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Alabama Department of Education asks committee to approve College Board testing and principal-mentoring contracts; chair places holds for clarification
Summary
The state Department of Education presented multiple contracts including a sole‑source College Board agreement for PSAT/AP testing and a $6.7 million contract for principal mentoring under the Principals Mentoring Act. Committee chair held both contracts to seek further detail on cost and stipend correlations.
The Alabama Department of Education asked the Contract Review Committee to approve several contracts, including a sole‑source agreement with the College Board for PSAT and Advanced Placement (AP) testing services and a $6.7 million contract with the Council for Leaders in Alabama Schools to implement a principal mentoring program required by statute.
Tina Hammonds of the Department of Education told the committee the College Board contract covers administration of proprietary PSAT and AP exams, fee reductions for eligible students, and direct billing for public-school students. "For fee‑reduced public high school students, it’ll be $37 per exam; we are going to pay $53 for it," Hammonds said. For standard‑fee AP exams the state will pay $90 per exam and the PSAT would be paid at $11.90 per exam, she said.
Chairman Garrett said he would hold the College Board contract to better understand why the department cannot provide the services in‑house or how local school districts might handle parts of the work. He later also asked to hold the $6.7 million mentoring contract to get more detail on the breakdown of that amount and how it correlates with stipends that were part of recent legislative debate.
Hammonds described the principal mentoring contract as an implementation vehicle for the Principals Mentoring Act. "It is directly driven from the bill with the different pieces that are implemented from year to year," she told the committee, adding the contract provides principal mentoring, training sessions and site visits to support retention and leadership development.
Hammonds also described a sole‑source request for the Alabama Association of School Resource Officers to provide nationally certified SRO (school resource officer) training under federal funds and multiple RFPed procurements including work with the Southern Regional Education Board on career‑technical teacher training.
The transcript records no final committee vote on the held contracts. The chair requested written detail and follow‑up from the department on the College Board pricing justification and on the mentoring contract’s funding breakdown before bringing the matters back to the committee.
