Pope and Others Propose Voucher Accountability Package
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | December 11, 2019
From The Wheeler Report . . .
Reps. Sondy Pope and Dave Considine and Sens. Jon Erpenbach and Janet Bewley are circulating four bills as part of their “Voucher School Accountability to Protect Property Taxpayers” package.
LRB-4156 Memo Special Needs Scholarships (Pope, Sondy) Phasing out the Special Needs Scholarship Program and limiting enrollment in parental choice programs.
- This bill provides that starting in the 2020-21 school year, DPI may not provide a Special Needs Scholarship Program (SNSP) scholarship to a child to attend a private school unless the child was attending a private school under the SNSP in the 2019-20 school year. The bill also caps the total number of students who may participate in the parental choice programs – The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the Racine Parental Choice Program, or the statewide parental choice program, to the number of students who attended under a choice program in the 2019-20 school year.
LRB-4164 Memo Teacher Licensure (Pope, Sondy) Teacher licensure in parental choice programs and in the Special Needs Scholarship Program and granting rule-making authority.
- This bill, with certain exceptions, requires that beginning on July 1, 2022, teachers at private schools participating in a parental choice program or SNSP must hold a license or permit issued by DPI. The bill provides a grace period for a teacher who has been teaching for at least the five consecutive years immediately preceding July 1, 2022, to apply for a temporary, nonrenewable waiver of the licensure requirements. The applicant must submit a plan for becoming a licensed teacher.
LRB-3674 Memo School Aid (Bewley, Janet) State aid to the resident school district of a pupil attending a private school under the Racine or statewide parental choice program.
- This bill prohibits DPI from making reductions in state aid paid to a school district until the electors of the school district have approved the reduction in aid by a referendum vote.
LRB-5044 Memo Per Pupil Payments (Erpenbach, Jon) Per pupil payments to private schools participating in parental choice programs.
- This bill changes the calculation of the per pupil amount DPI pays to participating private schools in the Racine Parental Choice Program and the statewide parental choice program. The bill says for each pupil attending a private school under the choice program, DPI must pay the private school the lesser of a.) the per pupil amount under current law; 2.) the amount the private school charges a pupil who is not attending the private school under a choice program for tuition and educational fees; or c.) the per pupil amount of state aid for the pupil’s resident school district, as calculated on October 15 of that school year.
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SAA Legislative Committee Expresses Concerns About Return to Work Bill
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | December 5, 2019
At the SAA Legislative Committee meeting held on November 25th, Committee members discussed the merits of WRS annuitant return to work legislation for more than an hour. The legislation, authored by Representative Mary Felzkowski (R-Irma) and Senator Duey Stroebel (R-Saukville), was circulating for co-sponsorship inside the State Capitol at the time of the Committee meeting. The proposal has the support of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards (WASB). If adopted, the legislation would:
- Increase the minimum WRS retirement age from the current age 55 to the greater of age 59.5 or the age at which the IRS does not penalize a person for taking a distribution from a 401(k) plan.
- First apply the change in the minimum retirement age to individuals who are under the age of 40 on the bill’s effective date and who terminate WRS-covered employment on or after the bill’s effective date.
- Allow an annuitant who is hired by a WRS employer as an employee to elect to not suspend his or her annuity for not more than a total of 36 months.
- Reduces the break-in-service requirement from the current 75 days to 45 days.
During the lengthy and spirited Committee discussion, members expressed strong support for rolling back the provisions of the current return to work law to allow retired teachers, administrators and staff to return to WRS-covered employment without restrictions in order to fill critical positions in school districts throughout Wisconsin.
However, Committee members also expressed the following concerns or reservations about the proposed legislation:
- The authors’ statements about the need to raise the retirement age to maintain the integrity of the system into the future are simply assertions that have not been proven as fact. We need an actuarial study to clarify this issue.
- It will likely result in educators who are burned out at age 55 staying in the classroom for an additional 4.5 years, which is not in the best interests of children.
- It may result in significant numbers of retirement age educators leaving the profession a few years before they intended for fear that this bill will open the door for additional retirement system changes.
- It may result in some under-40 educators who have witnessed the impact of Act 10 to perceive this as another attack on educators and leave the profession.
- It is difficult to imagine how this proposed change will make the profession more attractive to young people.
- The “compromise” (the 36-month return to work window in exchange for raising the minimum retirement age) appears one-sided. One Committee member likened it to “trading an apple for an apple orchard”.
- It is unclear how the 36-month return to work window will be defined and ultimately administered. Committee members expressed concern that these provisions will make an already complex law that much more complicated to administer and will likely add administrative burden for school districts.
At the conclusion of the Committee discussion, members were asked, “If the objective is to improve our ability to recruit and retain quality teachers, administrators and staff to fill critical positions, on balance does this proposal help us do that or not?” The clear consensus of the Committee was that the proposal does not help us with that objective.
See the bill draft here.
If you should have any comments or questions on this important policy issue, please contact me at the SAA. Thanks for listening and, as always, thanks for everything you do on behalf of the children you serve.
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Arrowhead High School On Good Morning America
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | November 26, 2019
Check out Arrowhead High School Principal Gregg Wieczorek on Good Morning America this morning discussing Arrowhead’s student-to-student vaping prevention efforts. You might recall that Gregg delivered fabulous testimony earlier this month at the public hearing on the Tobacco 21 legislation. Awesome job Gregg!!
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LFB Releases General School Aid Publication
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | November 26, 2019
From The Wheeler Report:
Legislative Fiscal Bureau has released the 2019-20 General School Aid Amounts. According to the memo, for the 2019-20 school year, 399 of the 421 school districts are eligible for $4,687.7 million in equalized aid, 25 districts are eligible for $46.7 million in integration aid, and 61 districts are eligible for $5.7 million in special adjustment aid. Compared to the prior year, 345 districts will receive positive prior year aid adjustments, 20 districts will receive negative prior year aid adjustments, and 55 districts will receive no prior year aid adjustment. In 2019-20, over $16.8 million will be appropriated for high poverty aid from the general fund.
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DPI Releases Data on Temporary Licenses
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | November 26, 2019
From WisPolitics.com …
The number of teachers working with temporary licenses in the state has nearly tripled in the last six years.
The Department of Public Instruction emergency license data released yesterday shows 2,863 teachers received a license with stipulations for the 2018-19 school year, a 180 percent increase from the 1,021 licenses administered in 2012-13.
Since no organization keeps records on the number of open positions in all 421 public school districts, DPI considers emergency license data to be one of the best measures for the depth of the state’s teacher labor shortage.
A license with stipulations is a temporary permit for an individual to teach in the state with the promise to pursue a full educator’s license in the future. The most common license is for one year, but there is also a three-year option.
DPI’s website states it hands out one-year licenses to teachers with a bachelor’s degree or an out-of-state license who haven’t yet become fully licensed in the state. The organization also administers them to individuals with a bachelor’s degree “when a district cannot find a fully licensed educator.”
A license with stipulations has no requirement for a bachelor’s degree in teaching.
The number of licenses with stipulations has risen every cycle since 2012-13 except for a slight dip from 2,435 to 2,432 licenses between 2016-17 and 2017-18.
Special education by-far made up the largest category of permits. There were 1,010 special education licenses with stipulations in 2018-19, an increase of 305 licenses from the previous year. Regular education was the second-highest category, with DPI handing out 315 permits in 2018-19.
See more here.
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