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2016 WASB Delegate Assembly Reporter


Delegates Pass Resolutions on Mental Health Support, School Funding, Electronic Communications, State Assessments
On Wednesday, Jan. 20, the 2016 WASB Delegate Assembly approved 15 of the 16 resolutions put before the delegation. Resolutions addressed a number of important issues including school funding, special education support, student assessments, and, among others, electronic communications.
MORE SUPPORT FOR MENTAL HEALTH IN SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES

WASB delegates approved a resolution that voices the WASB’s support for more state funding to help provide mental health supports in schools and communities.

Delegates debated at length whether the wording of the resolution should be changed from “mental health” to “behavioral health.” Frances Bohon, delegate for the Marshfield School District, proposed an amendment to make that language change. A friendly amendment was offered to use the more inclusive “mental or behavior health.”

Ellen Lindgren, delegate for the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District, said that in talking with her district’s special education director, he specifically said mental health should be the term that is used as it would cover mental health and behavioral health issues.

“My concern is if the resolution says just behavioral health, that will exclude a number of children who don’t have behavioral issues but they have mental health issues that are beyond the scope of school districts to handle,” Lindgren said.

The amendment to change the wording from mental health to behavioral health failed. With the amendment off the table, Nadine Westimayer, delegate for the Crandon School District, asked if the resolution was seeking to get additional funding for mental health supports or if would it be taking funds away from other areas.

Terry Falk, delegate from Milwaukee Public Schools, said this is a question that looms over school board members each year as they consider resolutions at the WASB Delegate Assembly.

“If we put pressure on the state to increase money in a particular area then someone has to raise the question of will they increase our funding overall or will they take it from another area?” Falk asked.

Robin Elvig, delegate for the Altoona School District and a member of the Policy and Resolutions Committee, said the intent of the resolution is to secure additional funding for mental health support and not to take away funding from other education areas.

USING SOCIAL MEDIA/SCHOOL WEBSITES TO NOTICE MEETINGS

Delegates passed a resolution that states the WASB’s support of legislation that would allow school districts to publish statutorily-required notices electronically on school website or social media accounts operated by the district in lieu of publishing the notices in newspapers.

Robert Hansen, delegate for the Greenfield School District and Kevin Klimek, delegate for the Brown Deer School District, said this has become an issue for Milwaukee-area school districts.

“Our local newspaper is, technically, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which, because of the large number of districts, doesn’t publish [notices] for us,” Hansen said. “We need another resource that’s legal for us to publish these [notices].

“Many more of our residents get school district information from our website or from other means,” Klimek said. “Let’s eliminate some of these maybe needless requirements and allow people to get this information on our website, have all the information publicly accessible, but eliminate the need to publish it.”

Several delegates spoke in opposition, noting that in their communities, their residents primarily get district information from local newspapers. John Acomb, delegate for the Beloit School District, provided another perspective and said supporting the resolution could send the wrong message to newspapers.

“This gives the appearance that we’re picking a fight with the local media and I would suggest that no school district wants to pick a fight with print media,” Acomb said.

Another resolution adopted by delegates supports legislation to allow school districts to notify a guardian of their child’s truancy using modern electronic communication such as email or text messages. Delegates approved the resolution but debated whether or not electronic communication options were more reliable than traditional methods.

DELEGATES SUPPORT STATEWIDE ASSESSMENT

In an effort to effectively evaluate the performance of all publicly funded students in the state, including those attending private voucher schools, and in response to the state using its third different assessment in three years, delegates approved a resolution that seeks some stability by calling for implementation of a statewide assessment that would not be modified for a period of years.

Delegates were generally in agreement on goal and purpose of the resolution although John Benbow, delegate for the Wisconsin Rapids School District, raised the question of opt-outs. There has been a growing trend amongst students attending voucher schools opting out of standardized assessments by not attending school the day the tests are administered.

“If private voucher school students decide to opt out, what is the penalty?” Benbow asked. “Or is there no penalty?”

Dan Rossmiller, WASB Government Relations Director, said under current state law, voucher students are required to take state assessments but it is unclear as to how that law would be enforced due to legislation currently pending in Madison.

Bradley Ritchie, delegate for the Shiocton School District, questioned why the resolution doesn’t lay out a specific number of years, but instead calls for a statewide assessment to be used for a “period of years.”

Ryan Burg, delegate for the Sheboygan Area School District, served on the WASB Policy and Resolutions Committee and said the committee didn’t want to define a specific number of years in order to provide the state and the WASB’s lobbyists with some flexibility.

“Our thought was that if we knew the test was a bad test, we’re going to find out fairly quickly,” Burg said. “We don’t want to be stuck in a situation where we’re going to have give the same bad test for years knowing that we could be doing better.”

SUPPORT FOR RESTORING TWO-THIRDS STATE FUNDING AND OTHER SCHOOL FUNDING RESOLUTIONS

Delegates passed a resolution that seeks to restore the state’s statutory commitment to fund two-thirds of school costs and increase the primary guaranteed value per member in the general aid funding formula to $3 million each year and Sharon Muehlfeld, delegate for the Wauwatosa School District, said she wouldn’t vote for the resolution because it wouldn’t increase total aid.

“The increase in primary guaranteed value would help 22 very wealthy school districts here in the state and I think we’d like to work together to increase all aid for all districts,” Muehlfeld said.

Kari Volk, delegate for the Three Lakes School District, said that due to the state’s failure to increase the primary guaranteed value per member, many districts, especially those with declining enrollment, have exceeded the primary guaranteed value and no longer receive any aid under the first tier of the funding formula.

“Furthermore, due to the state’s failure to adequately fund the three tiered formula by restoring two-thirds funding from the state while applying levy limits at the same time, many districts have been forced to cut programs and pass referendums to provide adequate educational opportunities for their students,” Volk said. “We continuously have to go to referendum to keep our schools functioning.”

Delegates also approved a resolution that asks that school districts be allowed to increase their revenue limit when changes are made in state law that significantly modify school operations or require changes in board policies. The resolution also urges lawmakers to provide for delayed effective date or delayed implementation dates for those statutory changes.

Another resolution related to school funding was passed. Delegates supported a resolution that seeks to create a statutory mechanism to allow school districts to place into a trust for future use a portion of their general funds that would be counted as shared costs for state aid purposes. Such a trust would be used for the purchase of long-term fixed (capital) assets such as school buses, snowplows or technology items with a useful life of more than one year.

Two additional resolutions addressing school funding issues were passed without discussion. One resolution states that the WASB supports legislation to create a separate allotment within the sparsity aid program for districts with less than five members per square mile. This separate allotment would provide per pupil amounts on a sliding scale so that lower enrollment districts would receive greater amounts. The second resolution supports legislation to implement a sliding scale formula factor multiplier to increase the membership of districts for revenue purposes.

TRANSFERRING TERRITORY FROM ONE DISTRICT TO ANOTHER

A resolution that supports changes to statutes relating to and governing transfers of territory from one school district to another was passed.

The resolution was put forth by the Palmyra-Eagle Area School District, which has been the subject of several petitions seeking to detach territory. The loss of property to another district threatened to put them on the verge of insolvency. The district found that the process for transferring property between districts is not clear and, after extensive and expensive discussions with legal counsel, found that there are loopholes in the current process that are being used to try to avoid a public referendum on the transfers.

“We were at risk of losing long term and short term funds due to a transfer of a parcel,” Palmyra-Eagle delegate Scott Hoff said. “Our school district is about a $12 million school district and yet we would have faced upwards of a $5 to 7 million dollar payment in one lump sum. We would have been devastated.”

Genoa City J2 delegate Patrick Sherman said spoke in support of the resolution, referencing Palmyra-Eagle’s position.

“We’re talking about the survival of a fellow school district, so I urge you all to vote yes,” Sherman said.

PREVAILING WAGE RESOLUTION TURNED DOWN

The one resolution rejected by delegates would have called for the WASB to support legislation to allow a school board to reinstate the prevailing wage through local board policy.

There was a robust discussion with delegates on both sides stressing local control. Dennis O’Brien, delegate for the Rhinelander School District, said there isn’t anything in the resolution that requires a district to pay the prevailing wage, it simply says school boards can reinstate it if they school board wishes to do so. O’Brien also stated his personal support for prevailing wage.

“The historical notion of the prevailing wage came at a time when there was a genuine pressure on the economy to seek the lowest possible costs and people in their great prudence recognized that racing to the bottom us not the way to create a productive society,” O’Brien said. “So the prevailing wage exist to provide a fair and decent wage to people in our society we should support that.”

John Lutz, delegate from the Marshall School District, argued school boards don’t need prevailing wage to spend more on construction projects.

“There already is local control of putting out bids,” said Lutz. “You control the price of bids.”

Steve Klessig from Brillion worried what the message would be to state legislators if the resolution was approved.

“What message are we sending when we say we’d like to spend significantly more on construction projects but at the same time we are saying we are short of money in all these other areas?” asked Klessig.

TRANSFER OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO PRIVATE SCHOOL OPERATORS

To protect public schools, delegates approved a resolution that requires a school district’s voters to give their approval at a referendum vote before the operation, management, and/or control of any district school be transferred to any entity other than by the locally elected school board.

Christopher Wagner, delegate for the Green Bay Area Public Schools, said that ideally the school board would be in charge of all public school district operations but given mayoral takeover actions in Milwaukee, that power is sometimes taken away from the school board.

“We feel at least the voters should have some say in what’s going on in their districts,” Wagner said.

OTHER RESOLUTIONS APPROVED

No discussion was needed for delegates to approve a resolution that calls for legislation that requires a private school to be in existence for five years before it is eligible to participate in the statewide voucher program.

A resolution that supports a change in the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) to allow a local school district to reduce spending on staff benefits attributable to maintenance of effort without penalty when it reduces its spending on employment-related benefits was passed by delegates.

Delegates also supported a resolution that amends an existing resolution to increase special education categorical aid reimbursement to 33 percent. State special education categorical aid currently reimburses between 26 and 27 percent of prior year eligible costs.

A resolution regarding state-mandated graduation requirements was also approved. The resolution states that the WASB supports local school board control for determining high school graduation standards and the assessments that will be used to issue a high school diploma.

January 22, 2016

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