Class size, funding top school district's legislative issues

Class-size limits and school funding top the Highlands County School district's legislative priorities, which school board members and Superintendent Wally Cox will stress in the next few weeks during trips to the state Capitol.

The School Board of Highlands County is looking for some leeway in the final implementation of the Constitutional Class Size mandates for 2010-11, which require every classroom to meet a set limit on how many students it can have.

Currently, a school-wide average of the student count determines if a school and the district is in compliance with the class-size maximums.

Prekindergarten through grade three classes have to have not more than 18 students; grades four through eight, 22 students; and grades nine through 12, 25 students.

The district is asking that the state be more flexible in how it penalizes schools that don't meet the class-by-class limit.

The district also supports a joint resolution to place before Florida voters a constitutional amendment beginning with the 2010-11 school year that the class-size requirements be permanently calculated at the school level by using the average number of students assigned to each teacher.

"Whether it's on the ballot or not, we are required next July to begin full implementation, and it's my understanding, as a constitutional officer, we are going to make our best effort to meet the class size as it is currently written," Superintendent Wally Cox said recently.

Voters won't decide on the class size amendment before November, but schools are required to implement it in July, he noted.

School Board Chairman Wally Randall said, "If it goes to the voters, that doesn't mean we are going to go back to 30 kids in a class or 35 kids in a class because we are backing off that last year of actual implementation."

Cox said if the district meets the class-size maximums in 90 percent of its classrooms, the penalty should be an estimated $250,000, based on the district's data.

"I just don't want the penalty to increase," he said.

The district has met the class-size requirements every year since it was first implemented in 2003-04.

Cox said next year when every class and every period has to be within the class-size limit, there will be a couple of cases where adding another teacher and splitting a class because of one extra student will not be the best thing to do for the students.

School Board Member J. Ned Hancock noted, though it was listed last, the importance of protecting the local district's discretionary taxing authority and restoring the capital levy to 2 mils.

There should be a higher priority on something that is attainable, he said.

In each of the last two years, the Legislature moved .25 mils from the capital millage to the general operating millage. But, last year the Legislature allowed districts to levy an additional .25 in either operating or capital millage.

"We are asking the Legislature to restore that millage to the capital fund," Assistant Superintendent of Business/Operations Mike Averyt said.

It really hurts rural districts like Highlands that don't generate as many dollars per student from that millage, he said. A property-rich county can generate much more money for school construction, maintenance and large purchases such as new school buses, he added.

The district is using about 80 percent of its capital millage revenue to pay the interest and the principal on the money it borrowed in 2005-06 to build Memorial Elementary, renovate the building that became the Kindergarten Learning Center and numerous other classroom additions, Averyt said.

"So that's why we are asking them to restore capital millage to 2 mils so we can have dollars to buy additional buses, equipment and computers for the classroom," he said.

The district's other legislative priorities include:

• Delaying any new requirements until state revenues stabilize to allow for the costs of hiring qualified teachers, providing teacher training and adding classroom space.

• The Legislature should restore the reductions taken over the last two years, which amount to more than $430 per student.

• Restore the funding cut in the provision that assists districts with declining enrollment.

The Highlands District and school districts statewide are likely facing another tough financial year in 2000-11 with state economists predicting that school funding will be down $1 billion next year.

Falling property values and an influx of students displaced by the earthquake in Haiti will contribute to the shortfall, according to the economists who testified before a Senate panel Wednesday.