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(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Duplicates SB 331

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

State Department of Public Education (SDE)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 365 amends the Public School Code to include instructional assistants in the definition of instructional staff for purposes of calculating the training and experience index in the public school funding formula. This bill will allow four years of training and experience as an instructional assistant or instructional aide to be equivalent to one year of teaching on the training and experience index. The bill also changes the reporting requirement for staff on the training and experience index from the October payroll to February payroll.

Significant Issues

SDE indicates that allowing four years of training and experience as an instructional assistant or instructional aide to be equivalent to one year of teaching on the training and experience index would provide school districts with financial assistance to support additional training for instructional assistants, especially in cases when that education leads to a license in shortage areas such as bilingual education.

Changing the reporting date from October to February districts would allow districts to include those teachers hired after October in a school year and before February, to be included in the districts' respective training and experience matrices for reporting purposes. This could result in a higher index for school districts. According to SDE, a February reporting date would make it difficult for the department to accurately project the budget need for public school support which is statutorily required to be submitted on or before November 30 each year.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

Currently, training and experience units provide districts with additional funds so they may hire and retain better educated and more experienced instructional personnel. Training and experience is calculated based upon five academic classifications and five levels of teaching experience with values from 1.00 to 1.50. The index is then multiplied by the total program units to yield adjusted program units. The higher the index, the greater the number of total program units. The statutory changes proposed in this bill will significantly alter the training and experience index in the public school funding formula; however, the financial impact resulting from passage of this bill cannot be determined at this time.

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

Passage of this bill would have limited administrative impact on school districts and no impact on SDE.

CONFLICT/DUPLICATION/COMPANIONSHIP/RELATIONSHIP

Duplicates SB331.

TECHNICAL ISSUES

SDE recommends the following:

Page 4, line 18, insert between the word "experience" and the ".": "for certified teachers who have the required experience as instructional assistants or instructional aides".

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