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Kansas education leaders seek federal waiver to align school-improvement systems
Summary
State Department of Education presented a waiver request asking the U.S. Department of Education to delay federal school identification and exits and extend use of federal funds so Kansas can align federal Title I requirements with its KISA school improvement model.
Kansas Department of Education officials told the State Board of Education on Nov. 13 that they have submitted a waiver request to the U.S. Department of Education intended to align federal Title I identification and funding with the state's KISA school improvement model.
"Our waiver requested three things," said Dr. Renee Nugent, a KSDE official presenting the plan. "We wanted to delay new identification for CSI, TSI, and ATSI schools. We wanted to delay exits of the schools who are already identified, and then we wanted to extend the use of funds for all of these schools..."
Nugent said the proposal aims to reduce duplication and churn in identification and supports by creating a single, integrated system that combines identification, plans, supports and evaluation. She told board members KSDE has engaged identified schools and offered to pilot expanded supports for other schools that may be newly identified.
In response to board questions, Nugent gave numerical context: "There were approximately 149 schools that KLN personnel worked with and of those 17 schools could exit, 23 would have been newly identified, and 95% of those that were identified were identified at some point in a previous cohort as well." KSDE staff emphasized the waiver focuses on Title/ESEA identification and funding alignment, not changes to statewide assessment design.
Several members raised questions about federal "dear colleague" letters cited in presentations and whether assessment opt-outs would be honored; KSDE said parents who opt out would continue to be honored and that board members receive copies of federal correspondence.
KSDE said the waiver is intended to allow Kansas to align federal supports with the state's school-improvement priorities and to continue providing federal improvement funds to schools part of the alignment effort while piloting new interventions.
KSDE said it will notify the board when the federal response to the waiver is received.
