State board reviews online-education bills, endorses small-school funding formula and other measures

The Utah State Board of Education on Feb. 27 reviewed several bills affecting online learning and school finance and voted to back a new small-school funding formula and two other education measures.

The board discussed three statewide online education program (SOEP) bills and raised questions about procurement language and program structure before taking votes later in the session. Board members then voted to support House Bill 396, the small-school district scale-of-operations formula; House Bill 537, Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind amendments; and Senate Bill 39, the education testing amendment.

The board meeting drew sustained discussion of SOEP-related legislation. Deputy Superintendent of Policy Elise briefed the board on three measures the board staff had been asked to review: SB137 (Course Choice Empowerment amendments), SB35 (Statewide Online Education Program modifications) and HB246 (Statewide Online Education Program amendments). Elise flagged a substitution in SB137 that adds a “neutrality and integrity in educational software procurement” section. Quoting the draft language read during the meeting, Elise said the provision would require that “an educational entity may not express or imply preferences for specific software licensing models or software products,” and staff were uncertain how broadly that would apply to board members or USBE staff.

Quinn Kellis, lead administrator for the statewide online education program at USBE, described a significant change in the SB137 substitute: it removes homeschool students from a private-school–stand-alone manager construct and keeps homeschool students in the SOEP while establishing private school programs under a separate contracted program manager. Kellis said the substitute “extracts homeschool students out of the original bill” (as…