How About We Go All Day?

As I mentioned last week, if the legislature can quickly dispose of the Supplemental State Aid question at the onset of the legislative session, they can move on to other important issues. I might suggest a good place to start would be in changing the funding formula for the statewide voluntary preschool program. While Hudson is merely entering our third year participating in the statewide voluntary preschool program, we can already see huge benefits from having this programming right here on site. Designed as an inclusive program, our preschool serves special education students right alongside regular education students. This is indeed the epitome of serving students in their least restrictive environment! In the intervening [three] years we have tweaked our staffing of the program and just this year hired an additional instructor. But this was not easy and based on the current funding model will be an ongoing challenge. Because of the way funding is allocated it requires very careful staffing considerations [with per pupil ratios] that limit the amount of instructional time available for our students. 

One of the key elements required in program design is to ensure at least ten hours of instruction a week. If it doesn't sound like very much to you, I would agree. Maybe it would help if I told you our preschool program provided twelve hours of instruction! Does that make you feel a bit better? Perhaps not. To give you a comparison, our regular K-12 instructional program schedules 33.16 hours of instruction per week (when subtracting non-instructional time like lunch). In actuality, the instructional calendar is more a function of the funding model than what is best practice.

It's really quite simple. Preschool students are weighted at .5 the full equivalency rate. Our per pupil cost this year for preschool students is $3,522.50. This makes our ideal scenario of having an all day preschool program a very difficult hill to climb. Here's why an all day preschool program makes sense.

Scholarly research tells us schools can leverage the benefits in a way that pay dividends later in the child's academic development. Because of the fact a child's brain is 90% developed by the age of five (Iowa Department of Education Fact Sheet), it makes clear that early intervention makes tremendous difference. Prior to preschool programming, struggling students were typically identified in need of special education services and planned educational interventions toward the end of kindergarten. This was done only after following a rigorous process of problem solving, intervention, and finally implementation. Consider the impact of early identification and rigorous intervention! Furthermore, our own research here in Hudson suggests students who are identified early in their academic careers are more likely to be 'aged out' of special education programming. Quite simply stated, this means a student who is in a special education program during their primary years may very well not be in a special education program by the time they get to junior high. And keep in mind, the benefits of preschool programming aren't limited to just those students who may be eligible for special education. According to a 2017 study by the Brooking Institute and the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy, (Phillips, D. A., Lipsey, M. W., Dodge, K. A., Haskins, R., Bassok, D., Burchinal, M. R., Duncan, G. J., Dynarski, M., Magnuson, K. A., & Weiland, C.) for every dollar invested in early learning programs, there is a return on investment between $7-$10.

(All Day Preschool, August 10, 2018)

We would support and advocate for all day everyday preschool. While there is no doubt this would require a greater infusion of capital, the research is clear the investment is well worth the dividends it would pay. For certain this would be a heavy lift financially but it can be done. I can remember a time when starting my career we were having a similar conversation about kindergarten. We got that done, and we can do this too!

Supplemental State Aid: What is it and Why it's Important

We are getting to the time of year when the Board of Directors identifies priorities for the upcoming legislative session. While the legislative session isn't set to begin until January of 2020, now is the time when we will begin to advocate with our legislators prior to their arrival in Des Moines. In fact, the board is scheduled to meet with local legislators at our October 21st board meeting. If you can fit it into you schedule, we would love to see you there! Your school board has previously identified their priorities at their regular meeting held on July 15th. Topping the list was timely and adequate supplemental state aid with a formula driven method if it is not set within the statutory deadline.

Supplemental state aid is the percentage by which the state cost per pupil grows annually. The state cost per pupil increase for the year we are currently in was 2.06%, which equates to an increase of $139 (per pupil). That makes Hudson's district cost per pupil $7,045 for this current school year. In order to get to our base budget number, or what we refer to as the regular program district cost we simply multiply the cost per pupil by the number of pupils. It's a relatively straight forward calculation most elementary aged students could figure. Part of the challenge with this system though is the other variable in the equation: the number of students you have. In years when enrollment is up, a 2.06% increase can make a positive overall impact. On the other hand, if enrollment is down, the 2.06% can have a negative impact. In Hudson since we're up, that 2.06% made a positive impact and our regular program district cost grew by $188,647.

Now then, because the enrollment in a school district is so, well arbitrary, it makes it very difficult to determine what 'adequate' actually means. Indeed, adequate truly is in the eye of the beholder and can mean different things to different districts depending on where they are located in the state, what operational costs look like, and most importantly what the enrollment trajectory is. Perhaps that is why this has become such a political decision. Nevertheless, this political decision is where the whole system tends to become stuck. Every. Single. Year. Where the governor makes a recommendation on the supplemental state aid amount, the House and Senate both have the final say. What happened last year is what happens in most years: no one agrees and because of this the final decision is delayed. Granted last year was pretty fast, but they still didn't make the decision in the time frame outlined in Iowa law. The governor's original recommendation (by the way) was for 2.3%, and they ultimately ended up at 2.06%. It is somewhat telling, that all three branches of the state government are of the same political party; and they still had difficulty resolving this issue.

It is very important this decision is not delayed. Gone are the days when this was to be decided 18 months in advance! Now, the decision has to be made less than 6 months before the start of the new fiscal year. Actually it's a bit less than that because they have 30 days after the governor makes a recommendation. That puts the calendar at roughly 5 months before the beginning of a new fiscal year, if everything goes according to plan. 

Here's the thing though. It doesn't have to be like this. If we can't come to basic agreement on what adequate supplemental aid truly should be, which has been tested time and again with this annual back and forth debate that consumes the first half of the legislative session, then we should probably do something different. We would support an incentive to finish the job and finish it timely. How about if an agreement can't be reached a mechanism is established to do it automatically? It could be set at a level that encourages civil dialogue and the urgency to bring the issue to resolution. 

Then the legislature can start working on more important issues. How about we talk about some of them next week?