Alison Yin for EdSource Today

In its get-go statement on a disquisitional consequence facing school boards, the California Section of Education cautioned that under the state'due south new funding formula, but in "some limited circumstances" can school districts utilise money that's supposed to be spent on services for low-income children and English language learners for across-the-board pay raises for teachers.

The "burden" to justify diverting coin targeted for these "high-need" students, who besides include foster youths, to pay raises is "very heavy," since it should be spent increasing programs and services for those students, wrote Jeff Breshears, administrator for the education section'due south Local Agency Systems Back up Part. Breshears' advisedly worded, iv-page letter was sent Apr xv to Jim Yovino, superintendent of the Fresno County Role of Educational activity, in response to Yovino'southward enquiry.

The California Teachers Association partially disagrees with the guidance, though it appears that many local unions have not challenged the state's position in local negotiations.

The letter comes at a critical time. Districts are in the final stages of drafting their second annual Local Control and Accountability Plans, or LCAPs, in which they are required to detail goals, actions and spending on eight priority areas the Legislature mandated in passing the Local Control Funding Formula. At the same time, school boards and employee unions are negotiating what in many districts volition be the first pay increases in a vi years.

Side by side year, districts are projected to receive an boilerplate of about $one,000 per student in additional money under the funding formula. That is projected to exist the biggest one-year funding increase to K-12 schools since the cosmos of Proffer 98 in 1988. Districts will face pressure from teachers unions and children'due south advocacy groups in deciding how to divvy up money between pay raises for staff and restoring and expanding programs in the classroom.

Next yr, districts are projected to receive an average of about $1,000 per student in additional money under the funding formula.

Nether the funding formula, all districts receive a compatible base corporeality of funding per student. They as well receive supplemental funding for every English learner, low-income and foster youth, plus extra "concentration" dollars when those students make upwards at least 55 percent of a district's students. Thecombined actress money produces about 40 percent funding above the base of operations level per educatee – and tens of millions of dollars – for a commune like San Bernardino Unified, in which loftier-needs students make up nearly all of the students.

Yovino was the 1 who fabricated the inquiry: Under what conditions can whatever of the supplemental and concentration dollars get toward raises for all teachers? Just the question has come upward repeatedly this year throughout the state, said Peter Birdsall, executive director of the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association, which represents the state's 58 canton superintendents.

Narrow exceptions

The short answer, co-ordinate to Breshears, is that using supplemental and concentration dollars would not be permitted, considering a general enhance for all teachers is "paying more for the same level of service," not an increase or an improvement.

"In some limited circumstances," however, a district could affirm that uncompetitive pay levels harm education for loftier-needs students by making it hard to attract and retain teachers, Breshears wrote. In that case, a district'southward LCAP would have to include show comparing teacher turnover rates and pay levels with other nearby districts to evidence that high-needs students have been unduly affected past low pay, justifying using supplemental and concentration dollars to augment salaries.

That'southward not all. State law and State Lath of Educational activity regulations require districts in which more than 55 percent of students are English learners and low-income students to verify in their LCAPs that a pay raise would be "an effective" strategy in improving services for loftier-needs students. Districts with fewer than 55 percent high-needs students would confront "an extreme if not impossible" burden of arguing that a pay heighten would be the "most effective" strategy in improving teaching for the targeted student groups, Breshears wrote.

In subsequent years, districts would take to update their LCAPs to document, through supporting data, whether the money for raises helped achieve the specific goals "within a reasonable time." If not, and then the district should stop using supplemental and concentration dollars for a pay increase and choose another use. A canton superintendent could withhold approval of the LCAP for failure to comply, Breshears wrote.

However, the funding law does allow other options involving compensation, Breshears wrote. Supplemental and concentration money could fund a longer school twenty-four hour period or pay teachers involved in programs specifically for English learners or low-income children, but these expenses must exist aligned to one of the priorities in the LCAP, such as improving pupil engagement or raising pupil accomplishment.

CTA: Raises permissible

The California Teachers Clan interprets the constabulary differently. The Local Control Funding Formula was created to give maximum flexibility to school districts, and that includes creating competitive salaries to reduce teacher turnover, said Claudia Briggs, communications banana director for the CTA.

"Nosotros believe the law is clear: The money can be used to attract and retain quality teachers in the classroom, to lower course sizes and to restore programs that were cut," said Briggs. And she said the CTA disagrees with the pedagogy department's position that districts cannot use supplemental dollars for across-the-board raises if fewer than 55 percent of the students are English learners and depression-income children.

"All control dollars are sent with no strings fastened to suit the best needs of students. So if the percentage is below 55 percent, districts tin can absolutely nevertheless utilise those funds" for pay raises, she said.

But two nonprofit organizations that had argued to the country board that it should adopt tight restrictions on the utilise of supplemental and concentration dollars said Breshears got it right in his interpretation.

This guidance follows what the Legislature and state board intended in writing the Local Command Funding Formula law and regulations, and provides counties "direction as they engage in the review and approval process," wrote Samantha Tran, senior managing director of education policy for Children Now, in an electronic mail.

"The letter tracks closely our analysis of how to clarify supplemental and concentration spending," said John Affeldt, managing chaser of Public Advocates, a legal advocacy firm that is heavily involved in state education policy.

And so far, not a point of contention

2 lawyers whose firms together handle contract negotiations for hundreds of school districts said that for the virtually role local teachers unions have not pressed to use supplemental and concentration coin for across-the-board raises. Louis Lozano, chief of the business firm Lozano Smith, said he had expected unions to be more ambitious on the issue. He said he was aware of no districts that were deadlocked because of disagreements on the utilise of supplemental and concentration dollars.

Gregory Dannis, president of the San Francisco constabulary firm Dannis Woliver Kelley, said, "In the bulk of districts, unions are not taking issue, at least outwardly," with the position that base of operations dollars are what is available for pay raises. In contracts he has negotiated, supplemental dollars accept paid for stipends for teachers to work extra time in schools with targeted students, more professional development days, reduced grade sizes beyond the required 24-to-1 student-teacher ratio for K-3 grades and additional counselors to serve high-needs students. One district, which he declined to proper name, is at an impasse because the teachers union wants across-the-board raises without increased or improved services, he said.

Breshears' letter has not been widely circulated, although it was discussed at length concluding month at a workshop of administrators from county offices of education, said Kathryn Catania, deputy superintendent of the Fresno County Office of Education. County offices are responsible for approving districts' LCAPs and are creating uniform approaches for reviewing them, Catania said.

Birdsall cautioned that Breshears' letter provides general advice; the circumstances for using supplemental and concentration dollars will vary amidst districts. Noting that about of Fresno County'due south districts are poor and rural, a couple of districts have asked whether they could include the toll of gasoline in their bacon schedules using supplemental dollars, to compete with urban districts that pay more, Catania said.

Several studies of beginning-year LCAPs constitute that many districts failed to document how much supplemental and concentration funding they received. They besides didn't item how they planned to spend the money and didn't distinguish between ongoing programs and improved and expanded services. County offices of education eventually approved every LCAP, granting leeway for districts that were creating new plans in a compressed fourth dimension frame. The State Board of Education has since then revised the LCAP template and regulations, making it easier to read and document how supplemental and concentration funds will be used.

Districts are required to state in their LCAPs how much additional supplemental and concentration funding they are getting and how high-needs students will benefit from it. If districts utilise that coin for pay raises and don't written report that in the LCAP, Affleldt said canton offices and the public will be able to spot the discrepancy because the numbers won't add upwards.

Both Affeldt and Luzano predicted that the focus of pay negotiations with teachers in the coming yr will be on the $4 billion in discretionary dollars, outside of funding for the Local Command Funding Formula, that Gov. Jerry Chocolate-brown is proposing for K-12 schools next twelvemonth. Brown is encouraging districts to use the coin to further implement the Common Cadre and new scientific discipline standards. But districts can use the money – technically repayment for past state-mandated costs – all the same they desire. Considering it is one-time funding, vulnerable to cuts if land revenue drops, Affeldt and Luzano cautioned against using it to make multi-year salary commitments.

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