking about the funding I think it's page five and each got language scratched out I can't tell whether one of these schools that's providing this course is it says the per on 10 it says the per course amount for a public school district or an open enrollment public charter school shall be the amount of foundation funding generated by including an eligible student in the public school districts or open enrollment public charter schools average daily membership for one or more courses. Explain to me what that means when you got a paragraph right before that that talks about 8% of the per pupil and then below that you're talking about something else each eligible student shall be included in the average daily membership of the public school district in which the eligible student is enrolled full-time for the purpose of generating foundation funding. What is this? What would the funding level

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 1:31:44

be? Senator Flowers, that's just standard what we do for any student that's taking a course or wanted to participate in extracurricular at a different school district. If they're taking eight courses in a day, that's what that percentage works out to. Like I said, it's what we do for other school districts. If you're a homeschool student and you take a class at a public school then that public school gets a percentage of that funding as divided up

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:32:16

for the classes that's eight percent yes but then then it says how come then it says on line page 5 line 30 all this other language is stricken starting at 26 and you insert each eligible student shall be included in the average daily membership that I have the public school for the purpose of generating foundation funding under 620 2305 I guess that's your bill Senator English that's for

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 1:32:48

the receiving school district the school district that is taking that student in to ensure that that student is averaged into their ADM so they get the funding for that student for that class and they also

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:33:06

and so that would be the percentage I'm confused with this language whether it's a percent and you get to count that student as the as part of your average daily membership and but you only get a percentage 8% of the foundation funding per course is that right so the 8% is for a private

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 1:33:31

provider the 1/8 is for a public a public school which is how we handle all the other classes that a student

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:33:41

may take is something new is the 8% to put private new is it the other

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Speaker 320 1:33:50

way around what so previously it said for course providers that they would get one-sixth of 90%, which

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Speaker 321 1:33:58

we felt was more confusing. So we just did 8%. We thought that that would be more clear than one-sixth of 90. The foundation funding amount changes every year. And so you can't just put a dollar amount in there if you want to account for the fact that foundation funding increases. So as Senator Davis said, we usually either do it in percentages or fractions and so eight percent is about the equivalent of one sixth and so whether you're a private provider or a public school you're getting about the same amount it's just the way we fund public schools is very complicated and very different and so it's easier for them to count a student in their ADM to get the funding a private provider we pay directly at the the 8% amount but it's

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:34:52

about the same amount I I'm still having a hard time with this you know and when you talk about DNF schools not being able to offer that math course or whatever the subject matter is to a student who's looking for something and then they DNF schools don't they receive referrals and recommendations and mandates from the State Department of Ed to have a particular provider to help them with that course? Do they? Well, the students... I want to know from these people at the Department of Ed. I just

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Speaker 344 1:35:32

want to make sure I understand the question

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:35:36

fully. Do you all give references, recommendations, even mandates to these schools that are D or F graded. Yes. You tell them where to go to get a provider to help them with their student achievement. Yes. But you don't want them, those who they've contracted with, these vendors, to come to that school. We encourage it. You encourage

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Speaker 236 1:36:08

it. That's correct. That's what we want. We want to make sure kids, regardless of their

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Speaker 235 1:36:13

zip code and which school they have or attending, have every access to achieve the highest

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:36:19

quality of instruction that they can receive. So, but a D and F school cannot offer this course to a school that's not A, B, not D or F or just not D and F? A

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Speaker 235 1:36:37

D and F school cannot be a private provider to a neighboring school saying that they have it figured out. A D and F school can provide the courses, can contract with neighboring districts, can bring in private providers, they can let students go to other places, they can bring that resources to the school. They themselves cannot be a private

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:37:02

provider to other districts because they have not yet mastered it? Well the vendor or the provider that's contracted by the D or F school can they draw those students from D and F schools to that provider within that D

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Speaker 364 1:37:23

school? That's the preferred method,

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:37:27

yes. So then how would the funding flow? Would would that student from the DNF that's going to the other DNF school that has a private provider there, would they get to to claim these students per course in the average daily attendance of what what this is

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Speaker 334 1:37:50

prescribing is if if you have a

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:37:53

student I love how you ask questions and then we can't answer them well you could ask me to clarify

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Speaker 235 1:38:05

my question or something but answer my question if a student's at a DRNS school and that school contracts with a provider the offer a specific course at that school. That school would pay the rate prescribed in this law to the provider for those services. I understand that part. But if a

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:38:24

student from one DNF school wants to get instruction from the provider at the other DNF school how would the funding flow to the private provider only per course to the private provider you don't get to claim that's only for a school district that is

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 1:38:50

offering the course that's if the school district is

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:38:55

offering the course well it just seems to me the course is at the school the school must be offering it through a vendor. You can call it what you want, but it's being provided at that school. So I don't understand why they

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 1:39:13

can't claim average daily. Well, because it's a virtual or online learning environment. So they're learning it through a private provider that's offering the course, not actually there. Now, if a school is offering it there on site, then that would go to the school. But that's where we're precluding DNF schools from being able to offer those courses because they're DNF schools. They shouldn't be offering courses to kids in other school districts when they themselves are failing. According to some

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:39:40

tests that keeps changing. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, a test that

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 1:39:46

is designed to meet the standards and curriculum that our kids are being taught was designed for Arkansas specifically with a lot of work from people across the state to ensure that what is being tested is what our students are learning in the classroom. That was the point of the Atlas test. Thank you. Are there further questions

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Senator Jane English Unverified 1:40:12

from the committee? Nobody in the audience to speak for or against the bill. What is the will of the committee? Motion do pass. Second. Is there a discussion on the motion? All in favor? All opposed? Thank you very much. Passed your bill. Senator Hester You have Senate bill 451 Yes, thank you,

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Senator Bart Hester Unverified 1:40:55

members. Senate Bill 451, this is an issue that

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Representative Stephen Meeks Unverified 1:41:01

all of our school districts are dealing with. It's an increasingly violent population of students. Even if that may not be a large amount of number in each school district, the fact that it's increasing is concerning. The burden that it's putting on our teachers is more than concerning. And we simply have to have a solution. This bill allows cooperation, or it requires cooperation between DHS and Department of Education in creating regional behavior health programs to deal with these students that are substantially likely to cause injury to the student, to other students, or to staff, to put them on a program to get the help and services they need to get back in the classroom, but most importantly, it provides relief for our school districts who are doing their best to educate the students that are and to spend their time, effort, and energy focused on educating students rather than protecting themselves and chaos in the classroom. And what this bill does primarily, like it just requires a cooperation of over the next year before January 1st of 2026, having a game plan moving forward, an actual process for school districts to be able to get these kids the help they need and most importantly out of the classroom where they're a danger to themselves, other students and staff

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Senator Bart Hester Unverified 1:42:39

until they are prepared to come back to class.

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:42:43

So I'm happy to answer any questions. senator flowers good morning senator Hester good morning you know I'm a little concerned about your bill you know when you think about child behavior and then you look at the individuals with Disability Education Act which I see you have it mentioned here at least one time in the bill on page five I don't see it beyond that but you know children with disabilities and you make some reference and say that's not exclusive this is not exclusive but at the same time there are certain procedures or process that should be followed under the Individuals with Disability Education Act for children that have disabilities that are recognized by that Act and some of it it's due process and you talk about it talks about placing these children at the evaluation of course proper evaluation which I don't know your bill covers to my satisfaction what type of evaluation these children are going to have that present some kind of behavior issue but least restrictive environment putting them all in one box that concerns me you know and then if a child is with a disability under the IDEA they should have an IEP an individualized education plan and with that if they exhibit some behavior that's uh as you say likely to cause injury to the student other students or staff they have right due process and and that this is this is very concerning to me because of that that I see a conflict and it would be very difficult to comply with the individuals with disability education act for those reasons in particularly least restrictive and then IEP where does that fall in place and then you want to have the juvenile detention Center to I've worked in the juvenile courts representing these children and you know they've been used as a tool the detention facilities as a tool for children with behavior issues without even looking to see if they have a disability let alone IEP that's concerning to me and then you want to take what I understood it to be with the local school district in which the facility detention facility is situated they run the school but now you want the juvenile detention center which is operated by the sheriff's department to run the school in the detention center and is it's some of the the juvenile detention center be its own school district so we'll have juvenile detention school districts is that what we're looking at here that's a question okay that's one of them but if you can address I know I said a lot there but But I'm concerned about the conflict with the Individuals with Disability Education Act.

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Representative Stephen Meeks Unverified 1:46:47

I don't feel like this is a conflict because we are not saying we're not going to educate those students. We're finding a new environment that hopefully gets them the care that they need. What we are concerned with is students that are, like I say, substantially likely to cause injury to themselves, to staff, or to other students. Look, I understand your concern. I'm concerned. I could have lined this room up this morning. I didn't bring them in. with teachers who have been violently abused I could load you up with emails from pictures with teachers their entire faces beat in and there's nowhere to

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:47:21

send these kids well have the children been tested have they been evaluated because what my experience has been many of these children when they show signs initially of having some behavioral issue never get evaluated and to me it seems like you should straightway send that towel for evaluation proper evaluation and then that doesn't you go around the Individual Disability Act you talk about just likely to cause injury to that student or other students or the staff if even under the IDEA way I understood unless you're using a weapon a deadly weapon a knife a gun or something like that you know even that that's the exact answer

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Speaker 384 1:48:12

unless these kids bring a gun or

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Representative Stephen Meeks Unverified 1:48:15

a weapon they can bash their teacher's face in and it doesn't qualify they're back in class 40 days later that's that is the problem we're dealing with because there's no threat no threat to their life so they can bite they can punch our teachers they can kick them they can push them over they can totally control the classroom and there's nothing that we can do, they're back in the class 40 days later. It's not acceptable. It's not acceptable to the, my guess is, a vast majority bipartisan to our schools, our teachers, our, anyway, it's just, it's not acceptable anymore. We have to find something to do to have control of our classrooms to protect our teachers and to protect students. I

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:48:54

appreciate your sentiment, but at the same time, I the Individuals with Disability Education Act and it has certain prescriptions for dealing with children that have issues disabilities that are recognized under that Act and the behavior even for a child that's got under an IEP I can't see how you can just get around the Individuals with Disability Education Education Act and prescribe something that doesn't rise to the same level of severity. If you talk about substantially likely to cause injury, what is that substantially likely to cause? Who's going to be the judge that a child that says something, blurts out something because they're angry or because they had a bad day or night at their home or somebody said something to them that they're just repeating like kids do, and you're going to consider that something substantially likely to cause injury? They haven't done anything but said something. You're going to put them in an isolated school just because they said something that you don't like? What is that? Jacob Oliva, Department

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Speaker 235 1:50:31

of Education. A couple things I think that you asked,

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Speaker 236 1:50:35

Senator Flowers. One, this bill isn't going to automatically make placement decisions. What it's doing is it's formalizing a partnership between the school district, the Division of Human Services, and the Department of Education to make sure that we can

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Speaker 235 1:50:53

properly establish behavioral health crisis response teams. To put the experts in a room to talk about whatever situation they're looking to navigate and make sure that we're putting

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Speaker 236 1:51:03

the right services in place. Nothing in this bill would supersede the Individual Disabilities Education Act. So if a student has disabilities and is exhibiting these behaviors, they would still do a manifestation determination They may have a behavior intervention plan But they cannot do a change of placement without going through the individualized education plan process What this is doing is

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Speaker 235 1:51:27

making sure that if a student is actually acting out behaviors through a continuum of Behaviors that could be escalator de-escalated does the school district and the teachers and everybody have the right resources in place To make sure that we can provide an adequate support system for that child

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:51:53

I understand what you're saying, but when you have a language on page two That at the beginning at line one a behavioral health program shall Respond to the request from the within 48 hours and then work with the referring school to develop a Behavioral manage health management plan Where where does the evaluation come? I mean is that part of this process? Are you gonna have rules that say well first let's send him over to her over to the evaluator that can properly and appropriately evaluate that child and determine if that child has a disability? Is that going to happen? So I think the short answer

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Speaker 235 1:52:51

to that question is yes. That's why this team is going to be brought together and typically when we find a child in need of service we find families in need of services. So we're going to make sure sure that we have all the partners we call it a three-legged school stool between the Division of Human Services the Department of Education and the school district to come together and analyze what is happening with this child that they're having these extreme and we're talking about the extreme egregious behaviors where they're becoming violent or they're becoming a threat to themselves or others to not only do behavioral threat identification and de-escalation but then do a plan and say what is the plan of action though there's typically an antecedent that's that's leading up to these acting out behaviors how do we identify that and make sure that if the student needs to be tested or identify the student with disabilities maybe they need an alternative learning placement maybe they need family counseling and support what can we do to make sure that as we have a behavior management plan that we can implement that and have all the stakeholders together pulling the

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Speaker 236 1:54:01

resources appropriately to make sure that we're doing what's best

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:54:05

for that student and family. Well I don't see this bill as addressing just those extreme situations. Not when you say substantially likely to cause injury. I can't see that and it sounds very subjective. I guess a student and you mentioned family in need of services that they're normally shipped down to the juvenile court and by the school most of what I saw last I was in the practice of representing these children that was the the big tool they have tools under the Individuals with Disability Act and they don't all include isolating them in these behavior schools that you want to set up it's not there there are different means tools that are provided for children with disabilities and if some kid is acting out has some behavior issue to me and I've always thought this when I see these children that are disruptive or something something's going on in their life and they should be tested a lot of times Department of Human Services picks them up as a dependent neglected child so it's all kinds of things but here this bill wants to put them all in one box and I can tell you that doesn't help children that have behavior issues because they seem to adopt and gravitate to other kids and they see stuff and kids are just like that they just what they see sometimes they act out they do so I don't think this is a very good good way to look at it if those children these school districts have the right to set policies on behavior issues if somebody's bringing a gun or a knife to school they can expel them they can suspend them for something short of those things so I don't I don't understand this and I really don't understand how you figure a juvenile detention center is going to be able to properly serve as a school district with kids that are there temporarily most of the time. How is that going to work? I think we want

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Speaker 384 1:56:24

the same thing. We want to keep the kids out of juvenile detention centers, and I

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Representative Stephen Meeks Unverified 1:56:29

think that's the whole purpose of this bill. It's creating a process when we understand that a kid or a kid appears to be or substantially could cause harm to them, themselves, other students, or staff. This group comes together and tries to figure out a new plan, a plan other than just remove them to the JDC. I think we want the same thing here. And look, I will be a little harder than you. You think a kid that's disruptive to class as long as he's not bringing a gun or a knife should just be accepted, and I don't. I think when they're disrupting in class, you're harming the other 18 or 16 or 24 kids from being able to get a good education. When a kid has a violent outburst in class, it could be days before the class is calmed down again and being able to educate. I think there should be a better plan than we're currently doing. There are current alternatives. They're simply not working, or we wouldn't be sitting here at this table. And I'm with you. When a kid is acting out, there's almost certainly something going on at home that shouldn't be going on at

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:57:32

home. But we can't police what's going on at home. Well, I think DHS would differ with you. Juvenile court judges probably differ with you. They seem to set conditions of probation. They put these kids on and send them back out. Everyone has the same conditions. They don't care. You look at these children, when you go to those places, and that's why you can hardly keep workers in DHS, because it's an issue. And they're faced with things that these kids are faced with. But we don't recognize those issues, and we don't properly deal with them. That's my opinion. That's the goal of

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Representative Stephen Meeks Unverified 1:58:12

this bill, to recognize those and properly deal with them.

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 1:58:16

Yeah, well, I guess then that would mean we'd have fewer family in need of services referrals. We hope so. And so then the juvenile court judge is going to be upset with you about that, Because that's a fee that's a hundred bucks for each Referral and then you put them on probation. You got probation fees. They're not gonna be able to collect that And where's the sheriff's office gonna get some money for a school district

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 1:58:51

Thank You senator Davis, thank you madam chair I know this has been an issue for quite some time teachers feeling safe in the classroom students not feeling safe in the classroom and There's a lot of hurdles. I think school districts have tried to deal with to get help And they've simply been turned away and not been helped. So I appreciate the work on this I think it's important and bringing all the parties to the table to decide what is best for a student and to keep teachers and Students safe in the classroom and with that I make a motion do pass

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Senator Jane English Unverified 1:59:25

So any any there's nobody in the audience speak for against the bill. Are there any questions on the motion? All in favor all opposed. Thank you very much. You passed your bill Okay, we're going to quickly take up house bill 1810 1810 and I would ask I know we have a number of folks here speaking for the bill I would ask you please to limit your Discussions to three minutes and please don't reiterate. We all know what a wonderful opportunity. This is for the school for the deaf Representative You identify yourself Representative Joey card

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Representative John P. Carr Unverified 2:00:07

district 34 house bill 1810 it is a has a zero fiscal impact simply what we are doing is it is the unification of the administration and board for the Arkansas School for the Deaf and the Arkansas School for the Blind. What this will do, it will help to streamline the instructional plan and programming. It will also make for a better use of instructional resources and also staff. Right now they're operating as two different entities over here on our campus and one one school is outsourcing the other one is using some staff and with some students they are deaf and blind and so some of those they're not being served as well as they could have if the instructional program was aligned better and so this bill will take care of that alignment and will provide a better learning environment for the needs of those students. With that, I would take any questions, or we can

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 2:01:31

go to testimony, Madam Chair. Senator Flowers. So what do you see would be the big difference if your bill becomes law between the two schools? What

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Speaker 406 2:01:43

changes it impact would it have

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Representative John P. Carr Unverified 2:01:58

on each? Well, I see the positives that I see is is it's going to make more effective communication there there there's 23 students of the 150 about that are deaf and blind that it will it will set up a better situation particularly for those students and instead of you know having part of this the therapy services outsource part of them on staff that will just better align their their resources of providing for those students and their needs I know with when I worked in the school we always had the instructional flowcharts what this will do is this will better streamline that instead of having two and then you've got those kids hopping back and forth in between it will put it will put all students under the same under the same plan and program to where it'll better fit their needs overall

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 2:02:59

and both types of students what are these programs appropriate for

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Representative John P. Carr Unverified 2:03:08

both types many of the instructors as they go through their training I know they specialize in one but but I my understanding and some of our testimony will be able to clarify that a little bit better would could I ask miss Walsh our superintendent yes

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 2:03:25

and if she would address what does she contemplate if anything as a negative you'll identify yourself

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Speaker 411 2:03:35

you'll be recognized good morning everyone Nicole Walsh superintendent of the Arkansas School for the Deaf how are you

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Speaker 412 2:03:41

today so to answer your question there really are no negatives I only see positives at this point for example at the beginning of this school year we had only three students who were identified as deaf blind that is the result of the fact that we were doing a whole lot of finger pointing well they're your kid you take care of them your kid take care of them and us working together myself and the interim superintendent at the school for the blind we were actually able to identify 20 additional students so now we have 23 students on our campus who which is about 17% of our student population that's unheard of for deaf blind students to be able to receive services they would not be receiving otherwise our school audiologist serves our students at the blind school our low vision clinic serves our students at the deaf school and we're able to work together what this does is allow those students access to things that they would not have otherwise and the school for the blind is a perfect example they have advanced placement courses the school for the deaf does not currently offer those this would enable our school for the deaf students to access those advanced placement courses and have better chances for their future so all around this is an administrative change that allows our students better access period thank you are there

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Senator Jane English Unverified 2:04:56

for the questions from the committee I know we have a number of folks here to speak for and

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Speaker 310 2:05:19

against the bill. Ms. Hancock? for oh against sorry I think did

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Senator Jane English Unverified 2:05:26

we hear your testimony the other day identify

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Kitsonia Hancock Unverified 2:05:40

yourself. Hello. Limit our remarks to three minutes. My name is Kitsonia Hancock. Okay, I'm limited to three minutes. Thank you. I am the

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Speaker 423 2:05:56

Arkansas Association of the Deaf President. This is my second term as president. Plus,

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Speaker 424 2:06:00

I am also an alumnus of ASD. So would you like to go ahead with my comments? Go ahead.

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Speaker 430 2:06:16

Our Vice President, Jeff Grail, made comments about

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Speaker 422 2:06:21

how he loves history, especially when it comes to things such as the Civil War, and there were two figures who really stood

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Speaker 431 2:06:28

out to him. That was President Abraham Lincoln

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Speaker 424 2:06:32

and Robert E. Lee. Lincoln fought for unity and the preservation of the nation. Hearing the burden of those who gave their lives.

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Speaker 423 2:06:47

General Lee, when asked to lead the South, accepted not for the cause of the war, but to protect his people, his home, and the state that he loved, Virginia. Their principles,

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Speaker 424 2:06:56

their sacrifice, their love for their communities resonate deeply with me, and they reflect why I'm standing

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Speaker 422 2:07:02

before you today. I'm here to represent our deaf and hard of hearing communities as our staff of ASD, ASDVI, our graduates, parents, students, and staff. I am here to fight for democracy and for respect for the letter of the law.

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Speaker 437 2:07:17

I'm here today because House Bill 1810 was created without input,

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Speaker 438 2:07:21

transparency, and without any regard for the reversible damage it could cause. What many people do not realize is these schools are more than institutions. For alumni, they are the

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Speaker 422 2:07:33

second home. For parents, they are the foundation of cultural identity,

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Speaker 440 2:07:36

a place where children thrive among peers who speak their language. For the community,

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Speaker 441 2:07:43

these schools are places of gathering and belonging.

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Speaker 422 2:07:49

The deadline to amend any language to the Arkansas Code and Constitution of 1874 was February 12th of 2025, House Bill 1810 was introduced after that date, following the governor's extension of the legislative session. What's even more

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Speaker 423 2:08:08

concerning is that this bill was filed under a declaration of emergency, and I have read this bill multiple times and cannot identify any circumstances that would justify that classification. This was introduced

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Speaker 422 2:08:25

without full transparency and without input from both communities and without us

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Speaker 423 2:08:29

having a seat at the table for the people that it directly impacts. We did not have the opportunity to determine the best route forward for the schools, for the students, for their staff, and for their parents. We've repeatedly asked who the stakeholders were and we have been stoned-walled with no answers. Overhauling the Arkansas Constitution requires meaningful dialogue, not an overnight immediate fix. I'd like to explain why I'm opposing this bill. And with deaf representation, the bill removes a statutory requirement for the board, for a deaf board member who fluently uses sign language that is unacceptable. It violates the principle of nothing about us without us, which is a cornerstone of disability rights. Deaf board members have visibility and insights into culture, language, and education that cannot be substituted by hearing individuals. Without guaranteed representation, ASL, deaf culture, and the lived experiences will be lost in school governance. Thank you very much. Thank you. thank you is there any

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 2:09:55

questions for me senator Murdoch thank you madam chair and thank you for your testimony you mentioned several things that are very concerning about not being able to be a part of the process could you retouch that point that the organization or the group or not being able to be a part of the process and how did you ask to be and was rejected what happened in that case that you were not a part of the process of this legislation being Thank you for your question.

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Speaker 423 2:10:40

Arkansas Department of Education had designed a survey that when that had been developed in the first place that was sent out on December 23rd, just before everybody had left for Christmas break, which really didn't offer enough opportunities for people to respond to the survey. The survey was also sent out without captions or a sign language interpreted version of it to make that accessible to people who are deaf to make sure they fully understood what the survey was asking. There was also no audio descriptions for that survey for people who are blind to have access to that survey as well. There was a lack of communication and we asked them to redesign the survey at that time to add ASL interpreters in the videos and audio descriptions to make it accessible. And we were told no and so that's why we have decided to take legal action about

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 2:11:32

this. So the department is involved in the Department of Education is a part of this there Where's the bill sponsor? Who's the bill sponsor? So the Department of Education is This is aiding with this. This is their bill. Okay, can the department come to the table? I need to talk to the department about this, she's asserting that they were not given a proper opportunity to voice their input or opinion or whatever information was given them, I'm understanding correctly, they were not giving a proper opportunity. Can someone address that? Jacob

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Speaker 235 2:12:16

Aliba at the Department of Education. I have to be

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Speaker 236 2:12:21

careful how I have to answer this because there are certain individuals that that have engaged in

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Speaker 235 2:12:29

an active lawsuit against our agency because they're saying that their constitutional rights were violated, I am of the strong opinion that we have been very clear and very transparent about our intentions for this campus for at least a year and a half. We've had more public meetings, more public forums, more open houses than any project I think I've ever been engaged in in 25 years of education, to say that there was not an opportunity to have a seat at the table to find out how we're going to make a better learning environment to serve some of our most fragile students in this state, I vehemently disagree. Thank you. Thank you. Senator Flowers.

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 2:13:22

so I believe mr. Oliva this bill has an emergency clause what why is it necessary to have the emergency clause thank you for the question I

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Speaker 236 2:13:42

think the reason behind is because we got to start planning for next school year and when our

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Speaker 235 2:13:48

when we look at our school calendars they start July 1 we're in middle of a large construction project that we're engaged in and as schools are making staff decisions this is the time of year that they're building out course selection sheets determining how many teachers they need to hire at each grade level what kinds of electives are going to offer so if there's an opportunity to combine

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Speaker 236 2:14:10

and consolidate some of the campuses to share services that's going to help some very decisions moving

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 2:14:19

forward in the next fiscal year well obviously because of the building the construction that's occurring over there that's ongoing so who who is who would be in charge of that now how would that relationship between the school that's being built and contractors that have been engaged how would that be effective I don't know I don't think that would really

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Speaker 236 2:14:49

be effective we're still going to move forward and ADE also has a seat at that table we have facility folks that meet with the architects currently I want to say they have a standing meeting with the leadership team at the school district between the architects the contractors if not weekly probably more because anytime you're engaged in a large construction process while you have students on campus everybody needs to know what's happening and going on because we got to make sure the students are going to be

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Speaker 235 2:15:21

safe while there's some large demolition and an erection of new buildings happening so I don't feel like that that would be interrupted it's it's too much there's too much going on that we got to make sure that there's daily probably daily communication of what's happening

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 2:15:38

on that campus and if the I don't know whether to call you the superintendent for the school for the deaf and then you have an interim for the school for the blind is that correct so the construction that's occurring now I guess it would seem logical that there would be a design particularly for deaf students and for blind students. I didn't know you didn't have a seat over there about not having a seat at the table. I've taught kids for a

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Speaker 412 2:16:19

magillion years so sitting on the floor is kind of second nature to me, but thank you I appreciate that Secretary Oliva. So yes, to answer your question, are there particular designs specific for deaf students and blind students? Yes ma'am, but we have done a really great job working. We have a, we are contracted with an agency called a design firm out of st. Louis called Mackie Mitchell they specialize in ADA buildings we have a deaf and a blind architect who are actively working on the project with us and giving us all kinds of feedback and great things and we are taking both students populations needs as I'm sure you understand that every student even within those populations have specific needs that are their own and bringing them together to make sure that every kid has access that they need. A great example is that for deaf students we need a lot of visual access so there's a ton of glass going to be in this new building. A lot of our rooms have almost complete glass walls so there can be access in and out especially for our library and places like that. However our blind students need a side of the wall to shoreline against which is using their cane to navigate and so we've built in 18 inch bunkers all the way around those those glass those glass areas to continue

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 2:17:38

communication but also provide our students accessibility with the consolidation that's that's called for here yes ma'am would any of your designs have to be changed no ma'am

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Speaker 412 2:17:50

everything has been everything has been put together with the intent because the money that we were given from the state is a finite amount of money and so we're trying to build the very best and most accessible space the intention was always to put kids both sets of schools into a new building simply because if you haven't been over there I would encourage you to come see our buildings are crumbling they are at the earliest built in the late 70s and at the I understand you had

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 2:18:19

a need for it that's that's not an issue in my mind I'm just trying to understand now that we are contemplating merging the word yes these two schools how does that if at all change any plans for one school I mean what was the plan always for just one school with two divisions in it one for deaf one for blind well it's been very clear from

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Speaker 412 2:18:54

the governor and from the Department of Education that for over a year and a half now since this project was originally announced that the state was going to make an investment that we were going to go into one building that has been from the very beginning simply because the expense of trying to build two different buildings on two different places is is silly when we can do it all in one space and have the space to do so the design yes ma'am but to answer your question about the merger I think I just want to go back to that for a moment of like what does this really do and why is the need for the emergency clause the answer is it takes a while to plan all the fiscal merging of two school districts and so this would give us the ability to have that firm start date of July the 1st which we know is the fiscal start if we were to say like an emergency clause that kicks in tomorrow holy moly we would be scrambling trying to fix it or if it's 90 days after the end of the session that holy moly we'd be having to wait And it kind of be one of those targets where it's not exactly a finite cutoff date So this all this emergency clause allows us to have that finite cutoff date of July the 1st

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Senator Jane English Unverified 2:19:58

Thank you. Thank you Thank you are there questions Oh syndrome Thank you You're

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 2:20:08

the Superintendent for which school school for the deaf is the interim director for the school for the blind Here. Yes, sir. He is. Can you speak to this? Can you come please?

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Speaker 464 2:20:32

Dr. Chris Barnes interim superintendent for the Arkansas School for the

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Senator Jane English Unverified 2:20:36

Blind wait one. I think we Your testimony for against is over so we need you Yeah, she's returned her seat If you would identify yourself you'll be recognized yes madam chair. I'm dr. Chris

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Speaker 469 2:20:57

Barnes. I'm the interim super your microphone I'm dr. Chris

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 2:21:07

So real quick I just wanted to hear your input on your support or lack thereof or

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Speaker 469 2:21:16

your position on this legislation that's all. I can pretty much reiterate what Representative Carr and Superintendent Walsh said. We have operated in separate silos. Thank you. In separate silos for many years. That has resulted in many inefficiencies and lack of services and supports for our students. As a result of that, we've not done a great job at ensuring supports, particularly for deaf-blind students. Students that have both visual impairment and some degree of hearing loss that would qualify them as deaf. This merger would allow us to provide those services directly in support of those. Also, do you concur

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Senator Reginald Murdock Unverified 2:22:00

with Secretary Oliva that the opportunity have been provided, do both of you concur, for both of you all, that the opportunity has been provided for the transparency and the the lady that testified I'm sorry I forget her name that testified do you agree that they have had the opportunity that it has been there yes we have held 30 stakeholder meetings over the course of this time

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Speaker 471 2:22:25

yes yes yes I agree just to be good yes thank you thank you thank you madam chair thank you senator flowers look a

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 2:22:42

little withdrawn I'm getting that way well I'm sorry you want me to sit here and vote on this I can leave one but I want to know it's brought to my attention that there is no blind representation on the the board why is that yes sir yes

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Speaker 412 2:23:02

ma'am there is represent yes ma'am it's not written into there that's that's part of the reason so there was concern brought up about the removal of a deaf person who is fluent in deaf sign language that was the removal of that there's concern related to that and the reason for that removal is many but the most important is that wasn't there there is not representation for a requirement for a blind representative but there is currently a blind representative and at the same time deaf sign language is not a thing they probably meant American Sign Language but that's not what it says in there and who is to determine a person is fluent or not fluent so there's so many components related to why that language is not appropriate it in my opinion is much more appropriate for the board to vote to amend their bylaws to include deaf representation and blind representation that allows the board to be fluid and responsive to the needs of our students. So there

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 2:24:02

is a provision in this bill that allows for deaf representation and blind representation. Is that what you're saying? No ma'am. We're going to get to the bylaws and change them. Yes ma'am.

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Speaker 471 2:24:12

It makes better sense for us to make the changes to the bylaws

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Speaker 412 2:24:17

to ensure that representation than it does for the Constitution because if there is a need as we all know disabilities fluctuate frequently and we need to be able, our board needs to be able to be responsive to the needs of our students as they are currently at our school. I know that it's hard when people, and as Kitsonia stated, this school is their home. They grew up here, and they have so much buy-in to the way this school works, but at the same time, we have to be responsive to our students' needs now, not what was the need in 1985. And so this allows the board to build their bylaws in a way that makes sense to target our students needs currently does that answer your question

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Senator Jane English Unverified 2:25:02

okay thank you thank you very much senator Bryant

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Senator Joshua Bryant Unverified 2:25:06

thank you madam chair just looking at page 5 this may be for discussion amongst the committee but lines 8 9 striking the advice and the consent of the Senate shall appoint members of the board do you know that's you thank you page 5 lines 8 and 9 I guess for the for this bill sponsor the governor by and with advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint the members of the board striking the the duty of of the Senate. Do you know a lot from

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Representative John P. Carr Unverified 2:25:35

from the clarification I received that keeps it aligned and correlates with all other boards and commissions how those are how those appointments are made state boards. Could I ask Ms. Ford to come and clarify that

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Senator Joshua Bryant Unverified 2:25:51

yes yeah we approve lots of boards and commissions Courtney

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Speaker 320 2:26:03

Solis for Department of Education and so my understanding is that the current process is for

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Speaker 321 2:26:08

governor appointment without any sort of other confirmation so we were just trying to make it consistent with the other educational boards and commissions and how those are appointed.

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Speaker 483 2:26:30

Yes you're the rules chair. Senator Davis.

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Senator Joshua Bryant Unverified 2:26:44

Yeah, I think the question around is, do we confirm these appointees now? I would assume we

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Speaker 321 2:26:51

do. I assume you do, too, since that's in law. I'm not part of that process. That would be the governor's office. But like our State Board of Education members that I'm aware of do not go through any kind affirmation from the Senate it's just cover appointment our higher ed coordinating board so we were just trying to

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Senator Jane English Unverified 2:27:14

create consistency yeah thank you other other questions for the committee we have a number of people Christine Streisner it's for we have 13 for they pardon

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Kitsonia Hancock Unverified 2:27:41

no no more against if you would limit your remarks to three

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Speaker 245 2:27:47

minutes please okay this is all new to me I'm I'm sorry. There you go. Good morning. My name is Christine Strasner. I'm a parent of a student at the blind school. I'm also an educator. I taught for one year at the blind school and something else and I can't remember what that is. But anyway, I'm a stakeholder and I want to say that there was more than adequate information sent out. I attended many of the meetings and I cannot tell you how overjoyed I was when I heard that the state was coming in to help our school um I through this meeting this morning I felt like the state coming in to help a school has had a negative vibe but it has been the absolute best thing that has happened for the blind school and the um I did not realize my my daughter started at the blind school in k-4 um I did not realize until I taught there. The year that she was in first grade, so she was in K-4 kindergarten. The year that she was in first grade, I actually taught there in a totally different building, but I taught there. I did not realize the separation between the deaf school and the blind school until I actually worked there, and I believe that the state of Arkansas, the people of the state of Arkansas do not realize how totally, it's like there's a wall right down the middle of road and it is so sad to me because there are so many benefits that those kids could have if they were able to be peers for each other and it just it really makes me cry it makes me cry as a mom and it makes me cry as an educator the things that could be combined the money that could be saved in one cafeteria in one gym program and I mean there's so many programs in one health program which I think we've already combined. There's so many programs that could be combined, money saved, and all put back into the programs for the kids. My daughter also has a hearing deficit. She is 12. She's in the fifth grade now. And she has not received any services at school for her hearing deficit because there's this wall and she doesn't get to go to the blind school very much. So all of her hearing needs are met at ACH, at the hospital, because they can't do anything for her at the blind school, because all they do at the blind school is address her vision issues. So in my opinion, this is the absolute best decision. I think that the current administration, I have not seen the administration at the blind school move like the current administration has moved. since the day my daughter started school. I mean, they are moving things and they are communicating and they are letting us know. Literally, I used to get like one little text message. Now I get like text messages from people I don't even know, like all the time. Like I think everybody has every parent's number and they are letting people know what's going on. They are letting people know constantly what is happening. And I just, I think that it would be really, really sad not to pass this bill. And as an emergency, I don't know how much time I have left, but as an emergency, it is an emergency. The walls are falling down over there. The windows are broken. It is sad that we are putting this population of children in those buildings. They deserve, they deserve a

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Speaker 492 2:31:21

new building. Thank you. Thank you very much. Oh, do I have to stay for questions? Nobody wants to No, I don't think so. Thank you. Rob Fagan. I have to sit down? Yes, sir. Okay. Otherwise, it won't hear you.

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Speaker 498 2:31:52

Good morning, Senators. My name is Robert Fagan. It has been my honor for the past four and a half years to serve on the board of trustees of the School for the Blind and School for the Deaf. Currently, I serve as chair of the board. When we first started talking about shared services, I wanted to really do a thorough investigation on what that would look like. So I met with Secretary of Leave and his staff. They sent me to Florida, to St. Augustine, Florida, where the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind has been there for 100 years. that school was ran by one lady, I think they call her the president instead of the superintendent like we do here, but she has a principal on the blind school side and a principal on the deaf school side. So both populations are served. Now, they have 580 kids down there. Well, we're a smaller state, less populated, so what we took back, we wanted to do what they're doing there just on a smaller scale. So around that time also, I had the superintendent on the blind school side resign or retire. I had the superintendent on the deaf school side resign. So we knew in hopes that this bill would pass that we could consolidate one administration for both schools. So the department and I and the board, by the way, the board, the five-member board, is 100% for this bill. There's two people, well, I'm blind, of course, but we also have Dr. McAllister, who teaches mobility at the University of Arkansas, and we also have two deaf representatives of the board as well. So when we looked at hiring a superintendent, because of the law, the way it stands now, we have to have two superintendents. I didn't want to hire two permanent superintendents because then I'd have to let one go if this bill passed. So we hired a Nicole Walsh to be the superintendent at the deaf school. But not only is she certified in deaf education, but she's also certified to teach blind and visually impaired children as well. So we get the best of both worlds, you know, with her. But in the meantime, we also have Dr. Barnes as interim superintendent, and he's doing a great job for us. He works very well with the Department of Education and primarily when the governor gave us this money to build the new building, we didn't have enough to build two buildings. So to consolidate, we're going to build one state-of-the-art facility that's going to meet all educational requirements for deaf students and blind students. The cafeteria will be one cafeteria where now we have two. Is my three minutes up? Yes. Oh, I apologize. Anyway, I appreciate a

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Senator Jane English Unverified 2:35:06

good vote. Thank you. Thank you very much. Is

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Speaker 503 2:35:19

there any questions? Okay, good. Eric Yarberry.

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Senator Jane English Unverified 2:35:39

Good morning. Can you all hear me? Yes, we can hear

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Eric Yarberry Unverified 2:35:44

you. you identify yourself, and you have three minutes. Good morning. My name is Eric Yarberry. I'm here representing World Services for the Blind. I'm the CEO of that agency. I'm also a proud alumni of the Arkansas School for the Blind and have participated in our annual Christmas Tree fundraiser. You guys see that down on Markham for nearly 15 years now. All that to say, I want to share with you just my story briefly. I grew up in a small town called Desark, about an hour east of Little Rock. Three months after I was born, I was diagnosed with acid reflux disease and immediately lost my vision as a result of an overdose of medicine for that disease. My dad, a very southern truck driver, don't know if you can tell if I'm southern or not, but he's a roof company driver, delivers roofing supplies, and was found the school for the blind and at that point in time reluctantly decided to put me in the school. Now, looking back, and my dad will agree, that had it not been for the School for the Blind at that point in time, I probably would have been set aside in a classroom somewhere. I was very fortunate to graduate top of my class at the School for the Blind, but also, and big fish in a small pond, right, but also to go on to UALR and graduate with my undergrad in English and master's in technical writing. I have then gone on to serve as our director of education at World Services for the Blind and now our CEO. And being able to look at Arkansas now and compare that to all the other agencies in the country, and I've been to several agencies throughout the country, Arkansas is one of the very few states taking it seriously and actually taking steps to make sure that services for the blind and deaf stay and they they grow so i won't take up too much more time but again thank you guys uh for considering this and i look forward to seeing all that arkansas has to offer and all the growth ahead thank you thank you very much

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Senator Jane English Unverified 2:37:49

uh chris barnes Okay, thank you Doris

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Speaker 511 2:37:53

Hudson So identify yourself you'll be recognized

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Speaker 423 2:38:22

Hello, this is Doris Hudson, and I am a parent of three children who go to the School for the

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Speaker 431 2:38:32

Deaf. I am from Pine Bluff. I am from the Pine Bluff area, so we commute back and forth between school and home every day. They are the third generation of students from our family who have gone to the School for the Deaf. I also went to the School for the Deaf, and my concern is, you know, I don't want to take sides about this. I mean, I understand, you know, where the deaf school and the blind

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Speaker 423 2:38:57

school, you know, need to merge, but are people going to have appropriate accessibility and successful accessibility to this?

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Speaker 431 2:39:05

We have two schools that are separate now, and I think that that's going to be successful, but if we go into one school, will that be successful for my children? The school for the blind, they are hearing. The school for the deaf, we are deaf. They use spoken English. We do not use spoken English. And I was wondering how communication and things like that would happen in the building with everyone around. That's one of my concerns. Also, a lot of, you know, a lot of the things that I've been hearing, you know, will your kids go to school there? I know that like a not, you know, kids will not go to school there because many of the parents don't understand, many of the parents don't understand the difference between the deaf and the school, the school for the deaf and the school for the blind. And so I really want parents to understand the blind culture and the deaf culture and as a generational deaf family, you know, this is passed down through our family and yeah.

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Senator Jane English Unverified 2:40:02

And yeah, that would be it. Thank you. Do you need to address any

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Speaker 412 2:40:24

of that? No, I'm sorry. Nicole. you'd identify yourself again yes ma'am Nicole Walsh superintendent of the Arkansas School for the Deaf and I think the most important thing to address there is the concern related to access and ensuring that students have communication access and preserving that culture and language I'm a firm believer that is critical that we preserve deaf culture as much as it is critical that we preserve the needs of our blind students and so we are taking steps to ensure that happens. Our deaf students and our blind students already eat supper together, our dorm students. We've had students who have started to become friends. They already ride the bus together. They have been for years, and now we're finally actually doing activities together that make sense. We've also heard from students that they would like some more opportunities to communicate and hang out during supper time, so we're implementing a process right now to have interpreters available during supper time, something that's never been done before but is necessary and I want to be very clear that while Doris says that you know they use spoken English and we do not that is not true multiple of our students use spoken English at the School for the Deaf and we encourage students to use everything they have every Avenue using spoken spoken English does not mean you are less of a deaf person and there are so many students at the School for the Blind who could benefit from the use of sign language and exposure to peers who are like them. And so while it is not it is not a black and white issue side you know one side and the other side are staunchly different it truly is and being certified in both deaf and blind I think I can speak very uniquely to the commonalities. At the end of the day these kids are kids and every single kid has a different need and we have to address their individual needs. Will there be hiccups? Absolutely. Will there things that we say like, oh, we should have thought of that one. Absolutely. But that's with any school. And you address those concerns and you move forward. And if we don't address those concerns and move forward, we are not adequately preparing our students to enter the real world. Deaf students are not going into a deaf world. They are going into a hearing world to work. And they need to have coping skills and mechanisms to function. Blind students are not going into a blind world. They are going into a sighted world. They need to have coping mechanisms. And this is a way for us to start building that deeper swimming pool. That's an analogy I use all the time, that if we're a giant Olympic swimming pool, our job is to be sure that before they're chucked in the ocean of the real world, we've taught them how to swim. And so this allows us to do that.

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Laurie Cole Unverified 2:42:51

Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much. Welcome. so Lori Cole good morning and thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is Lori Cole I'm a 20-year employee from the Arkansas School for the Blind certified teacher of the visually impaired and currently serving as the principal. The bill, HB 1810, is going to allow our students' worlds to just be a little bit larger and teach students have a larger social pool, more opportunities academically and socially. One example I want to share with you all is recently our first, second, and third grade students of the blind and deaf schools have been lesson planning for a unit in Charlotte's web, which included hatching baby chickens. Those chickens are housed at the Arkansas School for the Deaf. This allowed the deaf students to have language modeled for them from blind students and the blind students to learn how to communicate with deaf students. And most importantly, they met new friends who they already, as mentioned before, share the best with. There's been a culture of separation with these schools in the past. This year, I've had the pleasure of working with principals from the Arkansas School for the deaf to discuss ways we can make these schools stronger together but recognizing that we each have our own special needs and identities. We agree to work together and to help these students when it makes sense and to share resources what's best for the students. We meet to discuss ways for the students and families we serve. We do currently share an art teacher and would like the opportunity to serve more services such as more teachers were appropriate, audiology in the low vision clinic that our deaf-blind population need. The combining of blind and deaf schools is a model in the following states of Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Arizona, Montana, Alabama, Utah, Mississippi, and together I feel we can be stronger. Thank you for this opportunity. Tiffany Pritchard Hi, Tiffany Pritchard. I have a son

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Speaker 519 2:45:36

at the Arkansas School for the Deaf, and I'm also on staff there.

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Speaker 521 2:45:41

I'm here today to speak in favor of this merger, and the main reason that that is is because I believe that coming together, two schools as one, will allow us to keep our doors open. Over the past 15 years, the five state schools for the deaf have been closed and numerous others have faced cuts and the threat of closure. When the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act went into effect, many students previously at schools for the deaf and blind were mainstreamed into the public school setting, dropping our numbers drastically. Our schools are no longer financially sustainable as two separate entities with our current student population. But I'm here to tell you today that I believe these schools need to stay open for both our deaf and blind students, and I'd like to share a quick example of why. Ten years ago, we adopted a seven-year-old boy who was profoundly deaf. He had never been to school, and he had only about ten words in his vocabulary at that time. Those beginning years, although were incredibly difficult, were a beautiful thing to watch as he discovered family, the world around him and his language for the first time. It was just watching him go up, up, up. But then after a few years, he started to just kind of table off. So we watched for a little bit to try to see what was going on. And then in his teen years, he began to clearly decline. And it was like watching a flower wilt before our very eyes. It was heartbreaking to drop him off at school by the time he reached middle school age. It was a public school with a deaf ed program in Dallas, Texas. He would walk up very much so alone in a huge school that had all kinds of wonderful groups taking place around him, band, cheerleading, friend groups, sports, but he wasn't able to join those. He could have fought for the right to have an interpreter by his side and taken part, but that's not a natural environment, and it was certainly not the least restrictive environment for him. He had picked up what he could in a hearing world, but now it was so clear that he needed community, and it was so clear that it brought us to sell our home in Dallas and change careers so that we could move here to a school that, yes, has a lot of physical needs, but it had all the heart. It had community and the access that he was needing. And I am so grateful to say that today, two and a half years later, he is back on the up. He literally dances his way as he walks across campus, and he has joined just about every activity and sport that ASD has to offer. If I thought that this merge was not in the best interest of these students, I would not be in support of it or here today I know that change can be difficult and it's not going to all be easy I know that the unknowns are scary but I really think it will be for the best and I sincerely appreciate you considering passing a bill that will allow us to keep our schools open thank you Holly, Holly Mott and Tim J. Mott.

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Holly Mott Unverified 2:49:18

Good morning. I think it's still morning. My name is Holly Mott and this is my son, Nolan James Mott. And we are here to support this bill. NJ is one of the almost 20% of the students that has vision and hearing loss. And I feel like it's just extremely important that the students that have multiple disabilities or have dual disabilities with their vision and their hearing should not have to choose which school or which disability gets the supports that they need. And like they've said, it's kind of like this brick road down the middle between the school for years. I don't even know why. But when he started losing his vision, he was at the deaf school as a deaf student only. And we saw that his vision was going to, his diagnosis is potentially for full blindness at some point. We started trying to get services for him to learn orientation and mobility and safety, technology, those kind of things. And it wasn't accessible even though we were a quarter of a mile away from the blind school. So we started fighting for those things, but he had to get pulled out of classes. He had to go after school to have those trainings that he needed to connect with his vision loss as well. So on the flip side of that, his brother graduated last year as valedictorian from the deaf school and is now an A student in one of our Arkansas colleges, has a 4.0 still, and was interning for a government job, federal government job here in Arkansas. He's at the United States Geological Survey and they recently in January offered him a full-time permanent job, which they let him adjust his hours while he's a college student, doing amazing. But he wasn't able to access those classes that were accelerated because he was on the blind side. I can only imagine how far ahead he would have been had he had access to what the blind side has with their academics. So the point is there are things on both sides, and there's this almost 20 percent of the population that needs both of those things. And it's like Representative Feit said before, this isn't anything new. Tiffany made the statement, there are several states that have done this, and all of them are the most successful. And In fact, people, I almost moved here. I almost moved to Florida in 2015 because of the deaf school there when I adopted my boys and Levi was deaf. But I chose to come to Arkansas, and then he became deaf and now deaf blind. And so I want us to consider the fact that it's not just these two populations. There is a merge of 20% in the middle that we also have to consider. And last year, he went to the blind school for camp, being a deaf signer, and he says it was the best camp he's ever been to, made fast friends with the blind students, and had a blast. If I said deaf camp, I meant blind camp. So as a deaf student, he went to the blind camp. So it can be done. They're students. It's a good opportunity for them to learn, to merge, to live in a world that is not just

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Speaker 534 2:52:30

their isolated world. Thank you very much. I serve on the Board of Trustees for the School for the Deaf. School for the Blind. I'm here today to support the bill. I am deaf. I've been deaf since birth due to a genetic hearing loss. I wear a cochlear implant. Something like this will be extremely helpful because I know firsthand how important education is, especially at a young age. Especially deaf and blind children, the earlier we can start them on the right path, the better chance they have of success in their life. I myself have found success in my life. I went on to college. I went on to graduate school I got my master's in agricultural economics and now I have a job and do other things but this is as a deaf person I can't tell you how important something like this is this opportunity along with a new building a new building is great but it can only be as good as what is being taught inside that building and with Miss Nicole Walsh coming on board to serve as our superintendent we have nowhere to go but up and this merger will help confirm So that's all I'll say I'll keep it short. It's been a long morning. I thank you all for your support. Thank you very much

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Speaker 539 2:54:16

Can Varner Hello everybody, and good morning. My name is Kay Ann Varner, and I'm the elementary principal of the Arkansas School for the Deaf. And I'm happy to be here today to explain a little bit about what I feel and why I think it's important for House Bill 1810 to pass. So at first, when we started hearing about the bill beforehand, we started talking about merging the schools, actually before Nicole even came on board, to the Arkansas School for the Deaf. and at that time I felt I really I wasn't sure how it would work how would it be possible to be successful there are a lot of those questions because people would say you know the deaf school's over here the blind school's over here and they're separate the services I mean are they the same their histories are different their cultures are different how could they possibly merge. And so through time and Nicole coming on board on the campus, when she came, I really wasn't sure what to believe. I had never been to the blind school at all, whether you believe it or not. As a principal, I had never seen their education methods at the school for the blind. I'd never been over there. I'd never even seen the services for blind students. And they didn't know anything about us either. They didn't know what we did or what services we had, what specials we had, what sports we had, they knew absolutely nothing, and we knew nothing about each other. So now, that has changed for me, because I've been given the opportunity to go and observe in the classrooms of the School for the Blind, and opportunities to meet teachers, and meet some parents, and observe classroom interactions, and see these children, and see, really, I mean, they're just children. It doesn't matter if they're at the deaf school or the School for the Blind, They're just children, and there's only one thing that I still sit on the fence on, and that's about communication. It's a true and hard fact that sound travels faster than sign language, and it's up to us to make sure we're supporting and that that doesn't become an issue. All of our children need to have equal access to communication and equal access to voice their own opinions, And the situation like we were just talking about with the principal, right, of the second graders who are doing their unit together. I mean, it has been a blessing and amazing to see how communication barriers can be overcome through the use of an interpreter. Really, some of the blind students and teachers and staff are actually learning sign language with us. And that's not something that you see as an obstacle. We know that it could be, but we don't see it as that way. and we've decided it's really up to us as adults to make sure that we're providing the accessibility needed and we want to thank the governor as well Governor Sanders for making sure that all of our students have access to quality education and I'm grateful for her recognition and that includes us as well and her goals for success so thank you so much for your time I appreciate it. Thank you very much for your talk. Do you have any questions for me? No. Thank you. Jerry Ballou. Good morning. Good morning. Hello. My name is Jerry Ballou. And I didn't expect, and I didn't know that this would be happening. I didn't expect to actually fly out to Florida with the board. I didn't expect for Robert Fagan to go out and see Florida School for the Deaf. I wish I would have gotten the opportunity to go. But from hearing about it, it seems wonderful that both the School for the Blind and the School for the Deaf have been combined down there. It seems that the School for the Deaf and the School for the Blind have their separate needs, but they were able to merge those needs and grow their resources together. And that's really wonderful. So I support this bill, 1810, to get passed. Thank you so much, and

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Senator Jane English Unverified 2:58:40

have a great day. Thank you very

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Speaker 547 2:58:52

much. Charlene Fite. Good morning. I'm Charlene Fite. I served in the legislature for 12 years. I believe I served with everyone on this table. I have a trophy on a shelf at home, And it's one of the things that I am most proud of, not only in my tenure in the house, but in my life. It's a great big silver I love you that was awarded to me by the Arkansas School for the Deaf a few years back during Silent Sunday. And not only is it beautiful and represents something precious, I think I could also use it as a weapon because it weighs about 10 pounds. And so if anyone breaks into my house, I think I could pick it up and whack them on the head with it. But I am in full support of this bill. I was in on some of the early meetings with the governor, with stakeholders. There were deaf people. There were blind people. There were parents. Even some students came and joined in on making these plans. Our facilities at the School for the Deaf and School for the Blind have been in horrible condition for many, many years. and I've talked to most of you about that. This will give us a centralized service for the deaf and blind schools and a wing for the deaf school, a wing for the blind school. It's going to be state-of-the-art and I really beseech you to think of what is best for these students, what the students need and pass this. Thank

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Speaker 333 3:00:31

you. Okay, thank you very much. So, one minute.

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Speaker 404 3:00:43

all right okay okay so I

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:01:04

think we have to have an we have an amendment coming over uh correct for the uh senate that was taken out i think by mistake so we're going to have an amendment put that back in before we adjourned or vote yes ma'am so give us a couple minutes should

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:01:30

be here basically senator dodson do you want to say with that yes madam chair um the The amendment on page 5 deletes line 7 and substitutes the following language. Quote, Governor, subject to the confirmation of the Senate. So that would, that's the entire amendment, is adding one line that says the Senate shall confirm the appointments of the Board of Directors.

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Speaker 5 3:01:54

Okay. All right. Well, it's still on its way over. It's

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:01:58

on its way over. He's just explaining it. Can't

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:02:01

you make a verbal amendment? No. So, as soon as that comes, we will vote on that amendment, and then we'll vote on the bill. Should be here momentarily.

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Unknown speaker 3:02:31

Thank you. Thank you.

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:03:31

How far down the list is my career spell? Oh, Lord, I don't know. I've got my fingers in 8:00 this morning and I've been back through

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Speaker 6 3:03:44

this. I went there for two hours with you. It's a little harsh, it's been pretty quick, I think.

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Unknown speaker 3:04:01

Thank you.

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Speaker 559 3:04:31

Thank you.

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:05:01

I'm sure I'd make a motion that we adopt the amendment your amendment to this bill I make a motion that we do pass as amended the bill. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, committee.

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Unknown speaker 3:06:01

Thank you.

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Speaker 569 3:06:31

members we're going to hear senate bill 149 is

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Senator Dan Sullivan Chair Unverified 3:06:48

this an amendment yes there's an amendment senator if you would introduce yourself and then you'll recognize to speak

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:06:55

to the amendment senator jane english district 13 and basically the amendment that you have in front of you here right here has a correction to the or an amendment to the bill and basically what it does is it takes the second year of the adequacy funding and reduces it by three hundred and twenty dollars which is going to be the three hundred and twenty dollars instead of the money going out of adequacy to the schools and then they pay the ABD the state is going to pay for the health insurance is going to provide that to the strictly right straight to the ABD

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Senator Dan Sullivan Chair Unverified 3:07:40

members do we have any questions on the amendment senator

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:07:52

Dotson you're recognized thank you mr. chair so in the second year the the amendment on page two line four or page two of four almost to the bottom it reduces the funding amount so that's reducing the the base foundation funding amount so that will also reduce the like everything else that's tied to that like the education freedom account funding will be as well so it would be

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:08:25

$8,162 to start this next year and then will go down three hundred and twenty dollars to eight thousand and thirty seven dollars the second year thank you members any other questions seeing none

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Senator Dan Sullivan Chair Unverified 3:08:51

is anyone here to speak for or against the bill yeah we're on on the amendment right so we have a motion to adopt the amendment I make motion second second Senator Bryan all in favor say aye congratulations you have passed the amendment the amendment is I'm all opposed anybody opposed all right the amendment is adopted you may present the bill thank you very much the bill

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:09:22

basically is the adequacy funding for the next two years and the amount will be $8,162 for the first year, $8,037 for the second year per student. Members, any

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Senator Dan Sullivan Chair Unverified 3:09:44

questions? Senator Dodson, you're recognized. Thank you,

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:09:52

Mr. Chairman, and this may be a a question just for greg rogers over at the department if he's available i don't know if he's in

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Speaker 315 3:10:00

the room or not mr rogers sort of available

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:10:02

uh well actually courtney might be able to answer it as well other representative from the department yeah the department of ed who can answer the question you're doing fine thank you and

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Senator Dan Sullivan Chair Unverified 3:10:18

if you would please introduce yourself and then Senator you're welcome to ask your question. Courtney Salis for Department of

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:10:27

Education. Thank you Mr. Chairman. So I'm just trying to understand if if this if this does not pass because the statutory language in the existing code is tied to specific school years for the previous stuff there is no funding at all so we have to pass something I'm

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Speaker 485 3:10:52

not aware that that's ever happened and

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Speaker 321 3:10:55

so as a lawyer I would say that without a statutory provision authorizing funding there is no

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:11:02

funding so so basically yes thank you

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Senator Dan Sullivan Chair Unverified 3:11:10

members any other questions anyone to speak for against the bill saying no one senator you're welcome to close for your bill we have

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Speaker 584 3:11:24

a motion yes have a second second any

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Senator Dan Sullivan Chair Unverified 3:11:28

discussion on the motion saying nine what's the will of the committee we got a motion all in favor say aye opposed said the same bills passed

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Speaker 559 3:11:43

thank you bill is passed as amended where are you senator cole district three what's the number

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Speaker 310 3:12:21

of them oh oh senate bill 607 607 yes

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Representative Steven Walker Unverified 3:12:31

yeah stephen walker district 27. first

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Senator Steve Crowell Unverified 3:12:34

thing we're passing out is an amendment. It is simply changing one word from I think it's equality to equal. Equitable to equal.

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:13:01

If you identify yourself, you will be recognized. Senator

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Speaker 591 3:13:04

Steve Kroll, District 3. Stephen Walker, House District 27. First thing is just we

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Senator Steve Crowell Unverified 3:13:10

have an amendment. Change it from equitable to equal on page 2, line 20. Do I hear a motion to adopt?

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Speaker 229 3:13:20

Second? All in favor? Thank you. Go ahead. I'm

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:13:25

going to try and make this semi-quick

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Speaker 594 3:13:28

because I know there's going to be lots of debate on this.

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Senator Steve Crowell Unverified 3:13:32

This is simply to keep it to local decisions. In Arkansas, in fact, I'm going to let Stephen

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Representative Steven Walker Unverified 3:13:42

Walker begin. Okay, so yeah, this is a simple bill. It simply takes Department of Education's existing rules for four-day school weeks and codifies them into law. If I remember right, we opened the door for four-day school weeks back in 1997. So our state has had since then to establish these rules. So we've not tried to change anything on that end, so we're trying to add it here. So this ensures that our local districts know exactly what standards they must meet without having the goalposts moved on them unexpectedly by Department of Education or the State Board. Most importantly, this bill guarantees that any future changes to these rules require a vote from us in both the House and Senate. This means our constituents can be confident that their elected representatives and senators will have both a voice at the table and a vote before any decisions are made that affect local control or parent choice. We all agree that our children's best interests must come first. That's why we have included provisions that address accountability. In this bill, we've added that any school operating on a four-day schedule that begins to underperform or receives a level five designation from the state board will not be permitted to continue with the four-day school week model. For everybody else, this bill preserves local voice, it protects parent choice, and allows communities to determine what works best for their unique circumstances.

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Speaker 593 3:15:11

I'm going to read a quote to you. This is a diverse and

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Senator Steve Crowell Unverified 3:15:18

robust state. I've had the opportunity to travel to different parts of the state. In fact, I've got to go to the Delta with members of the committee meet with teachers and leaders and solicit feedback based on the conversation that some of our most fragile schools and communities. We are able to take these ideas from people and have their boots on the ground that are working in the classrooms for some of our vulnerable students and make sure that their voices are heard. The one-size-fits-all approach is archaic and not giving local decisions makes it challenging. The needs of Jonesboro are different than the needs of Helena. We know they are different than the needs of Little Rock. So by empowering local school boards and empowering administrations and school district leaders, superintendents, and educators that know what's best for their community is a big step in the right direction when we look at moving those national rankings. This is from February 22nd, 2023 at 9:15 in the morning. State, or Secretary of Education, made that statement. And that is what we need to do is have local control. So I'm not going to belabor a lot of these points. This is a pretty straightforward bill. There is going to be, I'm sure, some testimony on some studies that were not conducted in Arkansas, and then I will have some studies that were conducted in Arkansas. I'm willing for any questions at this point.

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:16:48

There are questions from the committee. Is there anybody in the audience to speak for or against? Yes, Dr. Jacob Oliva. Speak against the bill. He's on his line. Oh, okay. All right. Um, uh, Gerald Strachner is for the bill. So if you would, three minutes, please.

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Speaker 602 3:17:28

I'm Gerald Strachner, Superintendent, Washtar River. Good morning, and thank you

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Speaker 603 3:17:33

for allowing me the opportunity to testify on behalf of the positive changes we're seeing with the implementations. This was our first year to implement for three years before implementing. We adopted this calendar for three main reasons. Number one, to recruit and retain quality staff. So what does our data say after this first year's implementation? We see 80-90% of our stakeholders wanting to continue this calendar. We're seeing positive changes in student learning already. As evidenced by the most recent interim atlas data that we show growth in almost every area in math.

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Speaker 604 3:18:35

Our classroom walkthrough data shows and high levels

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Speaker 603 3:18:39

of students. Our attendance has improved in almost 90% of our students. And our staff attendance has dramatically improved as well. I attribute these improvements to the implementation of the four-day week. We're not perfect. We don't claim to be. When we learn to do better, we do better. but if you had to ask me if it was possible to go back to five days of model of that instruction versus four, I would say no, and that's due to the reason that our students and staff and community have all came together to try to reach the goals that we set out to do earlier in my testimony. We feel this year is our baseline year at Ouachita River. We know that the changes that we're making now will have a positive impact on our kids in the future. Today we're focused more than ever on improving tier one instruction, using data to drive our decisions, and preparing students to take the atlas exam at the end of the month. Four-day school calendars go the same instructional time as all other calendars. We don't cheat our students out of any learning. I believe the number of positive changes we're seeing in our data is due to staff dedication, high levels of student engagement, and positive morale related to the implementation of this calendar. Last, I want to thank all of you for serving our state and our students, and I want to thank you for your continued support and allowing us to make the best decisions we know locally for our students. God bless, and thanks

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:20:37

for listening. thank you madam chair um i'm just curious on on your particular school district you're this is year one you're at a four day you were at five day previously um how you said you've seen improvements so we'll see i guess that reflected in test scores and things like that in the years to come. Previously, what was your school district's, I guess, struggles

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Speaker 608 3:21:01

as far? Were you in A school, B school, DEF? What range were you in? In the

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:21:11

benchmark years, we were A and B.

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Speaker 603 3:21:19

Then we moved to Park and Aspire. We dropped to C for career and college readiness. Now we're testing grade-level standards. The Atlas system has been one of the best changes we've made in our state to help teach grade-level standards for our kids. So we don't have last year's letter grade. We have growth scores, and we have our interim data now that shows growth in almost every area. So the last test we took was C. Okay. Thank you.

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:21:54

And then other other questions from the committee. Thank you very much. Thank you Oh, there he is. Okay, Jacob Oliva, you are

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Speaker 235 3:22:17

against You have three minutes sure so I'll be brief a lot of people think I'm an anti four days school opponent or opposer. I've never once said that. What I am advocating for is that students have access to 178 days at school. Our current laws and our funding systems are based on that minimum. I want to be reminded that 178 days of in-person instruction is below the national average. I even pulled a map. The highest outliers go all the way from 186 days in Kansas, the lowest requirement, and there's only seven states that are below 178 days of a minimum requirement is Colorado at 160 days. I want to improve learning and outcomes in this state. I don't want to be number one in the nation for requiring the least amount of schools, school days. The schools that are going 143 days are four days a week. That is access to less in-person instruction. That is not an opportunity to get systematic explicit instruction and the research is pretty clear nationally. it says that students do learn going four days a week but they do not learn as much as they go five and I think we all know that if we can develop calendars this isn't a local control or local decision. We set the expectation that we should have 178 days of school. The local decision is how the school district chooses to meet those expectations and set the calendar out works best for them. I go back to if if we know that in person and touch points with students matters. I look at our coaches who know that they have a short time to prepare our students for an athletic season. Why are all the athletes in these four days a week going to the gym on the fifth day? And some of them are going even in on a sixth day. If this logic of we're just going to extend a few minutes and act like that's a good thing for kindergartners to be in learning for eight hours a day, why can't athletes just lift a little bit heavier weight for a couple more minutes a week and that'd be the same it's flawed logic students need access to high-quality teachers they need to be into environments that they learn what I'm advocating for is that we go back to establishing a hundred and seventy eight day calendar which is already below the national average the local authority and autonomy and all of this on how they determine how to meet those hundred seventy eight days is why we have the excellent school districts that we have

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:24:40

Thank you. Thank you very much. Do you have a question? Mr. Oliva, could you have

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Senator Joshua Bryant Unverified 3:24:57

just one second? We have a couple questions here. Senator Bryan. Yeah, thank you, thank you, Madam Chair. I just,

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Speaker 344 3:25:03

so 178 days, and what's the hour equivalency of that? The current statute requires 1,068 hours and 178 days of school.

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Senator Joshua Bryant Unverified 3:25:10

So 1,068 hours or 178 days, depending on how they want to do it. So my kids went to a four-day elementary. It was blue ribbon. It was phenomenal. I really couldn't tell you which one of those they met, but obviously there's grief coming out of some of our local schools that feel like they're being told not to do a four-day Because I assume that's pushing their calendar further into the summer. Are they going to start early? What is the difference between how they did it three years ago versus how they're doing it asked to do it today?

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Speaker 236 3:25:41

So I still think you can build a four-day-a-week school calendar and be innovative and creative. And you're going to

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Speaker 235 3:25:48

have to make some sacrifices. But you can build a calendar from August to May. What you're not going to get is a four-day-a-week and a fall break and a spring break and a week off at Thanksgiving and every other holiday. so you got to make some decisions or if we believe in the four day a week and that's working what's great for the families and the students in the community they can build a calendar but just setting that minimum expectation of in-person instruction especially for some of our most vulnerable students that need access to those teachers the group of teachers that that I'm surprised we don't hear from the most and I guarantee they're meeting with their students above and beyond our advanced placement teachers you cannot get through an AP physics or chemistry course and do all the labs required in biology on a 143 day calendar. Those students are not going to be set up to be successful on those exams. So all I'm saying is let's have 178 days of school. We fund it, we should require it, and why can't we just set that expectation as a state that going to school is

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:27:00

important? Thank you. Senator Dodson? Thank you, Madam Chair. So you kind of answered some of my question, and I guess I'm trying to understand if this were to pass, what the difference between current, what districts can currently do, which is currently they can do four day a week, right? right that's not the status quo is not removing that capability if this is passes what does that change to the then this makes it explicit to where there can be no parameters on what that four day a week looks like and and you i heard you say 143 days versus 178 does this make it to where they're only in school 143 days versus 178 total so currently the schools that are on

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Speaker 235 3:27:51

a four day a week's calendar and we have 47 districts in the state that are on a four day a week the majority of them are at a

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Speaker 236 3:28:00

hundred and forty three days with this bill would also do is remove my understanding is that our requirements established that they only have to be in school for six hours a day

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Speaker 235 3:28:11

which would even lower the learning time for

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:28:14

these students they'd only have to be in six hours a day,

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Speaker 235 3:28:20

four days a week? With pretty much eliminating all governance and oversight from the State Board. If I could, Senator Dawson, the hour equivalency, and this is not new laws and these are laws that have been around for a while, the hour equivalency I think was to provide opportunity for districts, especially when they're dealing with emergency situations, whether it's maintenance issues on a campus or severe weather or something where they can say we've established 178 days of school but we've had some emergencies but our daily school hours go longer than that they may not need to make up school because they're within that thousand sixty eight the the push every year has been totally whittling away with districts going to 177 176 175 we're down to 39 districts in this state that have a traditional 178-day calendar. 39. Wow. Is education important or not? Thank you. Senator King. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Representative

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Senator Bryan King Unverified 3:29:32

Dunn has another bill out there. Can you explain that bill? From my understanding, do I support

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Speaker 620 3:29:38

that? I don't know if I'm familiar with that one. I don't know anything about that. It's your

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Speaker 235 3:29:48

bill and Representative Dunn's bill. You're the Senate sponsor. About four-day weeks or something? Oh, maybe Representative Andrews. Andrews. I'm sorry. I was like, I'm supposed to show you. No, no, I got the wrong one. I guess it's Representative Dunn. Yeah, so explain that bill and you support that bill? Well, I think that bill is more favorable. What that bill requires is every school district to establish 178 day calendar and it gives the hour flexibility there's still opportunities for districts to innovate and be creative with the calendars that best meet their needs and if a school district has the hundred a thousand sixty eight academic hours and they have to close like we've got schools closed today because of flooding as long as they still met that thousand sixty hour threshold while established under 78 days they may not need to make up those days

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Speaker 236 3:30:34

so it gives them flexibility to meet the needs of their community as issues arise so I think that's a much more favorable

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Senator Bryan King Unverified 3:30:42

bill. And you support that bill? Yes. And so you say that people that support this bill do not care about education?

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Speaker 235 3:30:49

I didn't say that. What I'm saying is I think people that support this bill like the flexibility and autonomy that they have to meet the needs of their families it's helped with teacher recruitment but to me establishing 143 day calendar is below that average so I would like to see districts have the flexibility and autonomy to meet their community needs whether it's through a four-day a week average but let's just set a threshold that scheduling a calendar of 178 days of in-person instruction in front of high-quality teachers should be the minimum threshold that we have outlined in statute okay well

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Senator Bryan King Unverified 3:31:27

there are several schools in my district that that think that they are improving performance which is a good thing

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Speaker 344 3:31:33

so yeah and and I and I would say like when you mentioned the other bill and

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Speaker 235 3:31:39

I met with school superintendents people that are here testifying and a lot of people know where I stand that if we wanted to have like variances for like a rated districts or maybe even be rated districts that's different than when I look at this list of the 47 districts who all their schools are F's and we're taking away our authority to say the only way we can hold them accountable for learning is to do full state control on level 5 intensity I don't think anybody here in this room wants to see the State Board of Education dissolve more school districts we want to make sure that as adults we're setting up the conditions for students to be successful and that's what I'm saying is when we establish 178 days of school. That's our job as adults is to make sure we're putting the needs of students first, and that's where I'm advocating from. So last year I met with you

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Senator Bryan King Unverified 3:32:31

and I, you know, invited you to my district. I have six counties to come up, and I haven't seen you up in my six counties yet. I mean, I know you're busy and have the whole state, but I mean, I did meet with you last year to come up and meet with some of my schools, and I've not heard anything back, and you

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Speaker 614 3:32:49

haven't done that yet or have you been in my six counties i don't know which counties i've been in

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Speaker 235 3:32:55

every county and the majority school districts and prior to being a session where i have to sit in this room pretty much every day all all day week my goal is to be in school districts two or three times a week so i like to pride myself as somebody that's in schools these superintendents can't say i'm not available and that i don't meet with them it may not be in person it may be on zoom it may be on calls but i feel like we're very responsive and and i would take offense to say that i'm not actively out in schools

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Speaker 624 3:33:22

meeting with constituents because i pride myself on that well and that's

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Speaker 625 3:33:26

why you know it's sometimes face to face

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Senator Bryan King Unverified 3:33:29

i know zoom can be what has to happen but i think you know i have six counties boone carroll madison newton johnson franklin and that's why i wanted you to come up and meet personally with them and i haven't heard from you and i know like i said i I mean, I did ask well into last

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:33:55

year, too. Thank you very much. Susan Kistler. You need to turn on your A schools. so just let me start with that so you'd identify yourself you'll be recognized okay thank you madam chair and

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Susan Kazire Unverified 3:34:22

committee okay my name is susan kazire i am the superintendent of poen school district prior to that i was at bismarck for 16 years poen and bismarck both implemented the four-day school week at the same time i'd like to begin with the four benefits of the four-day school week i know I've already shared some of this with you through email. Improved student achievement, reduced burnout for students and teachers, enhanced teacher and student morale, better attendance and retention rates, cost savings, and more planning time for teachers, which affords them additional time to develop more effective and well-structured instructional plans. Currently 47 districts, that's 20 percent, impacting 5 percent of our student population. You've heard the RAND report mentioned quite a bit. Let me tell you why the RAND report doesn't reflect rural Arkansas. Arkansas isn't Idaho, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. RAND uses national averages, but rural Arkansas is different. This is a 2021 study that does not include us and is based on urban and suburban areas. This study is also skewed because it includes data collected during the 2021 school year, which was impacted by the COVID pandemic. Some of these states did not mandate instructional minutes like Arkansas does. We protect that instructional time, therefore we see success. Again, it's the exact same number of instructional minutes, same instructional hours. Rural districts face challenges and the four-day helps stretch our financial resources while still meeting the needs. Rand doesn't dive deep enough into that. Behavior, engagement, and well-being can also improve. The four-day model is helping rural districts stay competitive. A quality teacher in front of students is always the most important factor to student success, as Secretary Oliva says. Rand downplays this. The four-day week fits our way of life, faith, family, and flexibility. 95.7 percent of our community and parents support the four-day week, and 99 percent, only one staff member, did not. Poet Elementary ranked number one in growth across the entire state. We ranked above the majority of schools in the Dawson co-op for ELA, math, and science, and we are above the state average in both math and reading across the board. As Secretary Oliva said, he said this to you last week, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work for all of our students and families, administrators, teachers, schools, and school districts. Let Arkansas communities make the choice that fits their kids, protect our four-day schools. Thank you so much to all of our bill sponsors and to

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:37:21

all of you. Thank you very

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Speaker 57 3:37:25

much. Thank you. I'm happy to answer any questions. One

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Senator Joshua Bryant Unverified 3:37:29

second. Senator Bryant. Thank you, Madam Chair. So in your current school's calendar, do you take all the breaks that a traditional five-day calendar takes as

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Susan Kazire Unverified 3:37:39

well? Yes, we chose Monday because so many of the holidays already fall on a Monday. So, you know, MLK Day and Labor Day and so forth. So we chose Monday. And so many of the, but yes, we have Christmas break and so forth. For us, every day counts as 1.25 because we're going the longer days. Again, it's the exact same number of instructional minutes. So instead of a five-day that does the 360 minutes of instructional time, we do 450 minutes every day so we're able to do longer blocks of instructional time so let's say you go into a science class and instead of going in for maybe 40 45 minutes we're able to do an hour block so you can go in have the lesson and then at the same time you're able to do the lab so you're not having to break that up so it's actually improving our instruction you're able to go in and we block off in the morning our English language arts time. And it's protected time. We're not doing pullouts during that time. So we're able to block that off. And that's another reason that we're seeing so much growth and academic achievement is because we're blocking off that time. And, you know, we're able to have more extended class time for that

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Senator Joshua Bryant Unverified 3:39:01

instruction. So are you currently meeting the 1068 requirement?

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Susan Kazire Unverified 3:39:04

Absolutely. It's exactly the same. There is nothing different with instructional time. Where we're saving on that time is a lot of those transition times, you know, time changing classes and time before the bell and, you know, just a lot of those, you know, extra times in between. You're cutting out a lunch time, you know, a lot of those different things that are being cut out of the day. It is the exact same number of instructional minutes. Nothing is different on a four-day. than a five-day when it comes to instruction, as far as the minutes

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Senator Joshua Bryant Unverified 3:39:39

go. So I guess, is there a current department ask that is jeopardizing the program which you currently run? Say that one more time. Is there currently a department ask that is jeopardizing your current processes that should fall within the 1,068 hours, but

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Susan Kazire Unverified 3:39:58

maybe does not? I'm not sure exactly

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Senator Joshua Bryant Unverified 3:40:02

what you're asking, but... This bill, you're

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Susan Kazire Unverified 3:40:04

doing everything within the current... Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. We're following all the standards. Everything is the same for us. And we are one of the highest achieving school districts. And when I was at Bismarck, we were one of the highest achieving school districts. So every standard, everything that, and let me say this, with all due respect to the schools that are a DNF school, if you look at that research, If they are a DNF on a four-day, I can almost guarantee you they were a DNF on a five-day. And that needs to be addressed as a separate issue and support for them as a DNF school and not penalize the schools that are actually seeing growth and success as a four-day school. Those are two separate issues. If schools are achieving and actually growing and succeeding on a four-day, then by all means, I feel like we should encourage that. Our morale is up. We're able to, you know, recruit high-quality teachers. We're a super small school district in an area where we're surrounded by some schools that can pay more than us, but we now have that advantage to say, well, we can do this in four days. Yes, it's four longer days, but we can do this in four days, and it helps us to recruit some high-quality teachers to come in, And that just improves our instruction, therefore our students are learning more. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Senator

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:41:42

Dodson. Thank you, Madam Chair. So if I understood you correctly, what you're currently doing, you can continue to do regardless of whether this bill passes or it doesn't pass.

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Speaker 629 3:41:53

Yes. Yes. Well, yes and no. We can continue to do that, but we have been told that, and

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Susan Kazire Unverified 3:42:02

what kind of prefaced all of this, was we were told that if the calendar bill that was, I think, 1864, if that did not pass, then DESE planned to go to the state board to try to change what we were doing as a four-day school.

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:42:25

So, we're not debating another House bill or what the State Board may or may not try to do in the future. As of this particular bill and as of the current status of things, if this bill passes or this bill doesn't pass, you can continue to do what

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Speaker 637 3:42:47

you're doing. We will continue on. Absent

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 3:42:49

any other changes, obviously. Yes, sir. But this bill does not have to pass for you to continue to do things that you're doing right now with fidelity and success that you're currently experiencing. We'll address those other bills at some other time as they come up. But as far as this one is concerned, this doesn't have to pass for you to maintain what you're

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Susan Kazire Unverified 3:43:15

doing. There are no protections on the four-day school week, But one thing that this bill does do is it takes the current rules, which are from 1997 that we had not even seen before, but it takes those rules from 1997 and it updates them. So that's kind of where this bill started, was the rules that we had received from Secretary Oliva, we took those, sent those to BLR because it refers to norm-referenced testing. Well, we no longer do norm-referenced. Now it's criterion-referenced. So we took that, and then we have the requirements to submit to him, and I know he's going to hate having to go through a million different sheets of paper from us. So the suggestion was to do a digital application process. I was thinking maybe the AR app might be something that we could do in the future. We are not opposed to accountability at all. We're not opposed to, you know, following what was in the old rules, you know, but we're trying to look at ways that we can do that and make it more current from 27 years ago. Let's make it more, you know, let's update that to the criterion reference testing. Let's, you know, update that to where we have a digital process of doing that, where we're not having to, you know, print out 50 sheets of paper and try to mail that in or scan that into email and in different things like that so you know we're just trying to take the old rules update those into a more current version again this bill is actually you know taking that and continuing to put work on us for that but that's okay we don't

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Speaker 630 3:45:00

mind we're not opposed to accountability we hold our students accountable we hold ourselves accountable as well

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Speaker 467 3:45:05

thank you yes sir thank you very much thank you

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Senator Dan Sullivan Chair Unverified 3:45:15

very much Senator Sullivan thank you madam chair so if this bill doesn't pass what happens to your what's your current status do

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Lori Cole Unverified 3:45:22

you just continue as is will you just

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Speaker 641 3:45:27

continue on okay yes sir thank you thank you very much we appreciate it. Tristan Nodal.

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:45:43

You'll identify yourself. You have two minutes.

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Speaker 642 3:45:46

Thank you, Madam Chair. Tristan Knadel, Superintendent, Bismarck School District. I'll be very brief. I know you guys had a long morning today. I've listened to a lot of a lot of your committee meetings this this uh year this session and i hear you guys talk about local control a lot and i appreciate that um in fact last session act 688 that this legislature passed gave schools the option to choose four different calendars traditional alternate four-day or year-round and we appreciate that i think this is a local control decision we have elected school boards They should be in charge of making these choices. When we went to a four-day, I wasn't the superintendent at Bismarck. This is my first year, but I did live in the community and had children attending the school. All stakeholders were involved in this decision and polled and had plenty of input. This decision wasn't made lightly. One thing that's been mentioned this morning was teacher preparation. And this has made all the difference in the world when you talk about teacher preparation. You know, generally teachers get around 45 minutes of planning time a day, but that can be taken up by various things that go on in a school's meetings and such. And so when you pass by Bismarck School District on a Monday, the parking lot's full. There are teachers there planning. I think we've all heard the saying, prior planning prevents poor performance. That's part of why Bismarck has been so successful with this. I'm going to give you some data of my own because I want to make sure I get to that in my argument. We recently finished up our second round of ATLAS interims that we've given twice this year. Out of eight tests given in ELA, which is English Language Arts, we outperformed the state average in every area. We showed an average of 10% growth per grade level from interim one to interim two. The state's average growth was 3%. we had four out of those eight cohorts of students already outperforming last year's summative scores. In math four out of eight tests given we scored above the state average. The other the other four were just a few points away from meeting that. Our average growth by grade level was 15 percent. The state's was 8.75 percent. In science eight out of eight grade levels scored above the state average with biology at 65 percent which nearly doubles the state average there. Our average growth by grade level was 13%, and the state's average growth was 6.6%. Now, when I give you these numbers, these are just kids who are moving into levels 3 and 4. You know, they count for our proficiency percentage. This doesn't take into account all of the growth that we've shown. You know, some of our level 1 students increase their scores a lot as well. They just, they don't show up in these percentages here. So, I know that we've talked a little bit about four days of school week's falling behind. I don't see the evidence for that in this district or in my other district previously that I was working a four-day school week Let's see Senator Sullivan has a question

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Senator Dan Sullivan Chair Unverified 3:48:59

Yeah, I hear the argument local control quite a bit. Yes, so the districts were formed by state government and if we if the state grants you local control There would seem to be some limits on what local control you're granted. So you're taking state money And you take state money, but you want local control. How does that work?

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Speaker 647 3:49:22

Well, I think there's definitely some room some things that the ADE

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Speaker 642 3:49:29

Should oversee I'm not advocating for complete control by local school district, but I do believe it's a job

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Senator Dan Sullivan Chair Unverified 3:49:35

That's that's our job to decide where that line goes. So we grant Money and resources to the local school and then the local school Pushes back against that and said no we want local control. We still want the money. We just want local control So where is that line? Well, and I would say you

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Speaker 642 3:49:51

guys drew that for us last time You've granted us the option to choose the calendars But you're

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Senator Dan Sullivan Chair Unverified 3:49:57

the one claiming local control that this that it doesn't go far enough So if you want local control, where does that local control end?

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Speaker 642 3:50:05

I'm not saying it doesn't go far enough. I I don't know. Maybe you don't know. We received a letter basically saying if we don't meet all of these bullet points, the four-day week

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Senator Dan Sullivan Chair Unverified 3:50:18

would go away. That's where the bill comes from. Okay. Well, I'll let that argument go. So is there a limit to how many weeks you can go if we continue to combine based upon an hourly formula? I mean, what would prevent us from going to a 20-week school year

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Speaker 642 3:50:34

by combining the hours? I don't have an answer to that, Senator. I just know we go 450 instructional minutes a day versus a five-day who goes 360. My calendar has 1,075 hours built into it out of a

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Speaker 647 3:50:50

required 1,000. But you could do that with a – you could shorten the year just by making your days longer. You could, but we're at about the max you would want to go. I mean, you don't want kids in school for

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Senator Dan Sullivan Chair Unverified 3:51:03

10-plus hours a day. okay so what I'm understanding then is that there technically it's no limit to how many hours you could go a day in order to

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Speaker 642 3:51:13

shorten your year that I don't know I don't know if that's in statute or not I just know

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:51:24

there's a limit on the minimum statute thank you any other questions thank

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Speaker 653 3:51:43

you very much Samuel Scott hello good morning or afternoon whichever one it is closest to

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Speaker 655 3:51:48

after this long morning I'm dr. Sam Slott I'm the superintendent of Cosatot school district there's one some people have already said a lot of the same things I've already was going to say but I'd like to go to this this bill gives four-day schools protection that it doesn't currently have legislators back several years ago made law that allowed schools to go to a four-day week I was I did a lot of this research back about 2007 2008 when I was working on my master's degree I was at the first school in the state of Arkansas to go to a four-day school week that was Mansfield we did it for one year and we did it because of financial reasons we went back because it was a split board and they chose to go back spoke to those teachers for years later even community members that said I wish we could have stayed and gone through with it. Last year, I did a lot of research because I was a, this is my first year at Cosatot School District as superintendent. I was an elementary principal. When I did my research back in 2007, my biggest concern was how did it affect kindergarteners, first grade, second grade children. What I have found out and experienced, it doesn't have a negative effect on them. Going 143 days a year does not have a negative effect on those children. All the people that have talked to you today are coming from schools that are A, B, and C schools. I have four schools in my district. Three of those are all B schools. One is a C school. Talked about 178 days being the national average. I don't have the data in front of me, but I bet everybody that's talked to you today, their reading scores are above national average. Their math scores are above average. Schools that are failing on four-day week were failing before. Failing schools is not on calendar days. It's based on the school culture, the effectiveness of teachers, and the community involvement in that school. Days have nothing to do with it as far as 178 versus a four-day school week. Also, work hours. Some of the logic that I came to a while ago was this. Unless you're in school eight hours a day, it doesn't matter to you. Well, I'd like to ask you this question. Those people that work 40 hours a week for 10 hours instead of 5-8, are they working less hard? Thank you. Lonnie Myers.

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:55:13

You'll identify yourself. You'll be recognized. I'm Lonnie Myers.

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Speaker 660 3:55:17

I'm the superintendent for the Mulberry-Pleasant View School District in Crawford County. We're on I-40 at exit 24. Can you pull your microphone just a little bit closer? Closer? Is that better? Thank you. Okay. As I said, I'm Lonnie Myers. I'm from the Mulberry-Pleasant View School District, which is in Crawford County. Exit 20 and exit 24 on I-40 between Alma and Ozark. I'll try not to repeat everything that everyone has said, but, you know, I've worked for 49 years in the school business, and I love children. And I think we would be really good whether we, I mean, we're going to work really hard whether we go five days or four days. So I've got to do my best regardless. But I find that a small rural school district has some different needs than larger districts I have worked at. Here at Mulberry, the number one need we have is hiring and retaining high-quality teachers. We've had a high teacher turnover every rate that I've been there for the nine years before this four-day week that we're trying now. It's very hard to retain teachers when we're surrounded by larger school districts that have higher salaries than their school districts. Another need that we have in our school district, and I say this just to tell you that our district patrons do support us, is we have a hard time, I guess, finding the same amount of resources maybe that larger school districts have. we've developed an education foundation that gives us a lot of support we give senior scholarships we award about thirty thousand dollars a year worth of teacher grants to our teachers that's all through our foundation and we've had a millage pass we've had a millage extension we've built new facilities new auditorium new softball baseball complex I'd say all that just to emphasize that our community does support us the background to our four-day week was basically the same as everyone else's. We've spent a lot of time studying, spent a year talking with our patrons, doing a lot of surveys to get information to see if our patrons would support it, and we did find that they did. They wanted us to submit a request to the school board. We did do that, and the year 24-25 has been spent on the four-day school week. We did this basically for teaching retention, to improve our student attendance and hopefully to improve academic outcomes although we've only had this one year we really haven't had time to do anything other than the interim assessments we looked at the research from the Office of Educational Practice from the University of Arkansas and based on their research their schools that they studied during a four-day week the likelihood that teachers would leave a four-day school was slightly reduced by 1.5 percent. The likelihood that four-day school week schools could hire more teachers with advanced degrees did increase by about 5.9 percent. Teachers in the four-day school week schools reported lower exhaustion from their teachers and it felt like there was more personalization after going to the four-day school week. The data that we looked at student attendance, our student attendance did improve over the, we compared the first two quarters of the last year we did five day with the first two quarters of the year we did four day and we did improve from ninety three point nine six percent to ninety seven point oh two percent with student attendance our employee attendance improved 17 percent and then our discipline problems went down about 11 percent the atlas summative assessment has not been given this year this year so very much oh

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Speaker 555 3:58:54

I'm sorry that's okay thank you for

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Speaker 660 3:58:57

your time our parents and community did support this. Our certified and classified staff did support this. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

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Senator Jane English Unverified 3:59:08

Shauna Hurst. She here? Not here? Okay. All right. that concludes our speakers for and against representative walker thank you so i'll go ahead

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Representative Steven Walker Unverified 3:59:42

and try to do my closing in about three minutes too i just want to clear up at least one statement that secretary oliva made about schools being able to go six hours four times a week in that same sentence we have it must be an average of six hours of instruction per school day and 30 hours of instruction per school week this language is word for word from their current rules so we didn't change anything there we took their rules and put that same language in this bill so that is what's currently in place right now so the the other questions that i've been hearing from the committee it's kind of about the purpose of this bill if they if it's not changing anything why have we ran this bill March 21st as schools were going into spring break a letter was sent out by Department of Education that and I cannot find anywhere where the state board met to make this change but in the letter the last bullet point on it according to their rules right now the part that they change it would be academic distress districts that operate four-day school weeks who do not demonstrate yearly improvement on the state approved norm reference test and other assessment instruments required by or approved by the ADE will forfeit their right to this option in the letter they drop the word academic distress so this applies to all school districts So that letter showed us that they were willing to change what the requirements are for our four-day school districts without having us at the table to have that discussion. That is the point of this bill. That's why we're not trying to change where the go post is put in place right now. We want to have a say before that go post moves. Senator Sullivan made a good point that I agree with before I point that out. Personally, I don't think Parliament of Education should dictate what local control looks like for our areas, but I agree with Senator Sullivan's statement earlier that we should determine what to allow for local control. I 100% agree we are the ones that should be making that judgment. We're elected by our constituents to meet together as a body, pass bills on the House and Senate in working together to determine what is best for our kids when it affects local control or anything else. It should not be our state agencies making that determination all on their backs. We should be at the table. We should be the ones that vote on it. I'm not trying to say that four-day weeks are good or bad or whatever. I'll just want to have that discussion. In my opinion, Department of Ed, if they have the data that shows that four-day schools are hurting our kids they should be able to present that data to us convince us that it's bad for our areas and then we vote on it or we figure out what the requirements should be going forward because we can all agree at the end of the day that we are here to do what is best for our kids and with that I'm going to close and I'd appreciate a good vote on this bill Okay, do I hear a second?

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Senator Jane English Unverified 4:03:14

Is there a discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor? All opposed? No.

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Speaker 667 4:03:34

I think we need to roll call. Senator Dotson. Senator Dotson, no. Senator Bryant. Senator Bryant, aye. Senator Murdoch. Senator Murdoch. Senator King. Aye. Senator King, aye. Senator Davis. Senator Davis. Senator Flowers. Senator Flowers. Senator Sullivan. Senator Sullivan, no.

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Speaker 410 4:04:03

I'm sorry, that bill fails. Thank you very much. Okay. So folks, we have about

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Senator Jane English Unverified 4:04:11

finished for the day. Oh, I'm sorry. You what? Is this a? Yes. Okay. Go right ahead. Go ahead. And you've got three, but we have to start here pretty soon. We've been here since eight o'clock. so we needed to get all of our our Senate bills out of here so they can go down to the house they're

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 4:04:45

getting their house bills up here okay by 12:30 we need to

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Senator Jane English Unverified 4:04:54

be going okay I'm trying

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Speaker 333 4:04:58

to get the Senate bills out of here just like the house

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Senator Jane English Unverified 4:05:03

is trying to get the house bills out of there you'll identify yourself

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Speaker 301 4:05:12

you will be recognized Brian Davis State Senate

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 4:05:17

District 25 thank you madam chair this is Senate bill 624 we've all spent hours and hours discussing intra-district choice and max capacity so this bill is very simple it puts max capacity at 95 percent and it allows for intra-district choice happy to take any questions questions for the committee nobody's signed up speak

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Senator Jane English Unverified 4:05:45

for or against do you have a question i just have a quick question i

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Senator Bryan King Unverified 4:05:53

mean in this whole thing with all this i mean is this going to cost the state more money or less money

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Senator Jane English Unverified 4:06:06

it will cost the state no money no money okay do i hear a motion a motion they pardon okay all right all right any motion any discussion on the motion all in favor all opposed

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Speaker 371 4:06:29

thank you okay where's the next one did you have three

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Speaker 501 4:06:35

you'll wait till Wednesday all right okay all right

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Speaker 308 4:06:44

we're here you want to do yours quickly

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Senator Jane English Unverified 4:06:49

quickly 1495 house bill 1495 madam chair if I if you

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Speaker 677 4:06:55

don't mind can I have somebody join me at the table

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Speaker 679 4:07:05

Committee, R.J. Hawk, District 81. Morning, members of the committee. Jeremy Lasseter with Bryant Public Schools.

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Representative RJ Hawk Unverified 4:07:21

Karen Walters, Bryant Public Schools. This is House Bill 1495. And committee, over the course of the last few months, I've been working on this bill with Saline County reps, Grant County, and then here recently I've heard some up around the Conway area that this is a growing issue. And what it stems around is the transfer of disciplinary records for a student whenever they transfer into a school district. What we're seeing in our schools, kids are facing expulsion or have been expelled. They're transferring to neighboring schools. The kids go in front of the school board and are accepted without any background knowledge of what previously happened. Oftentimes the school the child is transferring to will request that information from the previous school and they will not get any information from the school that they were previously at. You know, oftentimes what we're seeing is that once that expulsion has happened or the pending expulsion has happened, the school, once they know the kid is going to transfer, they will just end the expulsion hearing altogether and there's no track record of what's going on. Parents are now starting to hear about this, and I'll give you an example of something that happened in the Bryant School District. A kid transferred in that had been a violent kid at a different school district. He came to Bryant. There were criminal charges pending. We had no knowledge of this whatsoever, and whenever he got here, he got accepted to Bryant, and then later it was found out that he was convicted, and then parents found out. At that point, parents started calling me, started calling Dr. Walters, and other teachers in the district going, why was this kid ever allowed into our school district? At the end of the day, what could have solved all this had been that disciplinary record following the kid from school to school. And so that's exactly what this bill does. And with that, I'll take any questions. Does the bill Senator Hammer has? No,

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Speaker 685 4:09:16

ma'am. I don't know what that what that bill is.

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Senator Jane English Unverified 4:09:20

No, it sounds so much the same to me. Okay. Do we have questions from the committee? There's nobody in the audience. Oh, I'm sorry. Senator Dodson.

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Speaker 608 4:09:32

I guess I'll ask questions and this is probably more

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 4:09:37

more related to Actually, it may be a department related question, but my understanding of it was and I recall having voted on a bill a few years ago that allowed for any type of criminal activity to be that sort of thing to be shared like if someone a student was arrested or or something along those lines so if there was a criminal activity that could be shared with another district is that is that

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Speaker 681 4:10:09

the current law that senator i'm sure that someone in the department can correct me i

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Speaker 540 4:10:15

think with that law requires authorities to notify a school district if one of their students had been subject to criminal activity. I'm not sure I could be wrong. I'm not sure

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 4:10:26

that that requires a school district that they're being transferred into to know. Okay and so I mean this this would require the permanent record of the the student to be transferred or be shared with the district that did not have the student's existing records right now and the student wasn't part of their district upon application of a student wanting to transfer into that district?

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Speaker 686 4:10:52

Is that just their disciplinary records? Correct. Yeah.

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Representative RJ Hawk Unverified 4:10:55

So any disciplinary records that they may have in that school, you know, and what it would allow for is if, let's say, my child were to leave Bryant and go to a school, let's say Benton, for example, if there's a certain program that he or she may need to be involved in, the school district could look at that disciplinary record and say, okay, these are what we can place them in, this is what we can provide to

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 4:11:24

help serve that student. So if, if a student, this is really broad and encompassing because it includes private schools as well as public schools, the district of residence for that school student. So, so for instance, if a school is going to a, I don't know, private school, a Catholic school that has really high stringent disciplinary protocols and they were disciplined then their local public school district if they wanted to transfer out of that particular private school could reject them from going back to their home district of residence based off the discipline So, Senator Dodson,

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Speaker 688 4:12:13

in what you're saying, I don't think that that is something that at a public school that we would expel for. So, we understand that, especially at a religious school, sometimes students are expelled for doing things that don't align with their mission. The type of things that we're talking about here are things like bringing a weapon to school, selling drugs, sexual assault. So those are the types of things that we feel this is a safety issue. And if I can just say one thing that I don't know that Representative Hawk covered right now, and I've said this before because it was in the school choice bill, and I think that's why Senator English had asked that. When a student is recommended for expulsion by me as the superintendent, I do not have the authority to expel them. So my principals, they go through an investigation, they come to me, we sit down, we meet, they show me all their investigative materials, I look at all the witness statements, and then I make a determination that this is an offense that I believe the student should be expelled for. So at that time, I provide their parent with a letter stating my recommendation for expulsion. It also tells them that if they want to have a hearing before our board, it gives them a date that they need to request that. They have that right. It goes through all of that information. The problem that we are seeing is that we are having students to leave the district before that hearing happens before a board. So it's not always just a neighboring school. It may be a neighboring school, and they come to me and ask for a board-to-board transfer. But because that board has not acted, we're in kind of a gray area. We're not sure what we can say and what we haven't. Because technically, the student's not been expelled, again, because I don't have the authority. So that's the issue, is that we have kids that are sometimes leaving before that. They have that hearing before the board. And in one instance, we had a student that Representative Hawke talked about that came from an entirely different part of the state. They came from the northern part of the state, were sent to live with a family member because they had assaulted, severely assaulted a staff member. I know we talk about in your bill about law enforcement, you know, telling things to the school district. But in that case, Senator Dotson, that sheriff's office or city police department, whomever it was, they would not have known to have reached out to Bryant

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Speaker 680 4:14:57

because they didn't have any idea that the student had come to Bryant and enrolled there.

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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 4:15:03

So is that type of information not shareable from one district to another district as far as criminal activity I'm talking about? Not necessarily the expulsion or the intent to expel the proceedings that you're going through. Those, like, it seems like you're taking a broad-based approach to a very specific problem, which is criminal activity. And that criminal activity seems to be, at least to me anyway, more narrowly defined. Obviously, we don't want somebody who is a danger or a threat or is fleeing prosecution going somewhere else and becoming a problem somewhere else because of that, because they can get away with it with just a clean slate at the new place. But when it comes to this particular piece of legislation, the scenario I laid out, you could apply that. and maybe you wouldn't personally as a superintendent, but out of 240-some-odd public school districts in the state and other private schools and various other ones, they could apply a different standard. And then, I mean, I don't know of anywhere else that you are deemed guilty until you're convicted with penalties that could apply to you. So the intent to expel, I mean, that's kind of like being charged with a crime, but you're actually not convicted. But to have that tag along behind you wherever you go, I don't know, it seems a little extreme to me.

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Speaker 693 4:16:44

Well, I hear what you're saying, Senator

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Speaker 688 4:16:48

Dodson, but again, let me give an example. So if there was a sexual assault that had taken place, if that student came to enroll at Brown, or let's say this, let's say that that student, the parents dropped that child to homeschool because they did not want them to be expelled. Let's say this happens this time of the year right now, because I'm also trying to explain to you about the private as well as the public, so my analogy. If there were a sexual assault were to happen at Bryant, and I gave that letter, the parents homeschooled them. When they fill out that homeschool paperwork, we are not going to continue through with the expulsion hearing because they're no longer our student. If that student goes to, say, Little Rock Christian over the summer and says, we would like to enroll, I have recommended them for expulsion for something that we think is serious enough. And if I were the administrators and staff at Little Rock Christian, I would want to know that, right? Just, it's not that we can't take them. It's so that we have the information, and if necessary, there's a safety plan and we can keep our kids safe. In that situation, where we are right now, Senator Dodson, is we do not feel like we can say, give that information because of student records, okay? Again, because if they've been expelled, then I can say, like if they've asked for a board hearing. And what you were saying about, you know, them not getting the due process, they have due process. Once they are given that letter by the superintendent, it is a law. This is not up to district discretion. They get to go before that board. They ask for a hearing. They can call witnesses. They can be, they actually can be represented by an attorney. I've had that happen before at expulsion hearings. So unless they're concerned about what that outcome is going to be, and I get it. As a parent, you want to get your kid in wherever. But the current law is if they've been expelled for, you know, one of those reasons, then we don't have to take them. And I feel like that parents have kind of figured that out, and they're skirting the system. And again, we want to educate all kids. I have actually accepted students that were going to be expelled. It was a local student. It was a smaller district. The superintendent called me, got permission from the parents, Talked to me about the situation. It is not an offense that we would have expelled for at Bryant. I sat down with the parents and with that student. We discussed it. The students, this was probably in the fall. That student's been doing fine, and there have been no issues. So it's not that we can't take them. It's that we feel it's very important that we have that information. Because what we don't want to have happen is, So this has been an issue at another district. They come and roll with us, and because that district doesn't feel comfortable in giving us that information, they don't feel like they have cover for that. We don't want anything bad to happen to a

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Senator Jane English Unverified 4:20:16

student. So that's the purpose. Thank you. Are there other

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 4:20:26

questions from the committee? Senator Flowers? Thank you. I didn't hear the beginning of the discussion on this bill, but, you know, it came to my mind when we were talking about expulsions and for the type of behavior or activity that's displayed, sexual assault, physical assaults. It seems like that would be something that either a delinquency charge is filed in juvenile court on that child, or either a family in need of services petition is referred to juvenile court. And in that arena, it seems like the judge would have more opportunity to restrict or to say what the student can or cannot do in terms of the jurisdiction of the court, transferring even to another school.

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Speaker 687 4:21:29

Would you agree with that? I'm talking to you. I

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Speaker 688 4:21:37

think in a lot of cases that may be the case, Senator Flowers, but in the instance where the student came to live with another family member and because the courts are a little bit delayed and when, you know, the students come before them, there just could be some time. I agree with you that there should be charges that have been filed in the county where it happened, but it's just that sometimes that appearance is delayed.

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 4:22:02

Well, my experience has been as soon as activity or behaviors are exhibited, like I heard you present, the court automatically gets that kid. When they get a fence petition, that child is brought in there generally that day, particularly on a delinquency petition, they're brought in that day. sometimes they are even retained in custody of the court put in juvenile detention and the judge can make temporary orders that intake officer is going to give them a sheet of paper with all these conditions of release if they are released so I'm not sure that I would want to see this going on a kid's record before there is some adjudication when we're talking about serious behavior that harms people I don't get that I mean it seems like there is a and should be some kind of interrelationship between that school district in the juvenile court and over the years recent years I've seen that more pronounced schools are definitely using that juvenile court for shipping their kids off for I've seen it for little as a throwing a little eraser pencil trimmer not a big one one these little bitty ones across the room and a kid gets put in detention so I this to me is really harsh and I think that a child and a family needs to have the benefit of some court adjudication not just what the school board decides if I may senator

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Speaker 695 4:24:10

flowers I I think that all we're asking is that so

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Representative RJ Hawk Unverified 4:24:15

in your examples throwing an eraser things like that the parents that came to me about this right um in this situation that we that i outlined at the beginning uh there was a a young man that assaulted somebody um in the northeastern part of the state before there was an expulsion hearing right there there was he went to the principal's office there was a disciplinary record on on hand his parents transferred him out of the school district and that school district then they dissolved the expulsion hearing so there was never an expulsion hearing and so at that point he went to go live with another family member in Bryant and from my understanding it was the school district tried to reach out to the previous school to say was there anything disciplinary wise that we need to be notified about to to appropriate this kid and they never responded. And so the reasoning for the bill, and once parents found out about this, they were very upset because you had somebody that was assaulting kids and teachers in another school district. Now their kids are in danger because no information was ever passed

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 4:25:28

along. Well, was the court invoked at all, the juvenile court, because they would have had the right or the authority to retain that child in that jurisdiction, even in that school boundary. From my understanding it was well after the fact that the courts

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Representative RJ Hawk Unverified 4:25:46

got involved. It should have been immediately. And I agree with you, but in this situation it wasn't, it was well after the fact, and so this child had, the school that he transferred from yes it was their fault correct yes ma'am but

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 4:26:07

because there is a remedy under the law through the juvenile code to address that yes ma'am school districts have been increasingly sending kids to juvenile court not just for delinquent behavior criminal type stuff but also for these offenses that are not criminal and they take them immediately they will pick up a child law enforcement picks up a child takes them down to the court and they're confronted with the intake officer who was going to recommend their detention or some release they even have those electronic monitors on these kids so I don't see the need for this it It seems like the school district is shirking their responsibility by not using what's available in our law already, which is the juvenile court. I

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Representative RJ Hawk Unverified 4:27:09

would say, and that's on the serious offense, right? Even for minor offenses. So if my child, who's currently in the school district, if I find out that the school district has somebody that's coming in and they fight all the time and they're causing it, that's not a

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Speaker 700 4:27:24

serious offense. But if I find that out as a parent, I'm not going to be happy. It's a battery. That's serious. But kids fight in school all the time. Well, they do

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 4:27:36

it all the time. That doesn't make it not an offense. But

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Representative RJ Hawk Unverified 4:27:40

if we could put it into a disciplinary record, so where it transfers, so that let's say they leave Bryant and go to Little Rock Central or go to Conway, at least the school knows the placement they need to put that kid in if there's special programs, if there's things of that nature that they need to help that child out with, at least there's a disciplinary record that they can look at and say, okay, he's got a pattern in this. We have programs

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 4:28:05

to help him out or her. And what I have found in the past is that you might have a kid acting out like that, but I've found that they haven't been properly evaluated for disabilities. It's a lot of things that go into this. We just can't start putting all these laws in place and just willy-nilly doing stuff when we already have tools. I just don't think

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Representative RJ Hawk Unverified 4:28:32

those tools are being used properly. That's on the school's part. And that's why we're codifying this to say that that disciplinary

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 4:28:40

record would have to. Well, I think it's wrong to put on a kid's back and on their record something that has not been adjudicated, fully adjudicated. And for a school to use the excuse, well, we didn't do that, That's only in the school. I mean, I saw so many fans' cases of being sent to juvenile courts. It's unreal.

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Speaker 702 4:29:02

And I think it's two different issues as far

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Speaker 688 4:29:07

as the school side and the juvenile side, Senator Flowers. So we, many times, we will follow through with an expulsion, and the student may not have

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Speaker 702 4:29:17

appeared as far as had their trial before the juvenile judge. don't have to

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 4:29:23

have a trial they have pre-trial issues that the judge the juvenile court judge decides and I'm telling you on that day when a kid is referred to juvenile that intake officer can see that child they can either go to the school have the child placed under detention they can put a monitor on them they can do a whole bunch of things and the courts in the orders can prohibit or restrain a child from from going back to that school or any school or tell them to take since now we're gonna have the juvenile court the detention center being a school district I mean it's so many things that are in the law already plus what we're doing up here this session that would would take care of these issues that you're bringing forward to me and and that based on my experience as a lawyer working with these juveniles and parents and families and schools so I I don't see the need for this I see the need for schools to be more proactive in using the tools that are already available

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 4:30:48

I are there other questions oh senator Davis thank you madam chair will you you may have said it but will you remind me the process if if a student leaves a school district pending expulsion homeschools and then enrolls in another school what follows what does the receiving school

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Speaker 688 4:31:03

district receive on that student? So if the expulsion had not been acted on Senator Davis that would

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 4:31:14

not be on their record. So they see, but they do see beyond just the homeschool, like they can see

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Speaker 688 4:31:20

where the student came from even before school. They could see that they were they were at right public schools, they enrolled to homeschool on 4-12 and you know they would be able to have that information, yes. And by law,

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 4:31:33

are you allowed to share with them that there was a pending

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Speaker 688 4:31:38

expulsion and that's why that student? It is gray area, Senator Davis, and that's what we're trying to do here is, so it allows the district where the incident happened to be able to say, you know, and again, the receiving district can make a decision, but to say there had been an expulsion letter that was given the parents chose not to follow through with the board hearing which again is their due process this would allow us to make that statement and then the receiving district you know would determine that but at this point everyone's afraid to give that information because it's not an expulsion and everybody's worried about you know getting sued and so that's what we're trying to do okay thank

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Senator Breanne Davis Unverified 4:32:25

you I was trying to remember from my time on school board what we did I mean I I do I think this bill is needed I think I mean we had the same issues years ago even with teachers they would have inappropriate relationships with students and then get a new job and quit and there was no documentation on their file and the school district where the teacher left did not feel like they were able to share information on that employee and so you had a predator hopping school districts, and every time he or she got in trouble would just go to a new place. I think it's important to have transparency both from the staffing side and also from the student side just so schools understand. I mean, I don't think we should be hiding things. I think it's an important bill. Thank you. Are there other questions

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Speaker 371 4:33:11

from the committee? Thank you. Are you

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Speaker 695 4:33:16

for you to close yes ma'am look at the end of the day i

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Representative RJ Hawk Unverified 4:33:20

think this is just a safety bill this is something parents are asking for uh and we just want to we always talk about safety in the legislature with whether it be you know gun safety or metal detectors this is a simple bill that we can keep our kids safe and give information about kids that are coming and going with the transfers into our school districts and with that i would appreciate a good vote what is the will of the Committee? Motion. Do I hear a

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Senator Jane English Unverified 4:33:52

second? Second. Second. Okay. Is there any discussion on the

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Senator Stephanie Flowers Unverified 4:33:55

motion? Senator Flowers? You know I just think this is too harsh and I think it just overlooks the fact that we have tools available in our law now that addresses this. And if there's been some criminal conduct, we got courts. Schools make referrals either for fines or for delinquent activity and you know just to put something on somebody's record some kids record and send it to another school even though it hadn't been adjudicated by the board that to me is a way of trying to get around what the school's responsibility is if a teacher has been harmed you can still go to court you can still go to the prosecutor's office or the law enforcement and file a complaint and that teacher will come up in the court same thing with the child so and even if a child transfers that doesn't mean that the act didn't happen you can still send the fans report or complaint a petition you can still file a delinquency petition so I can't agree with this I think it's kind of harsh I hear a motion in

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Senator Jane English Unverified 4:35:36

a second all in favor all opposed obviously the nose habit thank you thank you okay ladies and gentlemen we are finished we will meet at 8 o'clock on Wednesday morning to complete what we haven't finished and thank you very much.

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Agenda

Call to Order

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SB436 A. Clark TO AMEND THE ABILITY OF A STUDENT WHO TRANSFERS UNDER THE PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE ACT OF 2015 TO PARTICIPATE IN AN EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITY.

SB438 A. Clark TO PERMANENTLY BAN FROM COACHING A COACH OR AN ATHLETICS PERSONNEL MEMBER WHO RECRUITS A STUDENT.

SB482 K. Hammer TO REPEAL THE ARKANSAS OPPORTUNITY PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE ACT; TO AMEND THE LAW RELATING TO TRANSFERS OF STUDENTS BETWEEN PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS; AND TO AMEND THE PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE ACT OF 2015.

SB528 Gilmore TO ADDRESS THE POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE OFFICE OF SKILLS DEVELOPMENT AND THE CAREER EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT BOARD RELATED TO SECONDARY TECHNICAL CENTERS.

HB1684 McAlindon TO CREATE THE PARENTS AND TEACHERS HELPING STUDENTS SUCCEED (PATHS) ACT.

HB1370 J. Mayberry CONCERNING MAKING UP MISSED SCHOOL DAYS; AND TO REQUIRE A PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT TO INCLUDE ADDITIONAL DAYS OR HOURS, AS APPLICABLE, IN ITS SCHOOL CALENDAR FOR THE PURPOSE OF MAKING UP MISSED SCHOOL DAYS.

SB604 B. Davis TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE ARKANSAS CODE REGARDING THE COURSE CHOICE PROGRAM.

SB607 Crowell TO ESTABLISH THE REQUIREMENTS FOR A PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT THAT INITIATES AND MAINTAINS A FOUR-DAY SCHOOL WEEK; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY.

3:12:36

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HB1495 Hawk CONCERNING THE TRANSFER OF A STUDENT'S PERMANENT SCHOOL RECORD.

4:07:04

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HB1646 McGrew TO REQUIRE CERTAIN MATERIALS TO BE STORED IN LOCKED COMPARTMENTS WITHIN A DESIGNATED AREA.

HB1810 Joey Carr TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE ARKANSAS CODE CONCERNING THE ARKANSAS SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND AND THE ARKANSAS SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY.

1:59:54

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HB1812 Gramlich TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT; TO CREATE AN EXCEPTION TO ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS FOR A STUDENT WHO TAKES A GED TEST; AND TO AMEND THE SCORE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE GED TEST.

HB1833 M. Shepherd TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE ADMISSIONS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS COLLEGE OF MEDICINE.