Minutes 02-12-2019 Schools - Laserfiche WebLink

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