Agenda - 03-07-2019 8-a - Minutes

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10 1 Student Support Personnel (School Psychologists, Social Workers, Counselors, and 2 Nurses): It is critical to properly staff public schools with the necessary support structure for the 3 social, emotional, and mental health needs of students. The General Assembly should provide 4 sufficient allotments to meet the nationally recommended staff to student ratios for these 5 positions. 6 7 School Resource Officers: The General Assembly should provide the appropriate funding to 8 have a full-time resource officer in each school. Additional pay, training, and education should 9 be provided for this unique law enforcement position. 10 11 Chair Samuels said CHCCS reviewed this at its retreat today. She said the main areas 12 of focus are calendar flexibility, support staff in general, state construction bonds, teacher 13 retention and recruitment, etc. 14 Chair Stephens OCS has similar issues to CHCCS: calendar flexibility, exams before the 15 holidays, school technology (the state owes them $730 million), fund support personnel, 16 construction, etc. 17 Commissioner Dorosin asked if the districts are going to endorse their own legislative 18 goals or sign on to this list from the School Boards Association. 19 Chair Samuels said CHCCS has its legislative breakfast coming up, and has not passed 20 its legislative agenda yet. 21 Chair Stephens said OCS has not done so either. She said this is the School Board 22 Association's agenda, but it is aligned with the Superintendents, Principals, and Assistant 23 Principals groups as well. She said all educators across the state are of one mind. 24 Commissioner Dorosin said Orange County's draft legislative agenda has 5 school 25 priorities: additional revenue options, bond, lottery for capital needs, calendar flexibility, full 26 funding for ADM growth, increase class size reductions, and full funding for drivers' ed. He said 27 he does not see full funding for driver's education on either of the school boards' lists, and 28 asked if the BOCC should remove this item from its list. 29 James Barrett said he thinks this has been fixed and to take it off the list. 30 Commissioner Dorosin said the paper talked about extra monies sitting in a voucher pot, 31 and it seems that there may be some traction for legislation to stop putting more money into that 32 fund and repurpose it for other uses. He said it is around $18 million. 33 Superintendent Baldwin said it is very important to pay attention to the school funding 34 formula, which is changing right now. She said it has been initially presented as a block grant, 35 but that received push back, and now it is under the school funding formula amendment with a 36 committee working on it as the state level. She said it will mean a shift in funding for local 37 government to support more locally paid teachers and personnel. She said it being presented 38 under the umbrella to flexibility to LEAs; making decisions about your local personnel and 39 whether the local government will pay for them or not. 40 Commissioner Greene asked if a virtual charter school could be explained. 41 James Barrett said it is a for-profit company that offers online classes then collects a per 42 pupil fee from the state. He said these programs do not deliver results, and students are 43 regressing. He said this was a pilot program that has received a multi-year extension. 44 Commissioner Dorosin said these two online charter schools are the lowest performing in 45 the state, and just got extended for four more years. 46 47 4. Other Business 48 Commissioner Marcoplos said he brought up the issue of concussions about 2 years ago, 49 and the following week an OCS football player went into a coma. He asked if there is any 50 continued response or monitoring of the health hazard of football in high school.