FAYETTEVILLE — The School District doesn’t want to lose $1.2 million in aid for programs to help students and teachers.
Central office staff members, building administrators, instructional facilitators and coaches sat down Tuesday with three legislators to plead their case. Fayetteville has at least eight programs and has hired more than 15 employees using the money it receives from the National School Lunch Program money.
The money is allocated by the state based on the percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals and can be used for a variety of services. Fayetteville receives about $1.9 million based on the 41 percent of students who qualify, said Superintendent Vicki Thomas.
State Sen. Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home, introduced a bill in the 2013 general session earlier this year to alter the way the money is doled out to make it more equitable to school districts. Some legislators were concerned districts were often keeping tens of thousands of dollars, rather than spending the money for its intended purposes, Sen. Uvalde Lindsey, D-Fayetteville, told about 45 Fayetteville educators and School Board members.
Fayetteville didn't have a balance. The bill was referred to interim study by the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, Arkansas Education Association and the Arkansas Department of Education, according to a spokesman for the educational administrators group.
The initial estimate was Fayetteville could lose $1.2 million. A revised estimate from the state Department of Education was about $250,000, Thomas said.
Reps. Greg Leding and David Whittaker, both Fayetteville Democrats, also participated in the discussion. Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, was unable to attend, Thomas said.
“We have to do what we need to do for these kids,” Lindsey said. “This helps us with what we need to do.”
The legislators acknowledged the meeting was needed to help them better understand the importance of school lunch money to Fayetteville. Whittaker said legislators don’t often hear directly about the programs they are asked to fund.
Leding said he expects a continued discussion over the best use of the money when the Legislature convenes next year for the fiscal session and again in 2015 for the general session.
“It will be a spirited debate,” he said. He and Whittaker said they appreciated the information from district personnel.
Kristen Champion, principal at Owl Creek School, said the school went from being in its third year of school improvement in 2010 to become an achieving school in 2012, attributing the use of programs supported by the school lunch program money. She mentioned specifically the Read 180 program that helps students who are reading at least two years below grade level.
Michelle Hayward, principal at McNair Middle School, said her school has been able to offer summer school because of the program’s money.
“We do what we need to do with little resources,” Hayward said. The program money pays for an instructional facilitator who works with teachers on interventions for students are behind grade level in math and reading.
Owl Creek has 60 percent of its students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals while at McNair, 22 percent qualify. Owl Creek is a Title I school which receives federal assistance in addition to the state assistance because of the large number of students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals. McNair only receives the state assistance.
“We ask for your advocacy to keep what we’re getting,” Thomas said, adding any reduction could be harmful.