Board reviews major budget requests and new governor‑led ‘turnaround’ school initiative

Department budget staff presented the board with the fiscal priorities the department will pursue in the next state budget cycle. The biggest single request is for adjustments to the foundation program that would increase the staffing units available to districts (teachers, assistant principals, counselors) and to expand targeted line items for special education, school safety, and other initiatives.

Highlights presented: - Foundation staffing and divisors: staff described a model that would re‑set the divisors used to generate teacher units for grades 4–6 (districts have told the department that class sizes in those grades frequently exceed other grade bands) and proposals to add roughly 4,063 teacher units under a fully funded scenario. Department presenters cautioned the board that the full ask substantially exceeds likely appropriations and that hiring that many certified staff next year would be operationally difficult. - Assistant principals and counseling: the package would provide funding so that any school with 250 or more students earns at least one assistant principal; the department said the change would create several hundred additional administrative units. Staff also proposed increasing guidance counselor staffing and changing the ADM factor for counselors to generate more units. - Special education stipends and supplemental funding: staff reiterated a large request for a statewide special‑education teacher incentive (a stipend program) and described a separate supplemental grant process to reimburse districts for high‑cost individual placements; the department said supplemental requests must comply with federal maintenance‑of‑effort rules. - Transportation and other operational supplements: staff sought near‑full funding of transportation, noting an historical funding percentage (the briefing used prior‑year funding as a baseline) and floated approaches for increased mileage funding and other operational offsets.

The presentation included an update on a governor‑announced “turnaround” initiative that earlier in the day had been described as $10 million in one‑time state funds targeted to 15 persistently low‑performing elementary schools. Department staff said the governor’s office and the department selected those schools by matrix (persistence, low performance) and will work with each school to develop place‑based plans. The turnarounds will include extra personnel, wraparound family services and targeted supports; some portion of the funds ($5 million) was earmarked for auxiliary teachers for classroom support. The department described the initiative as a pilot and said it will report back to the board about specific uses and outcomes.

Board members asked for more detail on how the department would phase staffing increases and noted tradeoffs between asking for large increases and the state’s ability to hire qualified personnel quickly.

Why it matters: the department’s requested changes would affect class sizes, counselor availability, school leadership capacity and targeted supports for low‑performing schools. The board will review the request during its budget cycle and decide which items to prioritize for the legislative appropriation process.

What’s next: department staff will refine the line‑item language (board members asked that the school‑safety request be presented as a distinct line item) and return draft appropriation language for board action in the coming month.