The following is an analysis of budget committee and floor amendments related to K-12 education that have been approved by the House of Delegates. This selection does not contain each education related amendment approved by the House of Delegates in HB 1800.
Item 138 #3H- This amendment implements recommendations 10, 12, 21, and 27 from the JLARC report "K-12 Special Education in Virginia". These recommendations address (i) state monitoring of compliance with special education requirements, (ii) special education complaint procedures and practices, (iii) matters related to the applied studies diploma. These amendments are also found in SB 1288 (Dunnavant).
Item 138 #4H- This amendment provides $105,000 the second year from the general fund as a one-time appropriation to implement provisions in House Bill 2299 (Carr) that would direct the Department of Education to develop training modules for IEP team members and to implement a plan to improve the agency's approach to oversight and technical assistance related to postsecondary transition planning for students with disabilities.
Item 139 #1H- This amendment provides $8.8 million the second year from federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds authorized in the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 to implement the provisions of House Bill 2027 (Coyner) to restructure Standards of Learning assessments for mathematics and reading in grades 3-8 from a single end-of-year assessment to a growth assessment system that measures student progress above, at, and below grade level.
Item 140 #1H- This language addresses recommendations 8, 9 and 10 from the JLARC report "Operations and Performance of the Virginia Department of Education"
Item 142 #1H- This amendment implements recommendations 15 ,16, and 17 from the JLARC report "Review of K-12 Special Education in Virginia." These amendments are also found in SB 1288 (Dunnavant).
Item 142 #2H- This amendment provides $395,991 the second year from the general fund to establish three staff positions to implement provisions in House Bill 2299 (Carr) related to development and implementation of a statewide strategic plan for recruiting and retaining special education teachers. This implements recommendation 19 from JLARC's review of K-12 Special Education in Virginia.
Item 143 #1H- This amendment provides $180,000 the second year from the general fund as a one-time appropriation to implement recommendation 3 and policy option 1 from the JLARC report "Operations and Performance of the Virginia Department of Education."
Item 144 #4H- This amendment appropriates $30 million the second year from federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds authorized in the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 to provide grants to address COVID-19 related learning loss and other student support needs.
Item 144 #5H- This amendment provides $250,000 the second year from the general fund to provide active learning grants. First year funding for this initiative was eliminated in Chapter 56, 2020 Special Session I.
Item 145 #2H- This amendment adjusts the Lottery Proceeds forecast to $708.2 million the first year, representing an increase of $23.2 million.
Item 145 #3H- This amendment supplants $30.0 million first year from the general fund provided for No Loss Payments with gray machine revenues.
Item 145 #5H- This amendment captures $2.5 million in the first year from the general fund from the school meals expansion initiative. This first year allocation is no longer necessary, because the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a waiver allowing all students to receive free meals for the 2020-2021 school year, regardless of income eligibility.
Item 145 #7H- This amendment provides $120,000 the second year from the general fund to support the purchase of albuterol and spacers for public schools in Virginia. House Bill 2019 (McQuinn) will require undesignated stock albuterol inhalers to be maintained in every public school.
Item 145 #8H- This amendment saves $11.1 million the second year from the general fund and increases the VPI per pupil amount by 10% from $6,326 in fiscal year 2021 to $6,959 in fiscal year 2022. The introduced budget proposed increasing the per pupil amount by 21% to $7,655 for fiscal year 2022.
Item 145 #9H- This amendment restores $582,000 in incentive payments for Alleghany County and Covington City school divisions to consolidate. Such payments are intended to be set at this amount for five years, with no adjustments. On January 28, 2021, the Board of Education approved the consolidation of these school divisions, to become effective July 1, 2022.
Item 145 #10H- This amendment provides $231.4 million the second year from the general fund and $759,238 the second year from the Lottery Proceeds fund to provide a 5.0 percent salary increase, effective July 1, 2021. This represents an addition of $151.7 million the second year, to the convert the 2.0 percent bonus payment that was proposed in the budget as introduced to a 5.0 percent salary increase. To access these funds, school divisions must certify that salary increases an average of 5.0 percent will be provided during the 2020-22 biennium.
Item 145 #11H- This amendment provides $13.2 million the second year from the general fund to increase the Cost of Competing Adjustment (COCA) for support positions in the school divisions in Planning District 8 and certain adjacent divisions specified in the Appropriation Act that are eligible to receive COCA funds. For the nine Planning District 8 school divisions, this action would increase the adjustment factor from 10.6% to 18%. For the nine adjacent school divisions, this action would increase the adjustment factor from 2.65% to 4.5%. This restores and expands funding that was eliminated in Chapter 56, 2020 Special Session I that would have increased the adjustment factors from 10.6% to 16% and 2.65% to 4%.
Item 145 #12H- This amendment provides $234.7 million the first year and $214.2 million the second year from the general fund for No Loss payments. These payments ensure no school division receives less state funding in either fiscal year than the calculated amount in Chapter 56, 2020 Special Session I. In the first year, such No Loss payments are reduced by an amount equal to 25 percent of each school division's ESSER II federal relief distribution, and such reduction is capped at 25% of the No Loss payment. The introduced budget proposed $299.4 million for No Loss payments in the first year, however this was proposed prior to authorization of $845.4 million in ESSER II subgrants to Virginia school divisions through the federal Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021, which became law on December 27, 2020.
Item 145 #13H- This amendment adjusts the funding for No Loss Payments as proposed in the introduced budget, based upon other proposed budget actions.
Item 145 #14H- This amendment adds $20.1 million the first year and $9.9 million the second year from the general fund to ensure 40 percent of Lottery Proceeds are dedicated to Infrastructure and Operations Per Pupil Payments, formerly known as Supplemental Lottery Per Pupil Allocations. The additional funding increases these Per Pupil Payments by approximately $30 per pupil the first year and $15 per pupil the second year.
Item 145 #15H- This amendment provides one additional year of education for students with disabilities who were 19 years of age or older and enrolled during the 2020-21 school year. The amendment provides $6.5 million the second year from federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds authorized in the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 to address the state share of per-pupil costs and costs that do not qualify under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Item 145 #16H- This amendment provides $627,671 in the second year from the general fund to apply the partial Cost of Competing Adjustment (COCA) rate to Accomack and Northampton Counties, which is the rate applied to outlying Northern Virginia localities. The introduced budget included $2.7 million to provide the full COCA rate to Accomack and Northampton Counties, which is the same rate applied to the core Northern Virginia localities in Planning District 8.
Item 145 #19H- This amendment provides that students enrolled in full-time MOP programs shall be enrolled in a separate public school for public reporting purposes, effective with the 2021-22 school year. Currently, school divisions are permitted to enroll full-time MOP students in a traditional public school for public reporting purposes, although though these students typically do not receive instruction from the staff of the school and reside outside of the enrolling school division. This would ensure that the public reporting information for traditional public schools reflects the student body that physically attends such traditional public schools.
Item 145 #20H- This amendment provides $51.1 million the first year from gray machine revenues to support learning losses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. These payments are distributed to school divisions based on the existing At-Risk Add-On formula, using an add-on range of 0% to 6%. No local match is required, and unexpended funds from the first year shall remain available in the second year. This amendment requires the Department of Education to include information on each school divisions' use of these funds in an annual report to the Chairs of the House Appropriations and Senate Finance and Appropriations Committees.
Item 479.10 #2H- This amendment provides an appropriation of up to $81.1 million the first year from the state COVID-19 Relief Fund to Item 145 to fund Learning Loss Supplemental Payments and a portion of the No Loss Payments. The budget approved at the 2020 Special Session provided up to $95.2 million from this fund be appropriated to public education, however the introduced budget proposed removing payments from the fund from public education, and backfilling with general funds. Revenues from games of skill machines are deposited into the COVID-19 Relief Fund.
