STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING REPORT- MARCH 2010

By: Stuart Bennett | March 12, 2010, 5:17 pm

The March Meeting of the Georgia Board of education was relatively quiet compared to last month’s bit of excitement over testing erasures, however, the board did have a follow up presentation form the Governor’s office of Student Achievement and we will discuss that later in this report.  First, let’s take a look at the work of the board committees. The Rules committee heard presentations on several rule  revisions that began with two amendments  to  the State-funded k-8 Subjects and 9-12 Courses for Students Entering Ninth Grade Prior to 2008(Rule 160-4-2-.03)  and to State-Funded k-8 Subjects and 9-12 Courses for Students Entering Ninth Grade in 2008 and Subsequent Years(Rule 160-4-2-.03).  Pam Smith Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the Department informed the board members that these rules included 782 state funded courses that include: 449 CTAE, 156 Science, 69 English Language Arts, 13 math, 16 Social Studies, and 19 Foreign Language courses. The rules committee also recommended revisions to the entire series of the State Board of Education Rules 160-4-7-.03 Child Find, 160-4-7-.04 Evaluations and Reevaluations, 160-4-7-.05 Eligibility Determination and Categories of Eligibility of Eligibility, 160-4-7-.07 Least Restrictive Environment, 160-4-7-.09 Procedural Safeguards, 160-4-7-.12 Dispute Resolution, 160-4-7-.18 Grants for Services, and 160-4-7-.19 Services for Agency Placed Students. These revisions were required as the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) issued new federal regulations to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Georgia must revise their rules to mirror these federal regulations by May, 2010. Track the changes to these rules at this link by clicking on Item #3 under the rules committee agenda.  These rule revisions were adopted by the board in Thursday’s meeting.

The Rules Committee also placed 14 system waivers on the consent agenda this month granting flexibility to state regulations for 21 school systems on 16 separate rules.  The complete listing of these waivers and systems that received waivers may be viewed at www.gadoe.org .  It seems the state board is aware of the pressures placed on school systems by the current budget crisis and demonstrated this understanding during a 45 minute discussion on class size waivers.  After their lengthy discussion they made a public commitment that if the legislature failed to take action this session on granting class size relief, they would take the necessary actions  to extend the blanket waivers they granted this year for (two) additional students in a class to the 2010-2011 academic year.  It is refreshing to hear the board offer their support to systems that have to make the hard decisions that must be made to address their budget shortfalls.

The Budget committee worked form a very light agenda and had only three items for the consent agenda;  two contract extensions and an approval of the Smokey Powell Assistive Technology Center at the Georgia School for the Deaf’s strategic plan.   The Charter committee approved seven charters for; Fulton Sunshine Academy, Intown academy, KIPP Vision, Leadership Prepatory Academy, Main Street Academy, Newton College and Career Academy, and The Kindezi School . They denied the charter for the West Chatham Preparatory Academy.

During their monthly work session, the state board heard a series of presentations, most notably an update from the Director of the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement on last month’s controversial assessment accountability (erasure) report.  Many questions were asked by the board members centered around gaining a better understanding of how these “quantification” of wrong to right changes indicated that there was cheating on the state tests.

During the Thursday meeting the board heard a very transparent and sobering budget presentation from Deputy Superintendent and Chief Financial Officer, Scott Austensen.  He presented three budget scenarios ranging from the Governor’s recommendation with a 12% or 839 million dollars in QBE reductions to a likely scenario that raises those reductions to include the 839 million dollars the governor projected plus 456 million in additional austerity cuts generated by the recent drop in revenues to total of 1.5 billion dollars or an 18.5% reduction in QBE funds over last year.  In Austensen’s third scenario he labeled the “downside likely projection” included the previously aforementioned cuts with an additional 150 million in ARRA funds (if moved to 2010S) for a total of (-20%) or 1.5 billion dollars. This presentation demonstrates the cost saving generated by elevating class size and 10 days of teacher furloughs and makes a very sobering point that even with these measures it will not balance the budget. View the entire presentation by following this link.