Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 3 on Education Finance

Good morning everybody. Good morning and thank you for being here. Welcome to our Education Finance Assembly Budget Set Committee number three. I am Chair Alvarez and thank you all for being here this morning.

Today's hearing will be covering proposals from the Governor's Budget that are germane to the Local Control Funding Formula and also categorical COLAs, an augmentation to the Learning Recovery Block Grant and the proposed final year of expansion to the Extended Learning Opportunities Program otherwise known as elopement. We also have a presentation by Dr.

Linda Hammond who will be joining us at 10:30. And so when the time comes we will pause the issues we're working on to make sure that we can have an opportunity to hear from our State Board of Education President.

So today we are going to be focusing on three proposals that are key ways that we are attempting to bridge the gaps that that continue to exist in California and our learning gaps that achievement gaps that exist with our students.

We want to focus and I encourage our Committee Members to ask questions about whether these are enough given that student learning loss achievement gaps continue to grow post Covid and that this truly does remain as a crisis for our state.

We will hear from education leaders about the impact ongoing of ongoing chronic absenteeism and how that is impacting school finance. And also we need to want to focus on what the state needs to do to support all schools in helping our students recover, but most importantly succeed.

Lastly, we'll have a panel dedicated non presentation issues as recommended by staff. If Members have any questions on that, we'd ask you to please let us know. We can definitely have questions and public will also be able to comment on those issues that are listed on as agenda item issue number four.

So with that we will give an opportunity as we've done before if you'd like to make some initial comments. Otherwise we'll have comments at the end of the agenda today. If anybody wishes to speak now on anything before us, please this is your chance.

Seeing none, we will then begin with issue number one which is the Local Control Funding Formula and COLA presentation. It asks the Department of Finance, the Legislative Analyst Office and the Department of Education to please come forward for this.

This panel will provide an overview of the Local Control Funding Formula for public schools, the Governor's Budget proposal for cost of living, adjustment to the LCFF and categorical programs and a trailer Bill proposal impacting the local control accountability plans also known as lcaps.

Note for colleagues enrollment estimates and racial funding for UTK Universal Transitional Kindergarten will be heard at a later hearing on UTK implementation However, there are some interactions with implementation of transitional Kindergarten and lcff, and so we are going to hear about some of that today. So with that we will begin with the Department of Finance. Welcome.

Good morning Chair and Members. Katie Lagomarcino with the Department of Finance.

Can I ask you to please get closer to that microphone? Thank you.

Good morning Chair and Members.

Katie Lagomarcino with the Department of Finance I'll be going over the Local Control Funding Formula the bulk of unrestricted funding for local educational agencies is provided through the Local Control Funding Formula and is distributed based on the number of students served and includes additional funding based on enrollment for Low income students, English learners and foster students.

The state fully funded the LCFF in 2018-19 and has annually adjusted the grant amounts by a cost of living adjustment.

LCFF base grant amounts are calculated on a per student basis measured by student Ada according to grade span, with adjustments that increase the base grants for grades K3 by 10.4% of the base rate and grades 9 through 122.6% of the base rate.

For school districts funded ADAs equal to the greater of current prior or average of the three most recent prior years Ada. As a result, LEAs experiencing short term or single year declines in Ada are largely protected from funding impacts through the formula because they would be funded on the basis of whichever year is greater through the calculation.

So, moving on. In the budget year we see an increase of roughly 2.5 billion, which reflects the 2.43% cost of living adjustment as well as 88% change adjustment, budgetary deferrals of 246.6 million for the Tk12 education that were adopted as part of the 2024 Budget act are also fully repaid in 2526.

The budget includes an increase of 15 million in home to school transportation program costs for districts in the budget year. This brings total LCFF funding to 83.4 billion in 2526, including cost for TK expansion and TK ratio reduction, which will be discussed in more detail at a future hearing for county Offices of Education.

In the budget year we see an increase of 13.1 million to reflect Ada changes, the 2.43% cost of living adjustment as well as other expenditures including differentiated assistance figures and an increase of 600,000 for home to school transportation. This brings total LCFF entitlement for counties to 1.4 billion in 2526.

I'll now turn it over to my colleague Hugo Solis Galiana who will cover the proposal on the Failure to adopt an lcap.

Hello. Hugo Soliskalina with the Department of Finance. The Governor's Budget proposes the creation of a penalty for LEAs and COEs that do not adopt an LCAP by the July 1 deadline by withholding state and federal apportionments until they do adopt an LCAP.

LEAs that don't adopt LCAPs will also be assessed a penalty of 20% of their second principal apportionment, with the penalty increasing by 1% for each day they don't adopt an LCAP. The penalty will not exceed 80% of an LEA's total second principal apportionment and will now reduce the final principal apportionment below what is constitutionally mandated.

Thank you. Thank you. Does that conclude? Department of Finance. We'll go to the Legislative Analyst Office. Welcome.

Thank you. Mr. Chair. Good morning. Mr. Chair. Members. Michael Alferez with Legislative Analyst Office. I'll be sharing our high level comments on the LCFF estimates included in the Governor's Budget.

First, based on the latest data used to calculate the statutory cost of living adjustment, we think that the COLA was tracking slightly lower than the 2.43% assumed in the budget. We have it currently at 2.26% which would reduce LCFF costs by about $130 million. We will have the final data used to calculate the COLA in April.

Secondly, we think that the Governor's proposal to increase the staffing ratios for TK likely exceeds the cost of implementing the additional requirement or the higher staffing ratio requirement. We have recommend funding a smaller increase.

We have two alternatives based on kind of different assumptions of the staffing ratios that for one would reduce costs by about $200 million compared to what's in the Governor's Budget and the second would reduce costs by about $400 million. Happy to answer any questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you.

Department of Education.

Good morning Chairman Members. Aaron Eddie, on behalf of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Really just here to answer any questions on a technical basis that might be appropriate for the Department to respond to. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you all for being here. Appreciate that. Let me ask just a couple questions and I'll turn it over to my colleagues. We had an informational hearing Chairman Tsuchi hosted last fall where we talked about alternatives to COLA and we talked about regionalization and cost differential that exists between different parts of California.

Is there any recommendation or thought that has been given either by Department of Finance on that or from the Lao's office on that issue?

It might just be as easy as no. 1 option that we have recommended in the past is using the current index that we currently use that takes the state and local price increases for state and local governments across the nation.

It's an index that includes a variety of things we've recommended and the past to just focus on employee compensation.

And we think that that would maybe provide a more accurate reflection of the kind of cost pressures that districts are facing in the state and would reduce volatility as kind of some other things that are included in the index are very volatile such as energy prices which might not make up significant portions of districts budgets.

Yeah. And DOF have anything to add to that?

Amber Alexander with Department of Finance Just to echo the marks in terms of if any thought has been given on behalf of finance, the Governor's Budget does fully Fund the statutory COLA and we're certainly aware of the Leo's recommendations and engaging in thought partnership on those.

Yeah. And just very briefly, for colleagues who weren't part of the hearing last fall, the thinking is that the current what calculation of the COLA takes into account a national perspective of the economy and that isn't necessarily aligned with what's happening in California. And so that that's, that's why it's of interest. I appreciate the feedback.

My second question is in relation to the K3 grade span adjustment to integrate the TK funding. Can you tell us about what changes are needed in order to fully integrate that and is there any expectation that that may be potentially revisited going forward? First Finance and then to the lao.

Finance is not aware of any changes needed to integrate TK into the grade span adjustment since it's already included in the calculation. Kindergarten includes TK as defined in ed code Section 48000. Students enrolled in TK should already be included in the determination of average class size. Moving forward, all TK costs should be covered entirely by the lcff.

So you're commenting that TK is essentially covered through the cost of kindergarten even though really there's a difference cost? Is that what you're stating?

So the grade span adjustment, the 10.4% that's applied to those students, it includes the students for TK. So grades TK3 would be receiving that grade span adjustment? Yep.

Yeah. I mean I would just opine that the, the needs are certainly different and TK requirements are larger for, for ratios and things like that. But I'll let the lio, I think.

Maybe. Edgar Cabral with the Legislative Analyst Office maybe just to clarify, I think your your question, Mr. Chair. I think from what we've heard, maybe some concerns we've heard is that the. So there, there is the grade span adjustment, as finance talked about, that applies to TK through 3.

And so the requirement is that there be an average class size of 24, unless it's bargained locally to a different number. And then we also now have a statutory cap essentially on TK of 24.

And I think there's some of the concern has been that at least the concerns that we've heard is that that as TK rolls out and it has a class size cap of 24, that that means that potentially districts could increase the number of students, the class sizes in K through 3, and still meet that 24 to 1 ratio.

So we haven't done a thorough analysis of it. It's something that we have heard that and it's technically under the way it works technically, theoretically possible that could be the case.

If there is an interest in say changing that, then I think probably the simplest thing would be to apply that, you know, apply that 24 average to kindergarten through grade three, excluding TK and then have. TK already has a statutory cap of 24. But again, that's.

We haven't done a specific analysis to say whether we think that's a fix that's. That's necessary because of changes that are going on in the field. But it is something that. That could be addressed.

Yeah, and that's what I was getting to with the, you know, the, the needs in TK are. There's requirements for that.

And so even if they're treated the same same, there's a natural pull towards funding what is required with the, with the 24 and the ratios that from what I've seen, and I certainly interested in those who've served at the local board level, we are seeing an increase in K3 that are no longer 24, you know, small classes.

They're. They're getting to be quite larger classes. And so that's the concern. So definitely want to hear more about that going forward.

The last thing I'll just comment and I'll turn it over is that the one time we talked about this a little bit last week during our Prop 98 hearing, but the one time funding is really misaligned to the state's equity commitment where we are ensuring that block grants are.

Distribution of that is not based on Ada but more on LCFF format and where the needs are. And so that continues to be a concern. I just wanted to call it out again today as we did last week. So with that I'll turn it over to colleagues and we'll start with Mr. Muratsuchi.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. First question, just pulling out the broad overview. What is California's current ranking in per people spending nationally, state by state?

I think so. I think the number I've seen recently is in the census data. I can't remember the exact rank. We might be somewhere like 16th or 18th. So our ranking has gone up significantly over the last several years as the state has increased per people spending.

That's based on the census data and that is not adjusted regionally. But it's just that the dollar amount that every, that we have spending across the country.

Okay, and so that's not adjusted for inflation then. Right? Well, for cost of living, different costs of living from different states. So for example, I, I think Education Week is often cited as their per people spending is often cited. But those numbers, those rankings would be different from the one you just cited.

Right. And my understanding is that Education Week hasn't done those updates in a while. I think there is another organization that did do that, but off the top of my head, I can't tell you where the state ranks there.

Okay. And so, but I guess that highlights my next point, which is that the cost of living, like it varies in different parts of the State of California. It varies from state to state. And the current federal statutory rate that we use for COLA includes other states, not just California. Correct?

Right. It's, it's state and local governments across the country.

State and local governments across the country.

So it's specific to, it's specific to the, what the public sector is facing in terms of their sort of their basket of goods and what the, what the changes are in those costs.

Okay. So just like we have regional differences in the cost of living in California, I mean, we clearly like California is a much more expensive place to, you know, to do business than states like say Mississippi or Alabama.

Right. The overall cost of the overall costs, I think to your point, do vary in California tends to have a higher cost of living. We haven't done analysis to say if you were just looking at the COLA really is just telling you the year to year change in those costs.

And so has California's cost been growing faster than, you know, if you were to look at that local government deflator and break it up by state, what would that be? That we haven't done an analysis to say some of the increases in cost, like energy prices are probably more broadly affecting everyone.

There could be some specific components, though. That are, that are more tied to California specific costs.

So you said, in response to the chair's question about regional COLAs that the LAO has recommended perhaps a consideration of different COLAs based on staff costs.

So the recommendation that we made in the past was several years ago. It was not a regional COLA.

It was essentially taking that state and local deflator and focusing, essentially focusing on the changes that are related to employee compensation because school districts compared to, say, other local governments, a much larger percentage of their budget is based on sal, is based on salaries and benefits.

And so the recommendation was to tie that COLA to be more specifically about that. That, that did not have a, that was not a regionally adjusted measure. There are other measures that the, that the state could consider.

There are, you know, for example, more of a, like a cpi, which is more about sort of the average consumer in California, what those costs are. There are California specific inflation calculations. I think there are other state programs that are growing, grown based on that. So it's really a matter of thinking about what's.

What makes most sense as the most appropriate adjustment.

Okay, so right now, the COLA rate, what is the basis for our K12 COLA to be pegged to the price index? Is that in the Education Code?

Yes, that's specifically. Yeah, there's a very specific calculation, not just the, the measure that's used, but also which fiscal years we're looking at to calculate what the statutory COLA is.

But that's all in the Education Code. That's right. Okay, so we can change that if the Legislature chose to. Yes. Okay. And why does it make sense, you know, I mean, or does it make sense for California's COLA to be tied to the COLA in other states?

Yeah, I think it's just a matter of each. There is no perfect calculation. So I think it's just a matter of deciding what the state thinks is most appropriate. Something like the California cpi, for example, you could say, zero, that's California based, but that's really more about what a household is facing. Right.

That might not be the same cost pressures that a school district is facing. And so I think the logic of using the current COLA is that it's related to the public sector programs and services, which is what, which is what, you know, we're trying to do.

We're trying to measure what are the costs associated with operating schools, not necessarily the costs associated with, you know, a family who has a mortgage and has a very different, a very different set of costs that they're facing. And so there is no perfect option.

I Think it's just a matter of deciding which the Legislature thinks may be most aligned and best reflective of. Of costs.

But you're talking about the cost of operating schools across the country is the current rate.

The current. The current COLA is the cost of state and local government. So it's not just school districts. It can also include cities. Counties. Right, Cities.

State and local government across the country. Right. Okay. So would you agree that running state and local governments in California is more expensive than in other states?

I don't know that I can say that because we haven't done an analysis. I would say that if you did a measure individually that those specific COLA rates could be different, but we haven't done an analysis to tell you that we think that it would be higher if we were looking just at California.

Okay. I mean, Mr. Chair, I think perhaps if we can ask the LIO to explore alternatives for the. That would, that would more accurately capture, like the.

I mean, the reason why I'm focusing on this point is, you know, we talked about it in last week's budget hearing, but there's, you know, clearly a disconnect between the 2.43 or the current 2.43 that may drop down to 2.26 in terms of the COLA, which.

When we know that our school districts are facing actual inflation costs north of at least 4%. And so it just seems like our current COLA ratio is not tied to reality, is my point.

Yeah. If I could. I think one of the. In that conversation, I think Mr. Fine from Figma mentioned the issue of part of the reason why the districts feel that certain cost pressure is because of declining enrollment and because of those changes. I'm not aware of a. So that's more of a.

Not that the cost of specific goods are changing. It's just more that my economies of scale are kind of diminishing over time as we have enrollment decline. I'm not aware of a COLA measure that's going to address that. That's really more about the trends in student enrollment that's affecting. Affecting everybody across the state.

So, I mean, that we can explore. We're happy to explore other options and give you a sense of what other COLA factors could be the case. But if the, if the goal is districts have declining enrollment and because of that the COLA is not reflecting what they're facing on an annual basis, then I think the Legislature.

The other option the Legislature has is just to say whatever the statutory COLA is, we want to provide more than what's required because we think those are the costs and the Legislature can do so, it just means that it comes out.

You know, there's some other elements of the Governor's Budget that would have to be either removed or pared down in order to have enough funding to cover it.

But I want to clarify. I mean, declining school districts are getting less revenues because of declining enrollment, but that's a different issue from the increasing inflation costs that school districts are facing from, you know, salaries and benefits, insurance, utility costs.

Yes, those are different. I think with the conversation last week, one of the issues, the reason it came up is like, from a year to year basis, you don't change anything. Your costs are now 4 to 5% higher. Part of what's included in that, part of why that's the case, is because of declining enrollment.

That's one of the factors that's causing that, is that districts feel like there's a decline. And so there's a need to have a COLA that grows faster because of the fact that base your basal CFF might be coming down on a year to year basis because attendance is declining.

Hmm. That's not what I heard. I heard different. They're facing declining enrollment challenges, but they're also facing inflationary costs. And I would just ask the LIO to look at, you know, a COLA ratio that actually reflects the inflationary costs that school districts are facing. But turning to declining enrollment. So.

We basically have, thanks to Proposition 98, about 40% of our revenue is going toward K14. So we have this pot of money and we have declining enrollment. So districts that are facing declining enrollment are receiving less dollars based on average daily attendance.

Does that, you know, with the set pot of money, but with the declining denominator in terms of the declining attendant, the declining attendance, does that basically mean that that would increase the per pupil spending?

Yeah, we think so. I mean, I think that's part of why when we've done our fiscal outlook of kind of the outlook for schools and community colleges, based on our projections of Prop 98, we have enough funding to cover existing commitments and then funding for additional funding beyond that.

And that's because to your point, the cost of Lcff, I mean, there's a COLA adjustment, but then with declining enrollment, the cost of LCFF are not growing, they're in some cases declining because of declines in Ada.

And so that's part of why, like in the Governor's Budget, there's funding for COLA, but then there's also, you know, some proposals for ongoing spending increases for one time spending increases because of that.

If, if, if we had Ada that was growing at a much faster rate, then it might not be that it, you know, some of those, the guarantee, our spending within the guarantee might be taken up by higher LCFF costs associated with additional kids. And then there would be not as much funding available for other discretionary activities.

But I guess what I. sure that I completely understand. I'm looking at the staff report and there's an additional $746 million proposed in the January budget. zero, no, that's the wrong number. $860 million is proposed in the January budget for LCFF funding generated by newly eligible students. So yeah, just for TK.

And you know, I mean, I had this question in relation to our conversation about making kindergarten mandatory. It's my understanding the Department of Finance's position is that we don't have the money to account for the additional 7 or 8% who are not currently eligible but not attending kindergarten.

Why is it that we need to specifically allocate dollars for newly eligible students when we have declining enrollment? Why doesn't the newly eligible kids just replace the declining enrollment?

So I think that's a specific adjustment for transitional kindergarten for the estimate of the additional kids that will be eligible for TK now that we're getting to the final year of, we'll get to sort of all 4 year olds being eligible. So I think the date is going from June 2nd.

I think right now your birthday has to be before June 2nd. Now essentially all four year olds will be eligible. So I believe that's an estimate of that specific additional funding and that under the agreement when the state decided to expand transitional kindergarten, we are re benching Prop 98 specifically for additional students.

So that in that sense it's not, it's, we're growing the Prop 98 pie for serving these additional kids. But to your point, at a local level, it could be that for some, you know, especially a lot of districts are funded based on a three year rolling average because they're, they're declining.

It could be that growth in their Ada as we expand TK is still not net positive. And so they might not necessarily see immediate, you know, increases in LCFF because they're funded on the three year average. And the three year average is not reflecting these new students who are newly enrolled.

So the, the effects locally in terms of what your LCFF looks like could, could be different.

Okay, but you, you might, might have answered my question when you said the word re benching. So, so are you saying that Proposition 98 re benches upwards for newly eligible TK students, but it doesn't re bench downward for declining enrollment?

That's correct. And that's specifically because of the agreement between the Legislature and the Governor. When we expanded transitional kindergarten, the agreement was that the state would re bench Prop 98 for essentially all the newly eligible students who are eligible for TK the, the nine months worth of kids that are now eligible that weren't otherwise.

All right, thank you very much.

And just to follow up on that, and I think not just like kindergarten is not mandatory, TK isn't either. Right. So we're not capturing 100% of kids, generally speaking who are age eligible. We're, we're making some projection that Some percentage of 4 year olds are going to be attending. And that's what, that's what.

The amount that's reflective here, I assume. Is that correct? To Department of Finance.

Yes, that's correct.

Okay, thank you. We'll go to Ms. Patel.

Thank you for the presentation. I do want to start off by saying thank you for getting rid of the deferrals going forward. That was very pleasant to read. Couple of questions. One is going off the staff report, a follow up question.

There are some previous budget acts that have talked about new statutes requiring districts to track their unspent supplemental and concentration grants. Do we see a significant number of districts having unspent supplemental and concentration? Is that a thing?

Amber, Alexander with the Department of Finance.

We've certainly heard varying reports in terms of district spending levels, but for the most part, when those LCFF funding allocations go out, including the base grants and the supplemental and the concentration grant dollars, they are to be accounted for in adopted local control accountability plans, which should be accounting for any and all dollars that are spent and generated through those purposes.

I don't know that finance has much more to share in terms of stories, but the tracking of supplemental and concentration grant dollars is definitely, definitely something that has been discussed over the years.

Okay. And that makes sense. From what I know on the ground level, I don't think people are willing to give their dollars back once allocated. So another thing noted in a previous budget ask was that concentration grant rate was increased from 55 to 65% funding rate.

What is being done to support districts receiving funding but aren't able to onboard staff a workforce to use those additional dollars? Because there is a workforce challenge out there. Is there anything we're doing maybe on the higher ed side on the training certification side to help communities staff?

I'm happy to respond to that. I can't speak much to the higher ed side, but in terms of investments on the Tk12 side, there have been several multi year investments in the educator and administrator teacher workforce that are still in, in place and in effect into this 2526 school year.

Many of those do provide broad flexibility to districts to be able to use those funding sources as needed to meet local staffing needs or to the extent that they have staff. And it's more on the professional development side. Oftentimes that's an allowable, an allowable use.

In terms of the increase specifically to the concentration grant funding, again, those are discretionary dollars intended to be targeted for those purposes. So to the extent that they are not spent on staffing, any allowable use to support those students that are generating those funds is also permissible. And that may be something.

To the extent that they're not able to find the staff that they're using in another way to support those students.

Okay. Because certainly to reach our equity goals, we have to make sure that there are targeted interventions so that we see the needle moving on the achievement opportunity gap with, however you want to say it, very interested in making sure that we're using those funds appropriately.

Just love that accountability piece and I think our parents are looking for that as well. Another question, when we were talking about budgeting, we're budgeting for 100% Ada, right? Average daily attendance. We're assuming that schools may eventually aspirationally get to full attendance.

What happens to Allocated Budget Dollars that end up not going say, you know, school district A dreams of having 97%. They budget with that. Audits show that they got in at 96%. So they, they have their allocations reduced. What happens to that pot of money?

Katie Lagomarcino with the Department of Finance. If I understand your question correctly, it sounds like you're asking about LCFF dollars generally and whether. Okay, yes. So we base our calculations on real Ada as it comes in from the Department of Education.

And so at certain periods I think, yeah, certain periods the principal apportionment data comes through and so we're making our projections as close as possible to the actual Ada.

So the delta is actually very small.

Okay. And then I have a question around special education. We're talking a lot about UTK dollars. I'm also very concerned about special education dollars. Do we know or can you share with me and if not today in a follow up conversation? That's fine. I'm trying to just understand special education funding.

Yeah.

How much additional is being allocated for students with disabilities and their required intervention programs. And then I have a follow up question.

I do have some special education resources with me. Let me find great fidget. But in terms of the LCFF specifically, while I find that. So those dollars go out generally to all students, including students with disabilities. So there wouldn't be necessarily a way within the LCFF allocation to. Report back.

On, on those dollars at the state level, that is something through the local control accountability plans to the extent that the goals and actions are targeted at students with disabilities, because those plans align with the budget that you may be able to access through that mechanism. On the special education side specifically, we do SELPAs. Maybe.

SELPAs may have that information as well through some of the budget transparency documents and such that they put out for parents. But on the special education side in particular, there is, you know, Obviously the separate AB 602 funding and the Governor's Budget does fully include the statutory COLA, the 2.43% for special education generally.

I think we would see any supports and services for special education students coming not only from the designated special education dollars, but also the discretionary funds through LCFF or any of the other more targeted categorical programs or block grants that are proposed in the Governor's Budget.

So it could be a mixing of any of those funding sources to support those students.

Thank you for that answer. There's a lot to digest there. When we look at what student, what school districts expend in providing services and supports for our students with disabilities. We know that there is a big gap between what we're allocated and what school districts are needing to spend to provide the services necessary for their vulnerable learners.

Is there any kind of analysis on what that on average per school district, what that DELTA really is, and is there any goal in trying to actually Fund what school districts are expending providing those extra services and supports?

I'm not aware of any analysis, but certainly we do hear from districts in terms of the amount of funding coming from their special education specific dollars and the amount of funding that they're attributing through their more discretionary pot through the Local Control Funding Formula.

Again, I think we would emphasize that those LCFF dollars are for all students, including students with disabilities. So would not want to. Would not want to message anything that would make it seem as if that is not the focus of those dollars and that they shouldn't be used in that way.

Because I think we fully do support debt use. I know, and this may be the point you're making in terms of federal funding.

I know that there is consistent conversation in terms of the amount of federal dollars that are drawn down for special education through idea and certainly with conversations happening now too, that is a bit more uncertain though I think we're comfortable in terms of the amount that we have budgeted for special education that we're not foreseeing any dramatic changes there and have not heard.

Heard of any on the horizon.

Reassuring, because what we know is the idea had committed upwards of 40% to cover those expenses. But we're not even achieving. I don't know, in some districts it doesn't even get to 10%. So we definitely struggle in those regards. And I think some of my other questions. I'll save for a longer conversation at another time.

If anyone else wants to go.

Thank you. I see nobody else. Thank you. I'd like to hold the issue open, but also direct staff to work with the LAO on the issue of the integration of TK to K3 grade span adjustment policy, particularly to.

In hopes to avoid this concern that we're seeing, I think maybe a trend now of increased class sizes on the K3 size. That's. That's certainly something we. We'd like to avoid. And then also Mr.

Medici's recommendation on request on the issue of COLAs and a potential alternative for calculating of that, taking into account, obviously, that it should be on costs associated with direct cost to districts, but not necessarily. I think this is the intent to just increase an allocation just when. When we know that there's declining enrollment. I think I.

We hear that loud and clear. I don't think that's the intent in terms of a COLA calculation that is reflective of actual needs to Fund staff and other needs at a school district.

Actually, I was trying to make that distinction between the actual needs and to have a COLA that reflects the actual costs or the actual inflationary pressures that the school districts are facing. Because I think the declining enrollment piece, you know, is a different.

Well, and when LCFF gets calculated, it takes into account the enrollments. Right. And so. So I think your concern is addressed that way. And I think I just want to make sure that was clear from the lao's perspective. Okay. All right. So that will be the recommendation for staff to work together. Appreciate that.

Thank you for this panel. We will ask the next panelist to come up as I hand the gavel over. I'll be right back.

Okay. Issue number two is a Learning Recovery Block Grant. We have Department of Finance. Lao. And the Department of Education. Department of Finance, please.

Hugo Soliskalina with the Department of Finance. The Governor's Budget includes $378,610,000 1 time Proposition 98 General Fund for a planned investment in the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant to support Learning Recovery initiatives through the 2027-28 school year. Members may recall that in 2023, $1.1 billion from the original $7.9 billion appropriation for the block grant was delayed.

The proposed 378.6 million is the first of three delayed payments. This 378.6 million will be subject to the needs assessment and the local Control Accountability Plan reporting requirements set forth in Education Code 32526 D and 52064.4 that were enacted as part of the 20. Sorry, the 2024 Education Omnibus trailer Bill.

That concludes my remarks, but I'm happy to take questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you.

Lao. Please.

Good morning Members. Ken Kapphahn with the Analyst's Office. So, a quick fiscal update for you. So of the 6.8 billion that districts have received for this grant, the interim spending reports show that districts have spent 1.6 billion through 2324. Some of the supported activities are included in a chart on page nine of your staff agenda.

They include things like additional instructional time, additional staff, accelerated instruction like tutoring and teacher training. Our understanding also is that districts accelerated their spending significantly in 2425 such that a majority of the 6.8 billion has likely now been spent. Overall, we think this is a reasonable proposal and we'd recommend adopting it.

Some of the recent testing data shows that schools still have a lot of ground to cover to make up the learning loss that students experienced during the pandemic. This additional funding could allow districts to sustain some of those learning recovery activities for another few years.

And this allocation is consistent with your previous intent to restore the 1.1 billion reduction from 2324? We would recommend only one alteration and that would be extending the June 302028 expenditure deadline by at least a year.

And that would be in recognition of the fact that districts would not be receiving their last installment of funding until 2728 and would need to undergo, and are currently required to undergo a much longer local planning process than the state required when it first established this grant program. Thank you. Thank you.

Department of Education.

Yes. Good morning everyone. My name is William Mcgee from the Department of Education, Director of the Student Achievement and Support Division. We support with the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant and the programmatic implementation as well as with the geographic leads.

All right, thank you. Questions from the Committee. If I can start? Okay. All right. So the original 202223 Budget act allocated appropriated 7.9 billion. There was the reduction of 1.1. And so this is the January budget proposal this year is to restore the first of three commitments to pay back that reduction.

The staff report discusses how the Learning Recovery Block Grants are designed to support academic learning recovery as well as the social emotional well being of students in response to the data showing achievement gaps widening during the COVID 19 pandemic. And so I will start by asking.

There's a pretty stark chart on page 10 of the staff analysis which I think all of our panelists have before. You. Which shows that while K12 spending in California has grew by 102%, that the trajectory of the reading and Math scores since 2019 have steadily been declining.

And so, you know, of course we recognize that our, our kids there are more than test scores and that they've been facing tremendous challenges during and since the pandemic.

But this is also at least raises the question, you know, what do we have to show for the billions of dollars that we've been spending to try to address the learning as well as social emotional setbacks that our kids suffered since the pand?

Does LAO have any data to support, you know, the hope that these billions of dollars are making a difference?

I could only speak to the Learning Recovery Block Grant portion of This a lot of the spending was largely federal, and I think the Test scores through 2024 only reflect kind of a very small portion of the spending from the Learning Recovery Block Grant. Those resources haven't really been deployed up until this year.

So we're still part of the reason we don't have good data is they just haven't been spent by districts yet. So most of our sort of assessment is based on talking with districts about the kinds of things that they've done with the grants. We've heard promising activities, some examples focusing on early literacy, for example.

District support positive results with that. They've done some credit recovery programs that are supplementing what they've done previously. Districts have said locally that they feeling like they're getting a good return on some of the counseling services that they provided. So there isn't.

The spending data we're collecting for the Learning Recovery Block Grant is pretty broad and there aren't a lot of. Well, there aren't any additional specific outcome measures beyond the existing slate of test scores and attendance and engagement data. So our assessment for the block grant is really based more on what we've.

What we've been hearing from districts and about their local plans. There may be some more information available at the local level. Local level starting next year because districts now have to go through a much longer documentation and local planning process than they did previously.

You stated earlier that that your data is showing that 1.6 billion out of of the 6.8 billion that has been appropriated has been sent spent through the 2324 school year. That's right. Is there? Is there? What is the reason why districts, you know, have had the delay in the spending of the Learning Recovery Block Grant funds?

Yeah. So one of the one piece of management advice and fiscal advice that districts typically receive is to spend the most restricted and most quickly expiring dollars first. And so what we heard is that most of them are focused on spending down all their federal funding that 21 billion by the September 302024 deadline.

Now that those dollars are exhausted, they're shifting their focus to more be about using and allocating the Learning Recovery Block Grant funds.

Okay. Which also adds to the question that I raised earlier that not only are you talking about billions for the Learning Recovery Block Grant, but the billions from the federal Covid dollars that were supposed to address the learning as well as socioeconomic setbacks that all of our kids have suffered.

Does the Department of Finance have any data to show that these dollars are making a difference?

Amber, Alexander, with the Department of Finance, we don't have any Department generated data, but, you know, in looking at the table you were noting in the agenda, which did focus on the NAEP scores. I think one thing that is important to note is the demographics of the state and of the population service during this time.

So I think despite the challenges that we all recognize, there were some modest and encouraging gains for students in various groups, Black students and Latino students showed positive growth as well as recognition that the overall population of socioeconomically disadvantaged students as a whole in the state had increased during this time.

So did want to make sure that that was noted when we're looking at the test scores over time, because those are some important factors that that may not necessarily translate when just looking at the trends in the graph.

I thought the NAEP scores showed that the achievement gap has widened since the pandemic. Are you saying that's not the case?

I think the NAEP scores showed some areas of modest and encouraging growth, particularly given that the population of socioeconomically disadvantaged students increased again.

And this is based off of the 2324 data that was released and that that population has increased over the last three years, that increasing from 63% to 65% during that period, which is an increase of almost 60,000 students that would be tested.

So when you, when you drill down into some of those nuances, there are areas of positive growth and encouraging news. You know, certainly there's always room for improvement in California and I think in other states across the nation as well.

Majority of states did see either, you know, stagnant progress or very modest growth, as we saw in California.

I am aware of the data showing that basically, you know, poverty has increased among our students in the State of California. But you would agree that the NAEP scores have shown that the achievement gap has widened despite some of the improvements that you're indicating?

I think certainly when looking pre pandemic to now, yes, that would be the case. But as you're looking towards recovery and the progress that California has made in that recovery, I think we are seeing signs of growth that we would anticipate continuing going forward.

And so that could be some helpful indications that the dollars are making a difference, correct?

I think we would say that. And also the planning efforts and messaging around making sure that you're targeting those dollars to the students of greatest need are taking effect.

Yeah. Department of Education, do you have anything to add?

Nothing to add, but just that the spending in the various provisions is what we've been looking at. And so as you all may know, the provisions like provision A which is instructional learning time is what the LEAs have reported that they've spent their dollars on.

Okay, turning back to the lao, I mean given the Department finance's comments about how, you know, we know that the data is showing that the biggest setbacks have been in our socioeconomically disposition disadvantaged communities. Art, could you remind me how the learning recovery block grant funds are? You know, prioritize our disadvantaged communities.

Yeah. Thank you. So those are allocated specifically on really the main factor is how many Low income students and English learners that a district has. So they're. We think about the LCFF as being weighted, but this block grant is actually much more weighted because it's based not there's no base amount for every student.

It really works out to about $1,800 for each low income student and English learner.

Okay, so these funds are primarily for districts that have large populations of disadvantaged students. Yes, the grant is very heavily weighted toward those districts. Okay. Any other questions from the Committee Members? Dr.

Patel, in light of the conversation around chart on page 10, I am curious to know whether any of this has been disaggregated. Further to look at those districts and their respective spending per pupil and scores as it breaks down to either base funded. So you know, below the concentration funded districts. Concentration only versus supplemental only.

And might we see some differences in outcomes in those if we look at the data slightly differently? Because that number of 18,000 per pupil, 18,600 per pupil. Obviously that's an average number. Right. So some districts are receiving significantly more and some are receiving significantly less.

I'll go ahead and respond.

I can't speak necessarily to the desegregation of the NAEP data in particular, but in terms of the local or the emergency recovery block grant dollars, we do anticipate that as part of the needs assessment that all local educational agencies will be having to do now to spend these dollars that they will drill down and do that type of data disaggregation.

The needs assessment in particular does require LEAs to do that targeted assessment looking at their students of greatest need to better target those funds. And as part of that they can include local metrics as well as other data driven points to justify that assessment.

So would anticipate that it would, it would highlight some of those areas that you're noting.

So thank you for that.

As a Member of this Budget Committee, as we're looking at what dollars are actually having the effect that we want them to have, I would love to be able to see that in a bigger picture, because I'm not going to be able to look at every district's own local control accountability plan, but would love to see those in, you know, more thousand mile view visuals, especially around then going back and looking at districts that do stand out.

What programs that they put in, are those translatable across other communities? Oftentimes, the programs that districts put in for intervention are very specific for those communities, what works in those communities, and not necessarily able to standardize that across systems.

But there often are some things that can be, and it would be great to know where districts have had successes and whether those are applicable generically across the board. Just trying to think systemically here. Up here. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. I have a additional question in terms of the repayment of the the reduction.

Is there any research on what Covid-related learning recovery might actually cost?

I don't think we're aware of anything like a specific cost estimate. We have seen some. Obviously, the test score data is sobering when you think about the achievement gaps and the ground that needs to be covered. But there have been some indications that some of the efforts that districts are making are starting to have some effect.

One example of that that we're watching is attendance rates. But a huge surge in absenteeism during the pandemic. And every year since 2122, attendance rates have been getting better. They're still not back to pre pandemic levels, but they've been improving steadily over the past couple of years.

Now, improvements in attendance aren't the same as recovery of academic learning loss, but they. They are a kind of prerequisite, I think, to some of that learning recovery. If the students aren't showing up, they can't experience those academic gains. So even though that's not.

Even though that's not a substitute for seeing improvements in the testing data that we want to see, it is maybe a positive sign that there's some ground setting that's happening for improvements in the next few years.

Okay. Does the Department of Finance have any response to my question?

We're also not aware of an exact figure, though do recognize that I think there are many interest holders and groups out there that have likely looked at the topic. So there may be figures floating around, but certainly not finance generated.

Okay. Has there been any consideration as to whether the restoration of the $1.1 billion reduction should be fast tracked, or is this finance's position that this is what we can afford at this time?

Hugo Solis Galeana with the Department of Finance. It is the administration's belief that this is. It is the best approach to repay the 1.1 billion in delayed payments in thirds. So. Yes.

Any other questions? No? Okay, thank you very much. We will hold this. This issue item open. So we jump to. Okay. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. I want to welcome our President of the State board of education, Dr. Linda Darling Hammond. But before you get up, Chair Alvarez wanted to.

Wants to be in here for your presentation. And so if your schedule permits, we'd like to move on to the next item and then ask for you to come forward. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, so next we will be moving to issue number three, which is the expanded learning opportunities grant program. And why don't we start with finance?

George Harris, Department of Finance. I'm going to be going over the expanding learning Opportunities Program on behalf of the Department of Finance.

The Expanding Learning Opportunities Program, which I'll now refer to as elop, is a multi year investment plan to implement before, after and summer school instruction and enrichment for students in grade Tk6 with a focus on local education agencies with the highest concentrations of Low income students, English learners and youth in foster care, otherwise known as unduplicated pupils.

At the release of the 2021 Budget act, the state projected that full fiscal implementation of the program would take place in 2025. 26. The program's funding has been divided into two tiers known as Rate 1 and Rate 2.

Rate 1 districts receive additional funds as they serve a higher number of underserved or unduplicated students and are also required to serve all students in the district regardless of that status.

The Governor's Budget moves forward with the plan from the budget act of 2021 with full implementation of ELOP by increasing the program by $435 million to fully implement.

It does so by increasing the number of local local education agencies that offer universal access to students from those with an unduplicated pupil percentage of 75% to those with an unduplicated pupil percentage of 55%. This brings total funding for the ELOP to 4.4 billion. Ongoing Proposition 98 General Fund.

Thank you, Lao. Good morning Members. My name is Dylan Hoxter Tholetso with LEO. We think the $435 million is a reasonable estimate of expanding the tier one ELLP range down to 55%. But we do recommend delaying the implementation of these changes if they're adopted for at least a year.

Expansion of the number of students that districts required to serve might take some time to hire staff or contract or build additional facilities. So we recommend delaying that a year. We do also have some recommendations for the structure of ELOP given that it's kind of reaching full funding at this point.

So first we recommend aligning ELOP funding and funding for the After School Education and safety program, or ACEs. Currently, there's a lot of overlap between those programs, so some students can earn dollars for their district from both of those programs.

One way for the Legislature to address this would BE to reduce ELOP funding for a district by the amount of ACEs funding that that district is receiving. This would free up several $100.0 million that could be spent on other educational priorities.

Alternatively, districts could be, you know, allowed to keep that money if, for example, they were to expand the number of students they served by specifically putting that money towards middle school students. Our next recommendation would be that in the long run, we think ELOP should be funded based on participation in the program, not district enrollment.

So currently districts receive ELOP dollars based on how many unduplicated students or English learner or Low income students they have in the district rather than how many are participating participating in after school programming. Last year, Assembly Bill 1113 did require that the state start collecting enrollment data in expanded learning programs.

So we're recommending that in 2627 school year and budget year, the state start requiring that ELOP is funded based on the number of participating students. This could be that based on enrollment or it could be based on Ada or some other attendance metric, but that would require the state collect additional data.

Lastly, we recommend the Legislature consider setting a fixed rate for Tier 2 ELOP funding. Currently, Tier 2 funding varies each year. On page 15 of the Agenda there's actually a table that shows ELOP rates over the last few years.

You can see that the Tier 2 rate has actually declined by about $200 each year for the last few years. So you can understand why districts that are receiving that Tier 2 rate of funding might be starting to get concerned that they might not be able to continue to offer expanded learning programming with ELOP dollars.

Setting a fixed rate would reduce a lot of that uncertainty for districts, but it might open up the state to having a bit more uncertainty in how much funding it'll have to put towards ELOP in future years if, for example, enrollment were to suddenly rise. That concludes our remarks. Happy to take any questions. All right.

Department of Education, good morning.

My name is Michael Funk. I'm the Director of the Expanded Learning Division at the California Department of Education. I'm representing Superintendent Tony Smith, State Superintendent, and we are home to the System of Support for Expanded Learning, which is a statewide support network for all districts that receive elop aces in 21st century and have extensive interface with districts.

And happy to answer any questions based on that experience.

Thank you. Questions, Dr. Patel.

Thank you. I am very intrigued by staff's agenda briefing documents as well as our LAO's analysis on some efficiencies we can gain from looking at the ELOP program and ACES programs together. I would love to discuss those a little bit further.

I think there's a lot we could do there and if we free up some of those dollars, maybe we can stabilize those Tier 2 funding streams and that will be very helpful for those on the ground planning their year over year programming and intervention services funding like this when it yo yos that means staff and workforce yo yo.

That creates a very destabilizing community in General, so would love to find ways to work towards that and advocate for that with the Department of Finance. Specifically, how are districts accommodating inclusion in the ELOP program? Are there extra supports for staffing for AIDS in ELOP or ases?

Not that I'm aware of. I think that, you know, obviously Tier one districts that are serving higher proportions of unduplicated students are receiving more funds. And so there's a lot of flexibility there if they want to devote those dollars towards additional aids. But that's not something that I've heard in our conversations with districts.

Yeah, so the unduplicated counts are specifically for Low income foster youth, et cetera, not necessarily for students with disabilities. So we would want to make sure that those dollars get spent appropriately for those marginalized community students. Yeah. Department of Education.

Yeah. We do have contact with many LEAs who are working to make sure that they include students with disabilities.

It's a challenge and it's complex, but we do have districts who have done a robust job of, especially in Tier one, because they've got the higher rate to have the funds to bring on extra support staff, aides, et cetera, and in some cases aligning the student's IEP team with inclusion.

You know, tier one requires that LEAs offer and provide access to all students, all means all. And so we are advocating, we have brought special statewide trainings to LEAs, specifically on this topic. We are identifying LEAs that have done an excellent job in serving students with disabilities and helping network them to other LEAs.

But it's still a work in progress. Also for the record, I said I'm representing State Superintendent Tony Smith. That's actually State Superintendent Tony Thurman. Tony Smith is another good friend of ours.

We weren't going to say anything.

And what about the complementary funding for the programs for ELOP and the Learning Recovery Block Grant?

Are we seeing any synergy with the same students in receiving special support services from the Learning Recovery Block Grant, which might include extended day programs versus ELOP or ACEs for after school because you have an extended day that blends into an after school in practice. Is there any opportunity for funding efficiencies there?

Edgar Cabral with the LAO. Yeah, I'm not aware of specific kind of combinations. Those. I think in practice the ELLP funding is, is really like outside of the instructional day activities, whereas the Learning Recovery. I think it can be used for things outside.

But it may from some of the conversations we had as being used for things like more tutoring during the school day or additional supports, I think it can be used potentially to supplement ellp. But from we heard it's more of kind of during the school day support or extreme in cases where you're extending the school day.

Obviously the school day is longer because of it, but not necessarily tied to expanded learning activities.

So you're allowing districts to have local control over how they program.

Both of the funds are, I mean the learning recovery, there are some, there's specific allowable activities and there has to be a local plan built, but there is flexibility in terms of what the specific activities are. And similarly with elop, there's some, there's some specific requirements of staffing ratios. You have to have an academic and enrichment component.

But beyond that, there's a lot of flexibility in terms of what that looks like.

Thank you. Right, yeah, done. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, so first of all, I just want to thank the, the Governor for prioritizing the expanded learning opportunities program with 4 billion in annual ongoing funding. We know that these after school, summer and before school programs are real make a huge difference, especially in our Low income communities.

You know, the After School Advocacy Alliance was here last week where they were talking about how, you know, we know that in middle class and affluent communities we have all these enrichment programs.

You know, I represent both LAUSD as well as suburban school districts and I know in my suburban school districts we have all these, you know, array of after school programs that families that can afford to send their kids send them to.

And so, you know, that's why it's so critical that the ELAW program focuses on our Low income and disadvantaged communities. And so I just want to say from the get go that, you know, this is intended to be California's universal after school program and that I'm a big supporter of this effort.

I wanted to ask, you know, finances or the administration's rationale for proposing that the threshold for Tier 1 be dropped from 75 to 55%.

George Harris, Department of Finance. So part of the decision to lower that threshold, it aligns the ELOP funding determination for Rate 1 with the concentration block grant and really just intends to put more emphasis on getting Rate 1 funds to local education agencies with majority unduplicated or underserved students.

Okay, that makes sense to align it with the concentration grant districts. Basically. Correct. Okay. And at the same time, well, you know, so the, I'm fully in support of what Dr.

Patel was just talking about, you know, and what the LAO is recommending having more predictability and stability for the tier two districts so that they can make plans, hire people and provide some, you know, assurances that their funding would continue to be stable.

What is the finance's position on the Laos either recommendation or consideration of setting a fixed rate for the for Tier 2?

George Harris Department of Finance. At this point in time, there's a lot of variable variables that come into determination of Rate 1 funding. There is redistribution of funds that go back into rate two.

For example, for current year 2425 unspent funds in the program from 20, from 2223 and 2324 would get it were going to be redirected back to rate 2.

And there was enough funds in this, in that recollection from the Department of Education that rate 2 will be funded at fully at that the base or the Max cap of 2000 for rate two. And then also moving forward in 202526 there is the option for local education agencies to potentially opt out of the program.

And then to the extent allowable, those funds would also go back to rate 2. So there is, while it's not officially a fixed rate, there is a redistribution of funds and rate two local education agencies are being supported.

And I guess what I'm hearing is that, you know, you are prioritizing the tier one districts and that they're getting first dibs on spending the funding. Whatever is left over may supplement the tier 2. Is that correct?

The two rates of funding are separate. For example, in this Governor's Budget proposal, the increase did not take away from Rate 2. It was an increase to support the funds going to the new rate 1 local education agencies.

We are just making sure that we can continue to Support the Rate 2 Local education agencies as many ways as possible since they are receiving lower amount of funds, which is what the opt out and redistribution were intended for.

But the tier 2 was supplemented because there was unexpended tier 1 funds, is that correct?

I can defer to the Department of Education for specific details, but the unspent funds report did have unspent dollars from rate one and rate two going back to rate two.

Can someone help me understand where did the I should know this, but where did the supplemental dollars in the last budget to supplement the tier $2, where did that funding come from so I can add it?

So I think in the, in the last budget. So I think the, the funding for 2223 and 2320 or 2122 and 2223, those dollars, the expiration date was June 30th of 2024. And so those funds, the state became aware of the amount of funding that came back unspent.

So the trailer Bill Language in the last budget said that money that comes back essentially first call is to supplement the tier 2 rates so they can get up to $2,000.

So whatever, whatever amount is available there, we will put as much as we can to get to Those rates to 2000 based on the departments, the information the Department provided there is more than sufficient to funding to then supplement the tier 2 rates to get them to $2,000 per Ada this year.

So in, in effect in the current year the tier two rates will be 2000. Because of that. That's a one time action. That's just specifically for those unspent funds. So and I believe that trader Bill Language was specific for this year. So to. That's not necessarily what happened under current law. Moving forward.

What could happen moving forward is the other issue that Mr. Harris mentioned earlier which was about requiring school districts to notify upfront whether or not they have intention of operating a program. And so if upfront they say we're not going to operate a program, then we won't allocate their funds.

That money will then be available to supplement the tier 2 rate. We did see some, a list from the Department, a vet of LEAs who haven't been, who didn't operate the program in previous years. They tend to be fairly small.

A lot of them I think it's noted in your staff agenda are those who get the minimum grant amount. So there might not be a lot of funding that we would, we would not necessarily expect a significant amount of funding available there.

So that still, so in the, in maybe to sum up everything I just said in the. This year the funding rate is at 2000. So that is helpful for those districts. But it's still, this uncertainty still remains. These funds won't be available next year necessarily to support this. We had two years worth of unspent funding.

We will be every year looking at how much money comes in unspent and so it could be that there's funding available but it's not, it's not for sure. So there's still that uncertainty that they face when they're, you know, when those districts are trying to build their, their planning.

Why, why are. Maybe this is for both LAO and, and for Department of Education. But why are districts not, you know, taking advantage of these dollars that, that are being offered?

I think these were the first years of expansion. So I think it's, you know, I do think that there were, we heard a lot of challenges and about you know, just being able to staff up and offer program in the first couple years.

The specific requirements didn't take effect in terms of like you had to serve all eligible students because we knew this was just coming out of the Pandemic. There were a lot of challenges in staffing up things like that. So I think that's part of the. That would be part of it.

I wouldn't expect those same levels of savings to happen moving forward. But that's part of what we think is part of the reason.

We'Ve been in contact with. We're in the process of contacting all the LEAs that showed zero expenditures for 21222223 in those two years. There was $5.7 billion allocated. 400. Just over $443 million was unspent. That's actually much better than we projected a year ago.

And we have found that many districts, the districts who had the most difficulty launching this program are districts that hadn't historically had the after school Education safety program or 21st century. They were districts who did not have an ownership or priority for expanded learning programs.

Districts that had prior expanded learning funding from the state ramped up this program very quickly and in many cases exponentially increased the number of students served. Which is one of the concerns I have about subtracting the LOP from the ACEs grant.

Because districts that are doing what we're asking them to do and what the Administration and Legislature prioritized, which is one comprehensive program for all of these funding streams, have dramatically increased the number of students served using both sources of funding.

There's not very much incentive for a district to maintain ACEs funding if they're just going to get that subtracted from their ELOP funding. So I would say that. And we're in the process of contacting LEAs in the past month that showed up with zero expenditures on the first two years.

Many of those have started the program and it just took a longer time to ramp up.

Okay, thank you. That helps. Reminds us of the realities of ramping up. New initiatives, new programs, and the challenges that school districts face. Last from my end is the proposal to base the funding on participation rather than on the student population. Again, you know, thinking about the challenges of districts to plan for and administer programs, does that.

Is there any concern for many of the three agencies represented, you know, whether that's going to make it more difficult for school districts to plan for and administer these programs? Maybe starting with lao.

I think one thing I would note, the current ELOP program is based on prior year attendance, not current year attendance. So in that way, it's fairly predictable in terms of what districts will receive. So if you had the same approach with participation, that would create more stability. But to your point, it would.

Does mean that over the long run, whether or not students are enrolled in the program is going to affect how much funding the district would receive.

Okay, but that helps in that it's the past numbers, past year's numbers, rather than what is the current participation. Any comments?

Yeah, yeah. Michael Funk, CDE so the state funding started for expanded learning in 1997, and back then it was based on a reimbursement for attendance. And it was incredibly problematic for districts to be able to predict staff up and know that they would have funding to cover the staffing levels if for some reason participation dropped.

So in 2006, the Legislature changed that state funding instead of reimbursement for attendance, there were attendance targets that need to be met for aces in 21st century. And if you don't meet those attendance targets, then you could potentially face a future reduction. But it, but the money was always stable for the current year.

So my concern, I think representing the LEAs that were in communication with, is that at this point, basing the rate based on participation would make it difficult to eventually ramp up to the potential and serve the kind of families that the vision is to serve.

So we would have some concern with that would want to be involved in conversation about that.

Okay, thank you.

And then George Harris, Department of Finance just wanted to note that the Department hasn't had a full chance to review the Laos proposal, but do want to preface that moving into 2526. There are local education agencies that will be opting out.

So we'll, we'll start, we'll, we'll have more information on participation from that extent as well as we move forward.

Okay, thank you. I was also wanted to raise the point that with the uncertainty of federal funding for after school programs, especially for our. Am I correct in understanding that any high school after school programs that our California public schools are offering are entirely dependent on federal funding?

That is correct.

And is that also the case for middle school?

No. The after school Education Safety program serves K through 8.

Yeah, that's right. Okay, if I nasty. Did you have a comment on that?

No, that. That's correct.

Okay. All right. And so given the uncertainty of, of the status of future federal funding with the Trump administration's attack on public education, are we in the position, I mean, has, has finance considered expanding the ELOP program to, to cover high school programs?

George Harris, Department of Finance the Department hasn't made any considerations to the updating the proposal at this point in time. We're closely monitoring the situation at the federal level. And as that, as the updates are. Are put in place. We'll be making preparations in advance and working on those as they come along. Okay.

But nothing at this time.

Thank you. Lao have anything to add or. No. Okay. All right. Seeing no further questions, thank you very much. Well, hold this item open. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I think, given the scheduling of our hearing, we would like to move forward and invite President Linda Darling Hammond, President of the State Board of Education.

If you can share your remarks. Thank you very much for joining us. And the floor is yours when you're ready.

Do I need to do anything? I guess I'm on. Okay. It's great to see you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I am pleased to be able to return and testify again this year about where we are as a state in many aspects of learning recovery especially, and how those relate to the budget and what you're considering.

Last year, when I spoke to the Committee, I discussed the challenges we face as we were recovering from the pandemic. I noted then that there was a growing number of children in our public schools who are living in poverty and experiencing homelessness. And that number has grown again this year.

So 65% of our test takers in 2023-24 came from low income families. That was up from 63% the year before and 58% when I first took on the role of President of the State Board of education and 2019. So we've had a steadily increasing set of needs in our student population.

In addition, since last year, the number of students experiencing homelessness increased again by almost 10% over the previous year, which had increased from the year before. And the number of students with disabilities also grew.

New English learners, those tested for the first time, arrived in our schools with lower levels of English proficiency than the previous cohort of English learners. You've probably seen a lot of reports about the growing gap between the highest performer and performers and lowest performers, both in California and across the nation.

And this accounts for the fact that that group of the lowest performers is needier and needier each year. So as we face new fiscal challenges, it's important to think about where our investments are paying off. Obviously, recovery is slow across the country.

The recent NAEP scores, the national assessment, dropped nationally in reading at fourth and eighth grade and math at eighth grade, with improvements in fourth grade math. So the students who were kindergarteners in the beginning of the pandemic are the ones in fourth grade now.

The ones who are eighth graders now were in third or fourth grade at that time. This was also true in California, but we had a smaller decline than most other states, as we have seen during the pandemic. And we did have an increase in grade four math, as other states did, and a slightly greater increase.

We actually had improvements again for LAUSD on the urban district assessment nationally. So it has been in the last couple of years showing improvements where other major urban districts often are not.

For the first time since the pandemic, we saw achievement gains on staff, state tests in English language arts, math and science, despite the fact that the student population has greater needs than ever before, the scores improved most in math on those tests as well, with improvements noted at every grade level in 2023-24.

Interestingly, perhaps as a result of the investments we've made, scores for socioeconomically disadvantaged students increased at a faster rate than the state average. So they began to close achievement gaps with more advantaged students.

Also, for the first time, gains were larger than the state average for black students and foster care students in many grades beginning to close achievement gaps.

While we still have a long way to go to return to pre pandemic levels, in part, as I said, because of the growing needs of students during that time, you heard from my colleague Stanford University Professor Sean Riordan, in the work of the Education Recovery scorecard that 31% of California students are enrolled in districts that are now scoring above 2019 levels in in math.

About 10% are in districts that have recovered in both math and reading. 12% are in districts scoring above the 2019 levels in reading. Clearly, there's a lot more work to be done, but we should be learning from those districts that are making the gains.

And I just want to note with respect to the funding situation, there are questions arising about the large investment we had from the Federal Government. Where did that money go? Why aren't we seeing it necessarily in scores and state investments? And it's useful to recall three things about that.

One is that in addition to the greater needs of students, most of the initial pandemic recovery funding was needed for digital devices, connectivity, protective equipment, testing, and new HVAC systems to allow students to return to school.

And because California schools were so severely underfunded prior to LCFF Kicking in in 2015, our facilities were in greater disrepair and less safe in terms of ventilation than those in many better funded schools states. So we had to put a lot of that money just into making the environment safe for students to come back to schools.

And to get to technology equity that some other states, you know, which long ago went to one to one computing, we still had 30 or more percent of our students without devices and connectivity. So that's one piece of where the money goes. Pension costs have increased by more than 30% in recent years.

That's a big bite of local budgets. Health care costs have also increased by more than 10% in countries that have universal health care and that have universal retirement systems. Schools don't have to accommodate those costs. The third thing I think we just need to be really paying attention to for the future as well is climate events.

Climate events have posed huge challenges for our learning recovery as well as the use of our resources. A couple of years ago, we were able to tally the number of climate events that disrupted schools.

There were more than 1300 weather events that prevented students from attending school, either because the schools were destroyed or damaged or closed, or because the roads that the students needed to travel to reach them were closed as a function of firestorms and floods.

You know that in Southern California, the fires we just experienced closed more than 1,000 schools, impacted the learning of 700,000 students. These contribute to the absenteeism that we know affects student achievement, but it also adds to the costs of doing business in schools.

So we really need to be thinking about how we're going to deal with this in the years to come. Our chronic absenteeism rates have been declining, but they don't include the closing of schools for these reasons.

And so we, I think, need to be very clear as we move forward that it's important for schools to be able to educate students online when they can't be open, when students can't get there. We need to make that as straightforward and economical as possible.

We had a closure of the technology gap for a while, but then it has reopened since schools returned in person. And so we're going to need to think about that in the future as we want to increase student achievement. Finally, we know more about investments that increase student achievement.

As you know, the Education Recovery Scorecard did look at California data which showed how the recovery funds had been spent and found that achievement grew more in the districts that had interventions associated with learning Recovery, Tutoring, summer school. The more that was spent on those things, the more achievement was going up.

In California districts, that category of spending that they looked at also included community schools. And we are getting some new data now.

The Learning Policy Institute is undertaking a study of community school outcomes, and we are finding that compared to schools serving similar students who did not get the community school grants, they're dramatically reducing chronic absenteeism, improving attendance, and we see some evidence that they appear to be increasing student achievement at the school level.

We'll be able to know more when we can get the student level data from the Department of Education to look at that in a more precise way. We also know that LCFF reform in multiple studies has been shown to improve achievement relative to students in prior years.

But that is most evident for the districts that receive concentration grants. Districts that also have a significant number of unduplicated count students who do not receive concentration grants but just get the supplemental grant actually are doing a little less well than Those who are getting that larger amount.

So there's something about how to ensure that that resource is equitably available that will be important. We have multiple studies in California now showing that transitional kindergarten is making a difference. And so as that comes online fully in 202526 we hope to see the results of that investment.

And finally, many studies have found, including the ones I mentioned, looking at LCFF spending, that achievement goes up more where the expenditures are spent on increasing teacher salaries, increasing teacher experience, reducing teacher turnover and improving class sizes. So all of these instructional uses of funding make a big difference in the achievement that results.

And finally, the proportion of teachers who are fully prepared and certified makes a big difference in achievement. It's one of the largest effects. And we also have evidence from California nationally that teachers who are national board certified are more effective with their own students.

But even more than that, the mentees that they train have students who achieve at higher levels.

And so our initiative to put money into high need schools for National Board certified teachers has multiple effects, including, we hope, as we begin to do the current studies, keeping more of those beginning teachers in the classroom, making them more effective, and then bringing that expertise to the school.

So the areas of focus that I mentioned in my written remarks include the things I've just talked about, you know, continuing obviously the onboarding of universal transitional kindergarten, ensuring that the expanded learning opportunities program does support the extended school day and the six weeks of summer learning, Helping districts and schools learn how to use that time effectively for tutoring and other high leverage practices will be a useful part of that.

And then making sure that the California Community schools program, which supports now more than 2,000 students, schools across the state and is beginning to show the effects that we had hoped for, it finds a way to be sustained and become part of the longer term. This coming school year.

In addition to those, all kindergarten to second grade students will be screened for risk of reading difficulties.

And again, if we can be sure that that screening then results in the right kinds of interventions and supports, you know, the small group and tutoring, that's going to be a matter for professional development that accompanies the use of the screener.

And then all pre service teachers will be trained for literacy instruction in programs that have been approved as meeting the expectations of our framework. So again, we want to continue to be sure that they are, they and others are getting the kind of coaching they need in both math and literacy.

Our budget includes coaching initiatives because those are actually an investment in the districts that stays rather than the sit and get drive by workshops that you might get from vendors. So we think the way that that money is spent will matter.

Finally, we have a set of programs that, you know, have been trying to support the teacher workforce.

The Golden State Teacher grants, which will be expiring this year and we hope they will last through the year, have brought thousands of teachers into high poverty schools and kept them there and have made it possible to diversify the teaching workforce as well.

In addition to that, we have a proposal for a new loan repayment program so that when teachers come to districts that they can also get their loans repaid. And that will be a retention incentive as well as a recruitment incentive.

We need to get more people able to get fully prepared so that the students get the benefit of that. And then there's a proposal for extending the National Board Certification program. It has commitments larger than the expenditures because teachers are eligible for five years to get that free funding.

Finally, I think we may want to think about several efficiencies that will be important to think about in the years to come. One is community schools itself, which are at efficiency.

They efficiently blend and braid resources in ways that get a bigger bang for the buck than if you left all those siloed programs out there, which are very hard for children and families to access. So. So there's usually about a $15 return for every dollar spent in a community school.

And figuring out how to take advantage of that will be important. We have now a whole child framework that was launched with a lot of one time categorical grants. I remember my previous. My predecessor, State board President Mike Hurst, used to talk about the hardening of the categoricals.

We had to start a lot of these programs with categorical funding and one time funding, because that's what the budget allows. But now is the time to prevent the hardening of the categoricals and to figure out how to integrate those funds for schools and ELOP and a variety of programs that we're directing to support students trying.

We want to get to a unified structure for applications for funding for reporting systems, Reduce the amount of bureaucratic paperwork and overload that comes from having to manage all of the separate streams that, as I say, were started for good reasons, but now that they're established, we should look for ways to make that more efficient.

And then finally, as I mentioned earlier, I do think we need to be supporting both universal access to and flexible use of technologies for learning, which means, again, thinking about some of the constraints that may be in law regulation that can be reduced to make that a more flexible opportunity, not only when there's climate events or weather events that close schools, but also, you know, for innovating in the school space, particularly in high schools where students now are in internships and externships and online to take their AP courses and, you know, in and out of the school building.

We want to get to a place where we're thinking about learning time, not seat time. Thank you.

You.

Thank you, Dr. Hammond. Appreciate you being here and thank you. I really appreciate the, the written testimony. It's also very helpful. We don't get those with everybody who comes before us, but it's, it's very helpful. I'll start with a few questions and then I'll ask others to, to chime in.

Maybe I'll start with where you ended. I like the phrase, it sounds like you've borrowed from your predecessor on hardening of categoricals. And I think on page five you talk about some of that as it relates to full implementation of universal transitional kindergarten for four year olds. Obviously this year is a big gift for that.

But it's also true, I think that half day is still allowed and so full. Can you talk about any of the research on the half day versus full day? And obviously an investment of half day is better than none. I would think anybody could say that.

But can you talk about why half day is still an acceptable model? My understanding from maybe even you and others who have participated in research of other models, I've talked about more of a full day and also an even smaller ratio, I believe, of students to adults or to educator than the model we're using.

And so question that remains for me is does our model lead to the same success that we've seen in other models?

And if not, that's a great question. And obviously we'll need to be doing more research on that. But the Learning Policy Institute is putting out a paper on this next week. So I actually have just seen the statistics from the last survey that the Department did, which 98% of districts responded to. So it's a pretty good.

The good news is that the vast majority of districts, well over 80%, I don't have the precise statistic in my mind, but it is probably closer to 90% are doing what's called full day kindergarten or full day tk. But full day means 4 hours or more. So it may be only 4 hours.

Most there are some that are doing part day and then beyond that, most of them are wrapping around that number of hours with additional care time, which may be provided through extended learning dollars. It may be through partnering with the California preschool program on the same premises and so on.

It is true that the evidence base that we have on early learning does suggest that the full day and perhaps even more than the four hours is desirable when it's developmentally appropriate. And I don't know why the 10 or 15% of programs are still doing part day. But there may be Financial reasons. There may be reasons of.

In some remote places, there are very few students and they're trying to figure out how to combine, you know, TK and kindergarten and so on.

And of course, we don't have mandatory kindergarten, so it's an interesting thing to have everyone doing TK and there may be places where I'm not sure how they progress then through the kindergarten space where there's not an expectation. So we do need to continue to fine tune.

I will say that the districts are taking up this challenge very, very assertively and with some great enthusiasm. Many, many districts have fully implemented all of the four year olds into TK before the legislative deadline. Most of them, the vast majority, are offering TK at every elementary school site, which does matter for parents choosing tk.

Most of them are doing full day, the four hours or more. So, you know, I think the model is leaning towards what the research would suggest is effective now. In our California school preschool program, the ratio of 8 to 1 is what is in play.

And that does come from historical research that has been done across the country around ratios in TK. I think we will be soon at 10 to 1, which is a big improvement over where we were, but I don't know that that particular ratio has been studied.

Okay, appreciate that feedback again on the hardening conversation, the expanded learning opportunities program. And in your testimony you note that making that universal certainly will be impactful.

I'm curious though, even if it is now universal in terms of access, how the participation rate and whether you have any data either collected through CDE or whichever mechanism we're utilizing to collect data on that, especially when it comes to the summer programs, which tend to be the ones where the evidence I've seen is the learning loss that occurs over the summer, you know, can be substantial.

And so do you have any thoughts on that?

Again, the publication I mentioned about participation, About TK does talk about participation rate for TK and of course, the options for the parents of 4 year olds also include California school preschool program. They include Head Start, they include private preschools, and so on.

So we don't have a way to measure how many are in private preschool, but we are to the point now where.

I'm sorry, I was referring to all of the TK through 6 expanded learning.

Oh, all of the participation. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that the places that have been offering universal summer school over multiple years are beginning to get their participation rates up. I do think that that has been part of the story for Los Angeles.

I mentioned that they have Continued to do well in, in the national assessments as well as in the state assessments. And they've really leaned in on both tutoring and summer school. How do we get to a place where the participation rates are higher?

I think the evidence, this research base would suggest that you need a program that is both enrichment and academic, that kids need to want to come and have both the enrichment and the academic opportunities there. And then it has to be.

Transportation is a big issue for summer school programs quite often in terms of participation rate because we don't always have the same funding for transportation as during the school year. So I think there are a number of things that can be done and thought about to enhance those participation rates that are lower.

Participation rates for after school programs I think are not a problem. Many, many, many parents want that access and there is not enough access to the after school space and that's a place where we need to grow the supply because the demand is there.

So I think that in addition to the other program hardening here, categoricals if you will, California community schools and the way I thought about this, and please provide, you know, your, your feedback on this is as we continue to see a decline in enrollment and an increase in Prop 98 funding that in my mind in, in some number of years and I, I haven't done any even back of the envelope type of calculations and I don't know that I'd want to put myself in the position of trying to figure that out.

But in a few years, likely not a few years, in some years in the future there will be substantially more funding for education with substantially less students.

And in my mind things like community schools, because it is a limited five year program, can then potentially become funded through regular LCFF allocation that now has grown with the enrollment decline. Can you help me think through that? Maybe a little bit better.

Maybe I'm completely wrong and that will never be the case and the lines will never cross in that way. But. Or do you agree with me that that eventually will be the case?

I hope that will be the case. You know, we are now nationally, if you take cost of living into account, 28th in school funding. And so you know, we're making progress in a per, in per pupil funding but we are not in the top half of states yet if you take cost of living into account.

So we really do want the, you know, the growth of Prop 98 to offset to produce higher per pupil opportunities in spending. And you know, for community schools, I think there's a couple of things. One is declining Enrollments, of course, in some districts are causing excess space and they're trying to figure out what to do with schools.

And I think we ought to have a vision for how in many cases we could be bringing in the health clinic, the local, you know, community based organizations that have to rent space somewhere and have to be nearby to use some of that space.

I actually, when my first job out of college doing social worker or case management, we had family resource centers at the elementary schools, right where the families felt very comfortable going in there and they had the other. It was very much a community schools type of model, much more focused around case management of different types of needs.

But I think it made at that point, I had never seen that before and it was kind of weird. But in retrospect, it makes a ton of sense that everything was there.

Well, and, you know, if you have the school with those kinds of opportunities, the health clinic, it may be there a variety of other things. It makes the school a hub of the community that brings more connections with parents, particularly if you have a parent resource center. We know that parent engagement supports achievement.

We know that connections to family also support attendance and reduce chronic absenteeism. We know that health clinics also improve achievement because just the fact of getting kids vision screening and hearing screening, which ends up producing, you know, in a lot of communities, a quarter or more of the kids who did not have access to the.

Being able to see the board, you know, get the glasses that they need. And so. But there are a lot of those things that ultimately the.

Though they're thought of as frills around the edges, are actually very core to learning recovery and may also build this notion of how a community school can serve those functions in more and more of our schools.

Two states, Maryland and New York, do have community schools as part of their school finance formula for all schools who have a threshold of 80% or more students living in poverty.

But what would it take for us to get to. Have you been part of any conversations on analysis like that, whether it's 80% or some other percent of fully funding.

Community schools, what it would have to be modeled? I have not done that, but it could easily be done. They use a benchmark in both of those cases of about $250,000 per year per school.

I think to be sure there's a community school manager, which is the core of being able to access all of those services and blend and braid all the other funds.

To the overall question or thought process that I.

That I shared with you, then it sounds like you you do believe that we're at some point in next several years going to be at a point where funding should be, you know, up, obviously growing and higher with caseload, if you will, or students and enrollment declining, where resources will continue to be available.

And it sounds like to me, if you do agree with that, that the investments that we've made now should be the first ones that we harden, to use that term, through some sort of ensuring that it becomes part of a.

Funding mechanism and part of the system. So that is, you know, less a bunch of silos. Yeah, we still have the largest class sizes or pupil teacher ratio in the country by a long, by a long margin for a while. I think the, the national pupil teacher ratio was 16 to 1.

Ours was 24 to 1, so about 50% larger than the nation. It's closing a little bit now, but we are still, we still have fewer teachers, counselors, you know, administrators per student than any other state in the country.

That's a function of the, you know, per pupil expenditures and the ability to get, you know, closer to the national average. It's also part of the achievement issue, particularly the early grades.

You know, if you look at places many people talk about Mississippi and their gains in early literacy, like lots to talk about there and pros and cons in the context, but they have a second adult in every kindergarten and first grade classroom, so you can have small groups and so on.

My point is that as California catches up to the rest of the nation in terms of funding, there are a lot of ways in which we need to think about what are the best uses of those resources to support the learning that we know needs recovery.

Yeah. Thank you. I also note in your report we still have two things. We have the achievement gap, which unfortunately persists, and the statistic you note of 10% districts have recovered both subjects, only 10%, which is quite, quite substantial. That means 90% have not recovered.

And then the other point which we've discussed last fall in the hearing that we had and somewhat I've talked a little bit about, but the concentration thresholds, and I remember the chart that the spike that occurs almost immediately after you hit, when you lower it or when you increase it to the achievement, that growth that occurs as a result of that.

Yeah.

Have you given any more thought to that in specific? Because we, we definitely have in the months since we had that conversation in terms of, of that threshold. I think we asked the question a number of times, even post that, and I know that our consultant did as well.

And we haven't circled back since then, but I, I don't remember just hearing anything very clear in terms of the evidence demonstrates, you know, this is the threshold and we should focus on getting to that as a goal. Is there anything more you can add to that?

Well, I would add just a couple of things. One is that we have a very high needs student population in California. We are one of only five states that has the greatest number of students who live in poverty. We have the greatest number of English learners of any state we have.

And that the poverty rates are increasing, the number of students living in homelessness are increasing. So the point is that when we Fund student needs, right now we're doing that both as an unduplicated count. So if you have multiple needs, you don't see all of the resources that might be needed or useful.

But also then there's that 65% add on for those needs at the 55% concentration Grant Threshold, but only 20% in the supplemental grant below that. So if you're a district with 54% of their students unduplicated count, you're getting much less per student than a district that is 55%. And there's nothing, I don't think, magic about that.

At the time the LCFF came in, it was modeled to figure out where the greatest needs were. Now 55% is below the average for unduplicated count for students because of the increased need. So I think there are lots of ways that states organize for this. You could imagine a way that you smooth that curve.

You know, there is something about high rates of concentration that really do have an additional effect where that is, is often at a level that is calculated in the studies that get done in states that's even higher than the 55%. So I think we would need to do new modeling if we wanted to have a threshold approach.

There are other approaches which are, you know, to wait for every student for each need and then be sure that that funding goes to the districts.

One other question, and you and I actually had an opportunity, brief, but opportunity to talk about and something that is more and more on my mind.

And that's the middle school population of kids and the very special needs that occur for kids in that age and whether the grade span numbers that our youth are associated with that particular Spanish is appropriate.

I know you had some thoughts when we again had a brief exchange on this, on things and investments that we don't see in this budget proposal that we haven't really seen. I think maybe in a while, maybe we did at some point.

You know, I don't have that much of a history with education finance, but I feel like that is one area that there hasn't been a ton of focus on.

And that will lead to my final question, which will be the most difficult and challenging for you, which is if we had to prioritize from all the things that I've asked to become hardened in our system of financing of education, where should we start? So I'll let you think about that one, but also answer, give some.

I know some thoughts on the middle school because I'd like to really start to have more of a conversation about that.

Yeah, it's interesting. There's a basket of research about middle schools which shows a couple of things. One is that it's a place where a lot of kids start to drop off, right, because they go from a pretty supportive elementary school environment and then they have to see six or seven or eight teachers a day.

If the middle school has not been redesigned in a way that brings the teachers into a team and provides an advisory structure, then a lot of kids just get lost in the shuffle. They have to respond to seven or eight different sets of expectations. There's no place that there's somebody who knows them well.

The teachers may have, you know, 150 kids. It's hard to know each of them well. I come out of high school teaching, so I know what that's like. You could care about your kids, but it's hard to care for 150 kids. Well, yeah.

So there are several studies recently that have restated what was known previously is that kids are better off in a K8 setting or a 612 setting. Then they are going to middle school. There's a drop in achievement that occurs from going to middle school and experiencing the way most middle schools are designed.

So as we have declining enrollment, one of the things we might be wanting to encourage people to do is move those into K8 settings. One of the things that's happening there is the kid knows the school, they know the people. The parents are known by the principal. There's a more of a support system in place.

Even if they begin to differentiate their teachers a bit in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, in 6 through 12, they again have that longer trajectory. Continuity matters a great deal for learning. Just like it matters in families, it matters in schools.

Marty West is the Harvard Professor who just did the recent studies and I think there's a whole conversation to be had. Middle school started when we had a baby boom bump of kids coming in and we needed to do something about school buildings. That's where it started. It did not start for educational reasons.

So that's one piece of it. The other is within the middle school. How do you design it? Or whether it's in whatever grade configuration, how do you design it?

So that as kids are coming into their, you know, competence and their, you know, their identity development and all of those things that they're in settings where they're well known, where the teams of teachers who teach them work with each other to.

To support the kids as well as teach the curriculum, where advisory systems in middle and high school are available so there's someplace that they see an adult every day. That may be where they're getting some academic opportunities to be understood and known, but also social and emotional learning may be going on in those contexts.

Other aspects for high schoolers, college applications and so on. To get to a place where we have a distributed counseling. This is all sort of the aftermath of the factory model that we inherited. And, you know, you have one Counselor to see 500 kids. That doesn't work. You have a lot of structures that.

I mean, counselors are great, but it's very hard to care for 500 kids. So we need to rethink the design of the schools. And this is an opportunity, frankly, because we have declining enrollment. We're not busting out the seams.

You know, we can think about how should we be organizing our schools, both in terms of grade spans and in terms of the design within.

So that leads to the. To the big question, given that there's been a lot of new investments and substantial and important investments, whether it's expanded learning or it's community schools or tk, just to mention a few in the last several years.

One that may be worthy of our consideration in the future is something in the middle school space. At some point, we don't want to recreate categorical funding. I think nobody wants to go back to that.

But so to do the opposite of that is to do what you mentioned, which is the hardening, which of all of the initiatives that have begun recently, I'd say in the last five years.

Is it more worthwhile for us to really built into the system of school financing in California and not treat it as a one time or treat it as a, you know, essentially a categorical program?

I mean, it's a hard question and, you know, it's a dangerous one. So. But I will, I will say, I mean, we've got to thank goodness we have TK it has come online really well, you know, considering the scale of the reform, clearly we need to continue that.

That is part of the new school system of the future. Clearly we need to continue to support the after school and the summer school space because the school year has to be responsive to students needs and community schools should become integrated into the way we do business. All of these can be done.

It takes more money to start things and figure out how to do them than it may take to continue them. You know, once you figured, I'm thinking particularly about community schools here because, you know, you've got to learn how to do it, you've got to support a lot of learning and so on.

But there's a point at which you should be able to afford to integrate it into the system as a whole with, you know, a lower cost cent per pupil than you needed to start it up.

But to clarify, that's not currently built into the community school funding. It is not.

It is not. So we have another few years because we did put a long tail on it looking at Erin, who was responsible for that long tail in many respects.

And that's great because it means we have time to figure out how to bring that into the system and then as we do that, to reduce the amount of sort of regulation, audit trails, you know, special paperwork elements that are really hard for districts to manage so many of those and to build them in.

I would say that on this, some of these need to be part of the system of the future and we are building it and we should, you know, integrate that. We do also need at moments in time, sort of grant funds that get people to start to do new things. So we've started to do these new things.

We're learning how to do them. We should bring them now into the core.

Redesigning schools for the 21st century, which we're well into now, is an agenda that I think would be worth a grant program where we invite, as was done actually in some other states, schools that want to redesign to, to rethink the way they do middle school, the way that they organize the grade levels, the way that they, I would also argue, do high school, because that's another place where there are opportunities.

There was a federal initiative and there have been many state initiatives for redesigning schools to meet the needs of kids today and of the 21st century.

And that may at the middle and high school level also include college and career pathways and ways to think, think about how do you get ready for the world that we're coming into. And we have some good programs going in California.

But we have not yet taken it on as an agenda, you know, for the state as a whole to say, okay, the factory model was invented 100 years ago in the 1920s.

It's time for us to really be purposeful about inventing the kinds of schools that will be sufficiently relational, sufficiently focused on the kinds of school skills that kids need in the economy of today, and sufficiently supportive to enable them all to succeed.

So 11 last comment or maybe question, thought provoking question one. I forgot to acknowledge that, you know, I went through all middle school without being able to see. I was, I was nearsighted and it wasn't until I don't know how I accidentally.

We had no health insurance and so we accidentally found some, I think program to do glasses. And yeah, the world literally changed. I remember getting them. Wow. I didn't realize that is true for.

About 25% of students.

But what I wanted to also state is I lost my train of thought. It was. I lost the.

Sounds like I was going to a community schools place to me.

Yeah, it was, but I don't remember exactly what I do. The last thing I think I'll acknowledge if that thought doesn't come back is the focus on the recruitment and retention of qualified and a better prepared workforce. I think that's.

And that is one of the central ones that we have to protect. We should be in the position we are as large as most countries and we are the whatever fourth or fifth largest economy in the world. And in comparable countries, teachers do not have to pay to learn to teach.

You know, if you teach, you know, the government make sure that you get good preparation because they benefit from it. We should get to a place where people in California can routinely enter teaching debt free.

And that should be a part of the way we do school here because then you will have a well qualified workforce in every school. And that's the single most important lever on both caring and achievement.

Yeah. And you know, even more consistent funding because pink slip threats on March 15 is not a way to attract a workforce to anything. So the one other item that I keep hearing from the community about is the behavioral health component of the funding that was approved I think now two years ago.

And the concern that the one time funds that were used for those types of programs were one time in nature. A lot of federal funds are all expired now or expiring. And where are we with the rollout of behavioral health? The funding that was approved, I think it was youth behavioral health funding from a couple years ago.

You get A more precise answer from our colleagues at Health and Human Services. But you know, that money was also one time and I think it's got another year or two that it can be used before. It will before the tail.

I'm not sure that it's been used, though. That's my concern.

It's certainly being spent in some ways, but there are schools that have worked very well to bring in through the state Behavioral Health Initiative, youth Behavioral Health Initiative, folks who are on the campus and available with some of their own counselors and so on.

I think for it to do its best work, that integration is really important and they are different systems. So that's a challenge.

Well, definitely follow up with folks on that side. I remembered the other point I was going to try to get your thoughts on. So coming from a lower income community, I still reside in that community. I have seen multiple rounds. You mentioned redesigning of schools, multiple rounds and attempts to redesign schools.

And I would say the majority of times that has not resulted in really the outcomes that I think we certainly expected or desired. And so I'm trying to think is, as we do talk about redesigning schools, are you saying more in redesigning in terms of the programs that we've.

Investments that we've implemented and baking those into those new redesigned schools, or how do we ensure that we're not? The sentiment from a lot of people is you're just experimenting with kids who are already struggling at schools that are already struggling, and it's not providing the outcomes.

And I feel like, at least in San Diego and in the communities that I represent, there's some history of that.

I think it has to come from the school being the community of the school, including parents as well as, you know, educators being ready to do that and then having support and help.

So I would say one of the successful strategies in California has been the Link Learning initiative, which came out of the Career Pathways, you know, some years ago.

And we have 600 pathways across the country or across the state and others across the country where they've redesigned high schools to be smaller, more personalized advisory systems, internships, they're much more successful.

But they have a model, they have a strategy, and they have a way to help the schools that want to do it to integrate that kind of work. The international high schools that work for new English learners also have a model like that that is something that you can learn and that can be taught, you know.

And I think we need to develop our resources for supporting the kinds of redesign that communities are ready for and want and then can get help to, to develop.

And I would, that was all incredibly well said. I would just add also assessing to make sure that the outcomes are. Are occurring on a regular basis and, and making sure that that expectation exists of all of our schools. So Dr. Hammond, it's always a Delight to have you here and to speak to us and conversation.

Thank you very much for your service to the state board and for being here today.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. With that we will move on to issue number four which these are the non presentation items. I don't believe there are any questions on these items. And so I don't think that there are any comments from Department of Finance or from the LAO on this issue. So we will hold this issue open.

And now we will go on to public comments. If there are any Members of the public who wish to speak, now is the time to come forward. Please step up to the mic, introduce yourself and we'll give you a minute to share your comments. And thank you all for being here.

Thank you. Chair Sandra Barreiro. On behalf of SEIU California, we appreciate the COLA and the conversation around LCFF and Categoricals. But we want to remind the Committee that under LCFF critical programs compete with basic operational needs like school custodial and maintenance and school nutrition. And some of those are fixed costs.

Even with declining enrollment, they're going to require additional funding above the COLA to make sure that old buildings can be repaired and that our school cafeterias can transition to serve more fresh, less processed food. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning Sara Bachez. With Children Now very appreciative of today's discussion, we recommend that the discretionary grants be distributed in equity driven formula that aligns to LCFF.

We also are supporting, supportive of the review of the TK through three grade span including TK and recognizing that there might have been some unintended consequences as well as restoring the funding for the Learning Recovery Grant program. Thank you.

Thank you.

Tiffany Mok on behalf of CFT, we wanted to support the governor's proposal for fully funded COLA and additionally would like additional funds to ensure that we actually meet the real cost of living. Additionally, we appreciate Dr. Linda Hammond comments on the National Board Certification program which we strongly support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. Laurie Easterling with the California Teachers Association will associate our remarks with the CFT around the COLA. We really want to make sure the COLA is representative the actual expenses that are happening in school districts. So we appreciate the conversation. And Also you mentioned Mr. Chair about pink slips and the due date for pink slips, March 15.

So I do have a rundown of about over close to 1700 teachers that have been have received their RIF notices. So we'll have more data that we'll share with all the Members of the Legislature. So last year we did individual RIF reports for Members of the Legislature. We'll be doing that again in the coming weeks.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Jessica Gunderson. I'm with the Partnership for Children and Youth. And thank you for having the panel on the expanded learning program. Our organization strongly supports the governor's proposal to bring down tier one to 55 unduplicated. We also think it's really important to stabilize two tier rates and at minimum do that for three years.

If we can't do it across the board, you could do it for at least a set amount of time so school districts could budget. We also want to comment on this thing about opting out. We don't believe that the trailer bill language last year actually allows school districts to opt out of the ELOP program.

If we continue forward with that, we at least think there should be community input on the ability for school districts to opt out of that program, most usually when schools can't opt out of programs to serve low income students. So we see that as a concern. The other item that was in the hearing materials was around access.

We do believe that we could really strengthen how we define access in the ELOP program as we are going around to communities across the state. Most parents still do not know about the program as well as foster families, both of which are supposed to be priorities. So we have suggestions on that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Jeff Baca, representing the Riverside County Superintendent of Schools, going to limit my comments to the expanded learning opportunities program. We do support the Governor's Budget proposal, but we do believe it would be beneficial to have a phase in period for those districts that are moving from Tier 2 to Tier 1 under the proposal.

We agree with previous comments that have been made regarding the need to stabilize the Tier 2 funding. And then lastly, we would agree with the Department made by the representative from the Department of Education that deducting ELOP funds for dollars that are going out for the ACES program, we would see that as being problematic. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Michelle Underwood, on behalf of the California School Funding Coalition, wanted to talk on three issues. Two, just to ditto comments you've already heard regarding a cost of living adjustment for the LCFF, as robust of a COLA as can be provided would be appreciated. On ELOP, we support rate to stability.

So those districts with even under 55% would have some assurance of year over year receiving the same amount for ELOP. And an item that Dr. Patel brought up today repeatedly is special education and the need for more robust special education funding. It's not on an agenda yet. We hope that that can be part of a conversation.

There's been a significant increase in the percentage of students identified as having disabilities. And while LCFF funds are of course, for them as well, AB602 special education funds have not kept up and all programs are disserviced by inadequate funding for students with disabilities. So we hope that you consider something more than just a COLA for special education.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Nick Romley here on behalf of the Small School Districts Association. I just want to thank the Committee actually for raising the question around the sufficiency of the minimum grant for the ELOP program. A lot of our districts that would otherwise like to run these programs Simply can't on $50,000.

We would ask the Committee to consider increasing those grants to $100,000. We think that would let these school districts that we represent run those programs in a way that help their local students and families. So we hope to see that change make it in the final budget. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair. Carl Ed with the Association of California School Administrators. We appreciate on two points, we appreciate the governor's ELOP proposal. However, Rate two continues to see instability.

And so we just request that the Governor Legislature explore ways to stabilize rate 2 and maintain the flexibility ELOP provides compared to ASES and then somewhat broaden this Committee, but just kind of elevate a little bit more. CD recently came out with a report on reports districts fully embraced accountability, understand the importance of reporting to ensure transparency.

However, the overall number of reports impedes district's ability to do the number one mission, which is to serve provide students with quality education.

While AXA appreciates legislative passage of SB 1315, which aimed to address the overwhelming number of reports, we are disappointed in CDE's report and believe it does not meet the legislative requirement to provide actual solutions as the report does not include recommendations on which supports can be consolidated, eliminated or truncated.

We look forward to working with CD and the Legislature on this issue and hope to be a partner in this. Thank you.