THE EVERETT ADVOCATE–Friday, October 11, 2019 Page 11 STUDENT | FROM PAGE 7 Commission (FBRC), ensuring that the school-funding formula provides adequate and equitable funding to all districts across the state. The bill provides an estimated $1.4 billion in new Chapter 70 aid over and above inflation when fully implemented over the next seven years. The bill modernizes the K-12 education funding and policy landscape in four areas: • Estimates school districts’ employee and retiree health care costs using up to date health insurance trend data collected by the state’s Group Insurance Commission (GIC). • Increases special education enrollment and cost assumptions to more accurately reflect district enrollment. • Increases funding for English Learners (EL) that is differentiated by grade level to reflect the greater resources required to educate our older EL students. • Addresses the needs of districts educating high concentrations of students from low-income households by providing additional funding based on the share of low-income students in each district; districts educating the largest percentage of low-income students will receive an additional increment equal to 100 percent of the base foundation and returning the definition of low-income to 185 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, as opposed to the 133 percent level that has been used in recent years. In addition to implementing the FBRC’s recommended formula changes, the Student Opportunity Act provides additional state financial support in several categories to help public schools and communities deliver a high-quality education to every student. Those fiscal supports include: • Increasing foundation rates for guidance and psychological services in recognition of the growing need for expanded social-emotional support and mental health services. • Committing to fully funding charter school tuition reimbursement, which provides transitional aid to help districts when students leave to attend charter schools, within a three-year timetable. • Expanding over four years the special education circuit breaker, which reimburses districts for extraordinary special education costs, to include transportation costs in addition to instructional cost. • Raising, as the result of a further amendment, the annual cap on Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) spending for construction and renovation by $200 million (from $600 million to 800 million), enabling more projects across the state to be accepted into the MSBA funding pipeline, which reimburses towns and cities for a portion of school building costs. In addition to new funding and other support, the Student Opportunity Act establishes the 21st Century Education Trust Fund to provide districts and school’s access to flexible funding to pursue creative approaches to student learning and district improvement. In order to track and reproduce successful school and district-level innovations and policies, the legislation calls on school districts to develop and make publicly available plans for closing opportunity gaps. These plans will include specific goals and metrics to track success. In addition, the Secretary of Education will collect and publish data on student preparedness in each district for post-graduate success in college and the workforce. Moreover, the Student Opportunity Act establishes a Data Advisory Commission to help improve the use of data at the state, district and school levels to inform strategies that strengthen teaching, learning and resource allocation. Following robust debate on the floor, the Senate adopted several amendments to the Student Opportunity Act related to recovery high schools, MSBA and municiSenior Social set for Nov. 20 I n keeping with Holiday tradition, Mayor Carlo DeMaria and the Council on Aging (COA) have planned the November Senior Social, celebrating a true American holiday, “Thanksgiving.” The social will take place on Wednesday, November 20 at 11:45 a.m. at the Connolly Center. The COA has chosen a catered meal for you to enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner with all the fixings. After dinner you will enjoy dancing to the fabulous sounds of Ray Cavicchio and his band. Tickets are available for purchase November 4 through November 14 in the COA Office at the Connolly Center. For more information please call Dale at 617.394.2323. pal fiscal challenges related to Chapter 70. To ensure that education-funding levels remain adequate, effective and equitable, the legislation also includes forward looking provisions to address additional funding challenges and policy areas. The Student Opportunity Act: • Directs the state’s Department of Revenue (DOR) and Department of Elementary & Secondary Education (DESE) to analyze the method of determining required local contributions in the Chapter 70 school-funding formula for the purpose of improving equity, predictability and accuracy. • Establishes a Rural Schools Commission to investigate the unique challenges facing rural and regional school districts with low and declining enrollment. The Commission will make recommendations for further updates to help impacted districts and communities. On October 7, the Massachusetts House of Representatives referred the Student Opportunity Act to the House Committee on Ways and Means.
12 Publizr Home