Legislative Interim Committee on School Finance. The bill
identifies a new at-risk measure to identify students who are at risk of Capital letters or bold & italic numbers indicate new material to be added to existing law. below-average academic outcomes because of socioeconomic disadvantage or poverty in order to allocate resources through the state's public school funding formula to serve those students. The new at-risk measure will include:
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The percentage of students certified as eligible for the school lunch program based on documentation of benefit receipt or categorical eligibility, supplemented by the expansion of direct certification to participants in the medical assistance program and the children's basic health plan; and
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A neighborhood socioeconomic-status index that weights student needs based on socioeconomic-status index neighborhood factors linked to each student's census block group.
The commissioner of education (commissioner) shall convene a
working group to prepare for the implementation of the new at-risk measure in the 2023-24 budget year. The bill specifies the membership of the working group.
The bill includes issues that the working group may consider in
constructing and implementing the new at-risk measure, including collecting necessary data, constructing a neighborhood socioeconomic-status index linked to students' addresses, and testing the at-risk measure with actual student data, if available.
The commissioner shall report findings and recommendations for
the construction and implementation of the new at-risk measure to the legislative interim committee on school finance, the joint budget committee, and the education committees of the general assembly.
The bill requires the department of education to apply to the
United States department of agriculture to obtain authorization for direct certification of students participating in the medical assistance program and the children's basic health plan.
