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Recently, VASCD submitted a position letter on cut scores as well as recommendations to the Joint Subcommittee on Elementary and Secondary Education Funding.
Click HERE to review our position letter to VBOE regarding cut scores.
Below are the recommendations submitted to the Joint Subcommittee on Elementary and Secondary Education Funding.
1. Removal of the support cap (Recommendation 4) and the Linear Weighted Average (Recommendation 6). The arbitrary cap implemented during the Great Recession disproportionately limits local capacity to serve students with special needs, at-risk students, and English learners. Positions such as mental health specialists, instructional assistants, and other classroom support staff are a cost-effective way to put caring adults in the lives of students with a high level of needs, but the Support Cap arbitrarily excludes the actual cost of educating challenged populations. Like the Support Cap, the LWA was implemented in the early 1990’s during a major budget deficit as a cost saving measure. Since that time, the LWA’s impact has grown in magnitude to further water-down prevailing salaries used in the SOQ estimates. Today, the LWA clearly contributes to a dramatic underestimate of actual prevailing salaries, contributing to inequities in competitive pay and vacancy rates across the state. JLARC has repeatedly recommended eliminating this distorting element of our funding formula since 2001.
2. Student-weighted add-on for students with disabilities (Policy Options 4 or 5). Virginia has had decades of reports from commissions, including four major JLARC reports in 1988, 2001, 2020 and 2023, indicating our staffing ratios and funding for students with disabilities is far from adequate. Unfortunately, although these reports have provided reasonable options to correct for this inadequacy, they all recommend further study of the issue. With the state funding just 1/9th of the recommended level of special education aides and only 2/3rds of the needed special education teachers, it is abundantly clear that we are not in the ballpark of adequate support for our students with disabilities. Although switching to a completely new student weighted-model as proposed in Policy Option 4 of the report may not be feasible in the short term, providing an add-on for special education students similar to what is proposed in Policy Option 5 is a reasonable approach and could be built into a biennial budget in the near-term. There remain a handful of low- and no-cost reforms for special education policy from the 2020 JLARC report recommendations, but none of these will suffice for the gaping need in special education classrooms throughout the state for additional staffing. It’s clear that our special education staff are overwhelmed and under-resourced, and Virginia must improve staffing ratios if we are to change this trajectory. We view an additional $480 million add-on annually for special education students, as estimated in Policy Option 5, as a reasonable and conservative initial step to more adequately fund services for these students.
3. Provide SOQ support to essential and existing positions that divisions bear the full cost of currently (Recommendation 1). Local school divisions need the fiscal support from the state to implement the Standards of Quality, and the subcommittee's support for funding the requirements will provide a tremendous relief and allow localities to shift funds to other areas of need.
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