Schools to receive more funding through Area 30 programs

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Local superintendents received some good news regarding partnerships with Area 30 Career Center during the May board of directors meeting.

Area 30 Director Lora Busch explained a change in the school's funding formula, which would increase the amount of money the schools receive for each student participating in technical education courses.

"A piece of your budget is obviously your APC (Additional Pupil Count) funding. There have been some changes to that (funding). Legislators have increased the dollar amount that you will receive for students in certain programs. That includes all classes or programs that students attend at Area 30 Career Center," Busch explained Tuesday morning.

She noted while the schools will see that increase, starting in July, the college and career readiness courses will see a decrease in funding. But, the directors hope the issue will be offset by the $5 million set aside for performance dollars.

"We don't have a definition of that yet. It is in the hands of the Department of Workforce Development to tell us, hopefully in the very near future because this starts in July of 2015. The performance dollars, we believe, will be rewarded to schools on the number of dual credits and certain certifications that are awarded," Busch explained.

Busch added schools with students that are considered program concentrators, which take six or more credit hours in a career program, may also be eligible for those performance dollars. She noted students receive six credits at the Career Center through two courses.

"A student who has taken maybe an introductory course in your building in Family Consumer Science, health or a technology program and comes to the career center and takes computer systems or studies health careers or early childhood or special education ... that student, we believe, will also receive additional performance money," Busch said.

She stressed, the schools will be receiving more money for each of these students while paying the same amount to the Area 30 Career Center.

"It will actually reduce your overall cost of sending students to the career center because your income will go up," Busch explained.

Busch said plans are in the works to work with the schools to further help to offset these funding losses for career and college readiness courses. She explained the state classifies these technical education courses into four areas, with the foundational classes, known as college and career readiness, to be the lowest classification. It was initially believed the changes would not take effect until 2016.

"What we hoped to do, and we will do but we thought we had a year of planning, is we are going to work with the guidance counselors at your schools and our director of student services. We are going to look at everything that is offered. We are going to look at, is a teacher licensed to teach a class that is similar that would be called introductory instead of foundational? That's how we would address the deficiency in funding," Busch said.

In other business, the board of directors approved a $75,000 three-year technology lease for Area 30 Career Center Software. The board's approval for the lease was through First Financial Bank with a 2.17 percent interest rate.

The technology lease would include 14 student computers at a cost of $7,200; three student servers, a rack, switches and miscellaneous hardware at $6,000; wireless mic and extension cable at $300; computer maintenance hardware including hard drives, printers, laptop batteries at the cost of $6,000; new backup hardware for existing server at the cost of $1,200; student services laptops, cart and accessories at the cost of $4,300; a new POS server and stations for the cafeteria at $10,000; purchase 30 to 40 additional laptops and Chromebooks to replace old workstations at $15,000; and upgrade video security server at $25,000.

In other business, the board:

* Approved the submission of an application for the Carl D. Perkins Federal Grant, which has about $69,854.09.

"The grant applications includes funds for guidance program, LPN trainers, student and staff mentor and professional development," Busch explained.

* Approved a field trip for the Skills USA students to travel to Kings Island in Cincinnati and a field trip to the Skills USA National competition in Louisvilley.

* Approved the hire of James D. Sims as temporary part-time summer custodial and technology support employee.

Due to a scheduling conflict, the next board meeting will be June 15.

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