Lawmakers on Thursday morning turned away a measure requiring all school districts to adopt bullying policies.

Members of Senate Education deferred SB 104 to the 41st Legislative Day on a 4-3 vote, effectively killing the legislation for a third year in a row. Legislators who voted against the bill said local schools should be given the full authority to address bullying.

“We’re not hard-hearted,” said Sen. Elizabeth Kraus, R-Rapid City, before voting to kill the measure. “We just truly believe it’s a local control issue.”

Sen. Stan Adelstein, R- Rapid City, told the panel that South Dakota has the highest percentage in the nation of students who commit suicide – something he said the bullying legislation would work to counter. He urged lawmakers to endorse the measure, saying it was a “matter of helping children to stay alive.”

ASBSD supported the bill based on a resolution adopted in November by the ASBSD Delegate Assembly. Representatives from local school boards told ASBSD staff to support legislation that requires local school boards to adopt written bullying prevention policies, provided the legislation gives local school boards flexibility

“Everything in the bill as written adheres to the position our school board members have taken,” said ASBSD Director of Legal Services Bill Engberg.

Representatives from other education organizations lined up against the bill, including lobbyists for school administrators, small schools, mid-sized schools, large schools and Rapid City and Sioux Falls. All opposed the measure on the grounds that it went too far into local decision-making.

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• Delayed action of legislation to change how the state counts kindergarten students.
  
• Killed a measure that asked schools to develop bullying policies.
  

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Members of House Education dismissed a plan Wednesday that would have turned the state’s six education service agencies into large school administration units. Lawmakers turned away HB 1093 on a 13-1 vote based mostly on the bill’s intrusion on a local school district’s autonomy.

Rep. Scott Munsterman, R-Brookings, tried to convince lawmakers that the state’s current financial situation means schools need to look for ways to be more efficient.

“I truly believe we have to look alongside of [K-12 funding cuts] for strategic improvements in how we spend our money,” Munsterman said.

According to the proposed law, schools with enrollments below 1,000 would have been assigned to an ESA, which would provide the administrative services of a superintendent, business office and other high-level school administrators. Each ESA would have to serve at least 1,500 students.

ASBSD Executive Director Wayne Lueders testified against the bill, arguing the bill would have a tremendous impact on local control and student achievement. He told lawmakers that research is clear that administrators a great amount of influence on a school and the quality of education students receive.

“The thing we’re going to lose here is the leadership of those administrators,” he said.

Lawmakers said they were supportive of the bill’s goal to save administrative costs. Rep. Mark Venner, R-Pierre, voted against the bill after saying he hopes schools take steps on their own to share administration.

“If we’ve ever had a climate where this kind of vision needs to be put to use, it’s now,” Venner said. “I would just hope that what we’ve talked through today opens a few eyes.”

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Schools with declining enrollment could face an additional financial pinch next year if lawmakers approve HB 1150.

The legislation eliminates a component of the state funding formula that was designed to soften the financial blow of declining enrollment. For districts with shrinking student counts, the state will calculate state aid by using the average enrollment from the two previous years. Enrollment averaging, often termed ‘declining enrollment aid,’ was instituted in a major formula revision in 2007.

According to education department calculations, the move could cost schools $5.1 million.

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A pair of proposed laws will put lawmakers squarely in the middle of what should be taught in history classrooms.

House Bill 1153 seeks to block the South Dakota Board of Education from adopting any history standards that may be developed as part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

More than 40 states, including South Dakota, have already pledged to adopt uniform standards for math and English language arts. The state-led effort, which is backed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, has not announced plans to develop standards for any other subjects.

The effort, sponsored by Rep. Jim Bolin, R-Canton, and Rep. Tim Begalka, R-Clear Lake, goes to great lengths of ensure South Dakota can keep its own history standards. In fact, the law event prohibits the Department of Education from presenting common history standards – if they were ever to be developed – to the State Board of Education.

Another measure - HB 1170 - will impose new requirements that schools teach students about the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, substantive selections from the Federalist Papers, and President George Washington's farewell address. Schools are already required by law to include the U.S. Constitution and South Dakota Constitution in curriculum.

Note from Open Forum: We find it hard to believe these documents aren't already being taught.

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Gov. Dennis Daugaard pledged to repeal the 100-student minimum district size law and now he’ll have to chance to convince lawmakers to deliver on his promise.

A measure to rid the state of its forced consolidation law has been filed in the House of Representatives. House Bill 1091 is sponsored by Rep. Susy Blake, D-Sioux Falls, and Assistant Senate Majority Leader Cory Brown, R-Gettysburg.

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With schools facing tight budgets and the prospect of a $60 million cut, the issue of expanding the use of capital outlay revenue will resurface again in the 2011 Legislative Session.

Lawmakers have already filed two pieces of legislation aimed at extending the capital outlay flexibility schools already have. Two years ago, school boards were granted the authority to use some capital revenue for certain transportation, insurance, energy and utility costs. The budgetary authority is set to expire in 2012.

Senate Bill 111 will provide a two-year extension of the current flexibility, through 2014. The bill’s prime sponsors are Senate Majority Leader Russ Olson, R-Madison, and Rep. Kim Vanneman, R-Ideal.

Senate Bill 92 goes a step further by broadening the budgetary flexibility to allow schools to purchase employee health insurance with capital outlay revenue. The measure also allows schools to use up to 60 percent of the district’s annual capital outlay revenue, up from 45 percent under the previous language, for the purposes specified in the bill. The flexibility would last until 2015. The bill’s prime sponsor is Senate Education Chair Cooper Garnos, R-Presho. 

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Schools with less than 1,000 students would be forced to share top-level administrators if a recently filed measure makes its way through the legislative process.

House Bill 1093 requires the state’s education service agencies to start offering administrative services by July 1, 2014. Each local school district would be assigned to a regional ESA, which would act as the superintendent and business office, and provide other school management services. ESAs would not be allowed to employ principals – local school boards would be allowed to hire the building-level administrators.

The measure also alters the ESA advisory boards, allowing each school board served by the ESA to have a representative on the advisory board.

The measure is sponsored by Rep. Scott Munstermann, R-Brookings, and Sen. Elizabeth Kraus, R-Rapid City. 

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Several pieces of legislation are dropping today. We’ll cover some of them individually, and the rest we’ll get loaded into the Bill Tracker ASAP.

- BA

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A new proposed law will give local school boards control over every school bus that drives through their district.

Under SB 77, any school district that wants to go into another school district to pick-up open-enrolled students must first get permission. The two districts will be required to enter into a transportation agreement, which must be renewed annually.

The measure is the session’s first piece of legislation stemming from one of last session’s most contentious policy issues – the transportation of open-enrolled students.

In 2010, the House passed a measure that would eliminate small school adjustment aid if a student enrolled from a larger to a smaller district. The measure, which was originally introduced to curb what some argued were unreasonable transportation practices, failed on a 6-1 vote in Senate Education. The legislation divided the education community, with representatives from large and small school districts lining-up on opposite sides to testify on the bill.

Sen. Shantel Krebs, R-Renner, and House Education Chair Tom Bruner, R-Nisland, are the two prime sponsors.

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Schools that don’t offer full-day kindergarten will lose state aid next year, according to legislation filed today in the South Dakota Senate.

Currently schools receive the full per-student allocation for every kindergarten student enrolled, regardless of whether the district offers a full or part-time kindergarten program. If passed, SB 72 will establish a minimum number of hours – 875, the same number of hours required for grades 1-3 – that kindergarten programs must operate in order to receive full funding. Less student contact time means the district receives a prorated share of the per-student allocation.

Likely to be pitched as a cost-saving move in a tight budget year, the proposal could mean further sudden reductions in state aid for districts that have yet to adopt an all-day, every-day approach to kindergarten. For example, if a district had 100 students enrolled in half-day kindergarten, the passage of SB 72 would result in a loss of more than $200,000 next year in addition to the proposed 10 percent cut to the per-student allocation.

Sen. Deb Peters, R-Hartford, and Rep. Jacqueline Sly, R-Rapid City, are the bill’s two primary backers.

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Newly elected Governor Dennis Daugaard has proposed a $60 million cut to K-12 education on his way to trimming $127 million from the FY12 budget and eliminating the state’s structural deficit in one sweeping action.

The governor’s will impact every area of state government by at least 10 percent, but no agency or department takes a bigger hit than K-12 schools. The proposed $480 cut to the per-student allocation translates to a $60 million cut to schools when local property taxes are included.

In justifying his cuts to schools, Gov. Daugaard showed a stacked-bar graph that suggested the state’s schools spend more than $8,800 per-student. The chart, which included capital outlay and special education revenue, concluded that the $480 cut is just more than 5 percent – essentially the same amount that former Gov. Mike Rounds proposed in December.

The governor, professing his belief in local control, has a message for schools: If you need additional financial resources, make your case to local property tax payers.

“School boards can decide to raise property taxes or look for efficiencies – that’s a local decision,” Gov. Daugaard said before suggesting schools should do their best to look for efficiencies.

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ASBSD Executive Director Wayne Lueders issued the following statement regarding Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s FY12 proposed budget.

COMMENT ON THE PROPOSED CUTS TO K-12 EDUCATION

Gov. Daugaard’s $60 million proposed cut to K-12 education will be devastating to local school district budgets and will have an impact on the quality of education, our state’s economy and South Dakota’s local communities.

For years, local school board members and school administrators have been balancing tight budgets by finding efficiencies and making cuts that are least likely to impact classroom learning. If the governor’s recommended budget stands, many school leaders will find it impossible to maintain current educational programs, class sizes and staffing levels. In a state where 25 percent of public school students are struggling in basic subjects like reading and math, we simply can’t afford to further limit academic opportunities for South Dakota’s public school students.

The proposed cut will set school funding back six years. The abrupt change that will challenge our state’s largest schools and overwhelm our smaller, rural schools, leading to discussions about property tax opt-outs and school closures across the state. Based on our state’s history of funding public schools, it could take the better part of a decade to restore K-12 funding to current levels.

ASBSD’s first concern is that our state’s 124,000 public school students benefit from a healthy and strong public education system, but we believe it’s important that the public understands the severity of Gov. Daugaard’s proposed cuts. A $60 million cut is the equivalent of 1,550 full-time teachers, or approximately 16 percent of South Dakota’s teaching workforce. In the short-term, the positions public schools will be forced to cut will further hinder our state’s slowly recovering economy. And, because public education is at the foundation of economic prosperity, the state’s failure to invest in education will limit our state’s long-term economic recovery.

COMMENT ON THE COMPARISONS OF STATE RESERVES AND SCHOOL FUND BALANCES

On behalf of the state’s school board members, ASBSD hopes to set the record straight on school district fund balances.

A school district’s general fund balance is not a reserve or a rainy-day fund as Gov. Daugaard suggested today. A general fund balance is a measure of cash on hand at the end of a district’s fiscal year. While it’s true that some cash on hand may be designated as a reserve, the amount also includes money that is obligated for future expenses. For schools, a general fund balance must act as both a checking and savings account.

By comparison, the state has several separate accounts that act as cash-flow and reserve accounts. The state’s Cash Flow Fund, which has an average monthly balance in excess of $1 billion, acts as the state’s checking account. A combination of reserve and trust funds, which total more than $785 million, act as state savings accounts.

When our state’s governor uses the terms general fund balance and reserve interchangeably, it creates a false impression that schools are hoarding resources. While it’s true that school districts had $196 million in cash on hand at the end of last year, any suggestion that all those funds are available for a rainy day would be the same as saying the state has $1.8 billion, or nearly 85 percent of the state’s non-federal budget, to use for a rainy day.

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Members of Senate Education made short work of Senate Bill 8 Tuesday morning, approving the measure unanimously. Triggered by the issuance of GASB 54 in 2009, the bill eliminates the term “unreserved fund balance” from state law and replaces it with language consistent with the new governmental accounting standard.

Fund balances are expected to be a hot topic this legislative session. Gov. Dennis Daugaard is expected to introduce legislation to eliminate the caps placed on school fund balances.

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Governor Dennis Daugaard will push forward with parts of the education agenda he laid out during his election campaign, but he has yet to reveal whether he supports cuts to K-12 education.

As a candidate, the governor pledged that his state budgets would deliver the first and last dollar to K-12 schools - a promise that will be put to its first test Jan. 19, when Gov. Daugaard will deliver his first budget address to lawmakers. Former Gov. Mike Rounds proposed a $30 million cut to K-12 schools last December. Since then, speculation has arisen that Gov. Daugaard would cut further, possibly asking for a 10 percent reduction in per-student aid, which would blow a $60 million hole in local school budgets.

The governor is keeping a tight lid on his budgetary intentions, deferring most fiscal questions until after he proposes his budget to lawmakers. But in a Friday news conference with the media, he did suggest that the budget cuts will be broad-based.

“Everyone has to help,” Daugaard said.

The governor on Friday also ruled out the idea of providing one-time money to schools, saying the move would use reserves for ongoing expenses and contradict one of his four core budgetary principles.

Gov. Daugaard used his State of the State address Tuesday to praise former Gov. Rounds for increasing K-12 aid during his term in office. Later, he reminded the audience that the adequacy of our education system should be measured by results, not by the amount of money invested. Both comments could be taken as hints that cuts to K-12 are coming.

Though he has been nearly silent on his plans for state aid, Gov. Daugaard plans to forge ahead on some of his other campaign promises.

In an effort to restore local control to school boards, the governor told lawmakers he will bring legislation to repeal South Dakota’s forced consolidation law and to eliminate caps on school district fund balances.

“We must trust local officials to make the best decisions for their districts,” Daugaard said. “And if they fail, we must trust local voters to find new local officials.”

The governor also reaffirmed his commitment to strengthen science, technology, engineering and math education at the K-12 level. He fell short of promising legislation, saying instead that he’d be “working over the next year” to accomplish the goal.

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