Over the course of this past week, the workgroups created by the Commission to Study School Funding held a total of four meetings via Zoom.  Members of the Commission allocated the majority of time in those meetings to the following:

Presentation by Reaching Higher New Hampshire

On Monday, May 18, the members of the Adequacy and Fiscal Policy Workgroups met jointly to hear from Reaching Higher New Hampshire (RHNH) about its Whole Picture of Public Education research initiative. (A copy of RHNH’s presentation to the Commission is available here.)  RHNH highlighted three key findings from that research for the Commissioners’ consideration:

  • Fourth grade academic outcomes were most strongly associated with the concentration of families with school-aged children navigating poverty.
  • As students get older, the predictors of their academic outcomes expand to include both the concentration of families navigating poverty and the educational attainment of the broader community.
  • In high school, districts with higher teacher salaries outperformed their counterparts in academic outcomes and graduation rates.

Testimony from school business officials and special education administrators

On Thursday, May 21, the Adequacy Workgroup received testimony from two sets of speakers about New Hampshire’s existing funding formula, how it could be improved, and the costs of providing an adequate education to every child in the state.

  • The first panel consisted of three members of the New Hampshire Association of School Business Officials (NHASBO), specifically: Tim Roehr from SAU 29 (Keene), Duane Ford of SAU 67 (Bow), and Nathan Lunney with SAU 52 (Portsmouth).  The panel generally agreed that many of the principal “building blocks” for determining the cost of an adequate education are already in place, but that the existing formula still suffers from significant shortcomings, including:
    • its failure to account properly for transportation, facilities, and maintenance costs
    • its lack of funding for school nurses, despite state standards mandating the provision of health services
    • its substantial underestimation of both teacher salaries and benefit costs
    • the need to update the allowance for technology expenditures and technology related staff, particularly given the heightened use of technology in the classroom and the demands of remote learning
    • assumptions that are at odds with the rural nature of much of the state; for instance, one panelist noted that the base adequacy calculations assume 1 principal for every 500 students, yet, for the many schools that have fewer than 500 students, it is not logistically possible to share a principal with another school
  • Three members of the New Hampshire Association of Special Education Administrators (NHASEA) – Jennifer Dolloff from SAU 19 (Goffstown), Mary Steady from SAU 37 (Manchester), and Kim DiSalvo from SAU 48 (Plymouth) – comprised the second panel.  Much of the panelists remarks focused on the rise in costs for special education, arising in part from court-ordered placements, and the failure of both federal funding and state “catastrophic aid” to compensate local districts for such costs; for instance, Ms. Steady noted that the federal IDEA grant that Manchester receives is sufficient to cover supplemental services for just 9 students, out of a total of approximately 3,000 children in need of such services in the district.  The panelists also discussed at length the responsibilities (and costs) they face in providing supplemental services to students attending charter schools in this district, responsibilities that one Commission member, Chris Dwyer, described as “unique” among the states.  Finally, the panelists universally noted the strong relationship between poverty and special education needs.

Planning for upcoming focus groups with local education and community leaders

The Commission’s Engagement Workgroup devoted much of its individual meeting on May 18, as well as its joint meeting with the Fiscal Policy Workgroup on May 21, to planning a series of remote focus groups, facilitated by NH Listens, to solicit the views of elected or appointed school or municipal officials with some form of budgetary responsibility for local schools.

More specifically, the Workgroup plans to hold 12 separate focus groups, three on each of the following four days: Tuesday, June 9; Thursday, June 11; Monday, June 22, and; Wednesday, June 24.  The initial draft of the Commission’s invitation to participate in the focus groups can be found here. The Engagement Workgroup plans to conduct the majority of its outreach for these focus groups through associations such as the New Hampshire Municipal Association or the New Hampshire School Boards Association.

In addition, the Engagement Workgroup announced at its Thursday, May 21, meeting that it now plans to conduct a survey of New Hampshire educators in July and August and that it will host 9 in-person “Intergenerational Student and Family Voice” summits, each in a different part of the state, in September and October for students and families to attend together to discuss school funding issues.  The full set of activities currently planned by the Engagement Workgroup can be found here.

Consideration of its contract with the American Institutes of Research (AIR)

At the Commission’s full meeting on May 11, its Proposal Review Committee recommended that the Commission engage the American Institutes of Research (AIR) to perform the detailed analyses that will help to form the basis of the Commission’s report and recommendations.  Each of the workgroups has subsequently considered the scope of work that will be part of the Commission’s contract with AIR and that will govern AIR’s activities. One of the core issues in the workgroups’ discussions of the scope of work is deciding upon a definition of an adequate education and the various elements that comprise it. While AIR may provide some guidance to the Commission on the approach others states take in setting their own definitions, it will need the Commission to establish such a definition in order for it to assess what it might cost school districts to comply with it.  Of note, it appears that AIR may play only a limited role in the Commission’s tax and revenue deliberations.

The full Commission to Study School Funding will next meet on Tuesday, May 26, while, on Monday, June 1, the Adequacy Workgroup is scheduled to hear from a set of attorneys, including the Chair of NHSFFP’s Board of Directors, John Tobin, about the history of school funding litigation in New Hampshire.

As a reminder, videos of each of the full Commission and individual workgroup meetings can be found here, along with the meeting agendas and other materials circulated to the public.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Commission needs to hear from you about the current school funding system and how it affects you, your family, or your community.  Perhaps your son attends a school that struggles to attract enough quality teachers.  Perhaps your granddaughter’s school seems to be crumbling down around her. Perhaps the property taxes you pay take an ever-growing bite out of your paycheck.  Perhaps the property taxes your small business pays keep you from making the investments or hiring the staff you need to grow.  Whatever it might be, please share your concerns with the Commission by emailing them to schoolfunding.commission@unh.edu.  We are hopeful that, as the Commission continues to meet remotely, there will be greater opportunity for direct public input into its deliberations.