NREAC February 19Th Meeting

NREAC February 19th Meeting:

Attendees: Jimmy Cunningham, Jerry White, David Walrath, Dan Rask, Jules Waber, Jason Bell, Fred Nolan, Jared Bingham, Scott Turney, Ray Patrick, Alison Nys, Robert Mahaffey

ESEA: There is no update on ESEA reauthorization. The Senate has yet to take action, and their chamber is the one that has to take the next step. The biggest area of movement continues to be the ESEA waivers. States are in the middle of pursuing their waiver extensions. In early February, USED shared a letter that gives states the option of a template letter to request the one-year extensions. These waiver requests will be just as bumpy as the initial applications. Our friends at EdWeek have done a great job detailing the trials of pursuing a waiver, rather ESEA, teacher evaluation, or more.

Appropriations: The President will release his FY15 budget proposal on March 4. His budget is expected to include an increase of $56 billion (above the sequester caps, split evenly between defense and non- defense spending). Details on how those increases would be spread between agencies (and their programs) are not yet available.

E-Rate: This week, the FCC will release a Public Notice. This is in follow up to the proposed rule making from late last summer. (Thanks, again, for everyone who submitted comments.) A PN, while open to public comment, is a little different than a traditional NPRM. It is something they use to expand their thinking. The anticipated questions are likely to be far more narrow in scope than the original proposal; that narrowing is not necessarily indicative of what the final rule (changes) will look like. Here’s a summary of our meeting with the FCC last week, where they gave us a heads up of the PN:

The PN is a deep dive on issues related to Priority Two Services, the internal connections component of E-Rate. The questions they are looking to answer all center on an attempt to get a more equitable distribution of dollars into Priority 2. Their top line questions:  How do we structure P2 funds so that there is money for P2 every year? How do we prioritize funds and the applications?  Do we change the current 2 in 5 rule?  Do we look at a student/school/district funding cap?  How do we more effectively deploy P1? How do we incentivize more applicants to use P1 for final mile build out (as an important precursor to P2 services)?  Do we eliminate voice services? Do we adjust the discount matrix for voice services? Do we set an established price for what voice is worth, and that is what you are reimbursed, regardless of cost?  How do we utilize existing state capacity to build transparency? Should E-Rate tackle the work of assistance programs? How do we address the reality that applicants may not be utilizing ERate dollars in the most efficient manner?  Various proposed pilot projects

Take Aways: To the extent that the PN and/or final order do not take serious action on raising the cap permanently, this is an extreme example of rearranging the deck chairs. The idea of a stand-alone pot of funding for P2 (however well intentioned) cannot be sustained in the long run without new resources. Further, given finite funds, at some point it becomes a question of: Are you just rolling over unused P1 funds to P2 (and how is that different than what happens now?) or Are you setting a fixed amount that must be reserved such that it encroaches on the ability to fully fund P1?Any conversation serious about equitable allocations has to recognize that you cannot increase long-term equity without, well, equity (resources!). We have to be wary of getting ahead of ourselves/in our own way….while it is important that this E-Rate modernization include programmatic restructuring, we do not want to position ourselves in such a way that we have supported programmatic changes so far and to the extent that they are moving forward and then we are left without access to additional funds. School Nutrition:  Wellness Plans: This week, the White House will make two announcements related to school nutrition. First, the USDA will be taking action to work on regulations related to local wellness plans. You’ll recall that the 2010 reauthorization of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act included statutory language linking wellness plans. As part of this proposed rule on wellness plans, USDA will be looking at the marketing of competitive foods in schools (think: the picture of Gatorade on the front of the vending machine or the poster featuring dancing ice cream in the cafeteria). Basically, if it can’t be sold at schools, then it shouldn’t be marketed. We will read the regulation when it comes out, provide a summary, and share any related call to action/next steps.  Community Eligibility: The recent successful pilot of Community Eligibility in the school nutrition breakfast program will go national in scope starting in the 2014-15 school year. This program allows school with high percentages of low-income children to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students. It is currently in 10 states: IL, KY, MI, DC, NY, OH, WV, GA, FL, and MD). All schools with 40% or more of their students eligible for free/reduced lunch can take advantage of the community eligibility option. The FRAC website has a good overview of the program.  School Personnel Regulations: USDA released proposed professional standards for state and local school nutrition program personnel. The standards attempt to address suggestions and concerns about grandfathering those already in the system. To that extent, the requirements only apply to hiring/staffing decisions as of July 1 2015. (I will be looking for explicit answers on how promotions are impacted; if someone is in the system but promoted to a higher position, are they grandfathered in, or is that considered a new hire and they are subject to the new standards?)

The requirements for school service personnel (broken into director, manager, and staff levels) are divided into enrollment thresholds: LEAs with l2,499 or fewer students; 2,500 to 9,999 students; 10,000 and 24,999 students; and those enrolling more than 25,000). The enrollment applies to the total count of students served, an important nuance in smaller districts or districts that share food service personnel. One staff member who works in three districts that enroll 2,000 students would fall in the group that enrolls 6,000 students. The proposal includes requirements for state directors of school nutrition. Further detail on the blog.

EPA Regulations: The Environmental Protection Agency is looking to provide regulation related to the identification (and possible removal) of PCB-bearing light ballasts in schools. Light ballasts are the metal frame/anchor that hold florescent lightbulbs in place. This regulation only impacts you if you have buildings that were built prior to 1980 and that have light fixtures that haven’t been replaced. PCBs were found to be carcinogenic, and to the extent that ever-aging light ballasts are more likely to break and leak their PCBs, there is an effort to remove these ballasts from public buildings. AASA is working with the EPA, along with our friends at NSBA and ASBO (school business officials) to move this conversation forward in a manner that allows for the removal of the problematic light ballasts without putting undue burden (costs and administration) on schools. There is no call to action at this point, though there will be once the regulation is released. Stay tuned. IDEA Funding: Nearly 140 House members sent a Dear Colleague letter to President Obama urging him to increase funding for IDEA in his 2015 budget, which will be released on March 4. Beyond this call for increased funding in FY15, the letter also highlights the need to move legislation to fully fund IDEA. While the likelihood of that legislation getting adopted this year or next is close to zero, such legislation becomes an important piece of leverage in the annual appropriations discussions. To the extent that the people signing the letter would sign on to the full funding bill, they should then be voting for/supporting budgets that focus on IDEA funding.

SRS/Forest Counties: There’s an ongoing conversation with states out west about how to handle the application of sequester funds for SRS. No update as to what will transpire, but we are keeping our ears to the ground. As a note, the Farm does not bill include any money for SRS, but it includes funds for PELT.

Seclusion/Restraint: Sen. Harkin introduced his bill last week. He has one Democrat co-sponsor, Chris Murphy of CT. His bill has some improved language around the use of physical restraint in schools as well as whether restraint can be written into an IEP, however, we remain opposed to the bill. First, as a matter of a principle we do not support federal S/R legislation. Second, we strongly oppose new language that would remove the requirement to exhaust administrative remedies in IDEA prior to filing in federal court for the inappropriate use of seclusion or restraint. This could dramatically increase litigation for districts.

Background Checks: The House passed a background check bill in October 2013. Pressure from Republicans, surprisingly, in the Senate to move a background check bill is resulting in renewed interest to pass legislation. There is no funding for this bill. Districts must conduct the background checks in order to receive funds under ESEA. Districts must conduct background checks on all individuals seeking employment in the district or who are employed by the district and have a job duty that results in unsupervised access to students, or is contracted out to provide services for the district and has unsupervised access to students. The following checks would need to be run on all employees: 1) a search of state criminal registry or repository of the state in which the school employee resides, 2) a search of State-based child abuse and neglect registries and databases of the State in which the school employee resides, 3) a FBI finger print check, and 4) a search of the National Sex Offender Registry. These checks must be conducted “periodically,” but the specific frequency is determined by State law or by the school district when no State law exists.

Each potential or current school employee must be provided with the results of the criminal background check and provided the opportunity to appeal in a timely manner. A school district is allowed to share with another school district the results of a school employee’s recently conducted criminal background check if the district is considering hiring the school employee. A school district may not knowingly transfer or facilitate the transfer of any school employee the district knows, or has probable cause to believe, has engaged in sexual misconduct with a student. The Attorney General or State Attorney General may charge reasonable fees for conducting a criminal background check and the school district or State Education Agency may use administrative funds received under ESEA to pay for any reasonable fees for background checks.

Reach out to your Senator ASAP if you think this enactment of this bill would be burdensome for your district. Resources: In the last month, AASA has released a handful of advocacy-related resources, press releases and blog posts that may be of interest to you. We’ve linked to them, here:  Rural Supt Guest Blog in Defense of Common Core: This guest blog post, from a supt in Montana, is a thoughtful analysis of the controversy surrounding the Common Core.  AASA released the 2013 Superintendents Salary and Benefits Study, the second of AASA's studies on superintendent salaries and compensation. The survey was distributed to more than 9,000 superintendents and generated a response rate of more than 25 percent—more than double the rate of the previous year’s study.  School Discipline Law Analysis: AASA released a groundbreaking analysis of the school discipline compendium released last month by the U.S Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice. The compendium included laws and regulations in all 50 states and D.C. relating to school discipline. AASA’s analysis of the compendium explores commonalities in state discipline policies and recent trends in changes made to these laws and regulations. AASA and NSBA Press Release/Joint Statement on Seclusion & Restraint