Brief ⁽¹⁾

SB 220 amends the school finance law by increasing the at-risk pupil weight from 0.09 to 0.10. In addition, the bill requires that an amount produced by a pupil weighting of 0.01 be used by the district for achieving mastery of basic reading skills by completion of the third grade in accordance with standards established by the State Board of Education under law.

A school district must include information in its at-risk pupil assistance plan as the State Board of Education requires about the district's remediation strategies and its results in achieving the State Board's third grade reading mastery standards. The school district reports must include information documenting remediation strategies and improvement made by pupils who performed below the expected standard on the State Board's second grade diagnostic reading test.

A school district whose third grade pupils substantially meet the State Board standards for mastery of third grade reading skills, upon request, may be released by the Board from the requirement to dedicate a specific portion of the at-risk weight to this reading initiative.

Background

Proponents of the bill included Senator Kerr, the principal sponsor, the Kansas National Education Association, and a spokesperson for Wichita (USD 259). Senator Kerr explained that the initiative contained in the bill is consistent with the literature which generally emphasizes the critical importance of pupil mastery of reading by the end of the third grade. Senator Kerr said that teaching children to read is probably the most important task of elementary schools and that early intervention can help prevent reading failure. The Kansas National Education Association spokesperson endorsed the fact that the bill establishes a statewide priority that children be able to read by the end of the third grade and leaves it to the professionals in the school district to determine how to best meet the standard. The spokesperson for Wichita expressed support for the bill, but said more funding would be required in order to meet the need.

There were no opponents.

The fiscal note for increasing the at-risk weight from 0.09 to 0.10 is estimated at about $4.0 million. The Governor has included this amount in his FY 2002 budget recommendation.

1. *Supplemental notes are prepared by the Legislative Research Department and do not express legislative intent. The supplemental note and fiscal note for this bill may be accessed on the Internet at http://www.ink.org/public/legislative/fulltext.cgi