The August meeting of the State Board of Education contained several important agenda Items and most importantly, an update on the 2010 budget.  The board continued with its new abbreviated format this month.  With this format, the deliberative work of that body actually occurs on Wednesday; with the work committees beginning at noon followed by public hearings for rules and closing with the Committee of the Whole late in the day.  This meeting begins at noon and finishes around six or seven o'clock in the evening, making for a very long day.  Thursday, is the official meeting day when the board actually votes on action Items either by consent or individually.

This month's reports on the committee work meetings begin with the Rules Committee report. This committee deliberated two rules this month.  The first was an important revision to Rule 160-5-1-07; Student Data Collection. This rule is being amended to require the Georgia Testing Identifier (GTID) as the official student identifier of record and require that GTIDs be printed on student report cards beginning with the 2010-2011 school year. This rule was also amended to include AYP certification requirements. The board adopted these changes with no discussion on Thursday.  The second revision was to Rule 160-4-2-.09 GOVERNOR'S HONORS PROGRAM. This amendment is being initiated to ensure compliance with recent changes in state law which provides that home school students shall be allowed to apply and participate in the Governor's Honors Program. Home school students interested in participating in GHP will be directed to the GHP Coordinator for the local school system in which the student resides. Home school nominees must demonstrate compliance with Georgia's home study law O.C.G.A. § 20-2-690. The Department shall determine the number of home school students enrolled in the 10th and 11th grades in each local school system by comparing home school county attendance reports to local school system FTE counts. This number shall be added to the total 10th and 11th grade FTE count for each local school system. Even though home school students will be added to the equation to determine the total nominations a school district will earn, it does not guarantee that a home school student will be assured an actual nomination.

The Rules Committee looked reviewed and ultimately approved three system waivers this month one from Commerce City Schools, where they applied for a waiver of specified portions of SBOE Rule 160-4-2-.13 Statewide Passing Score to allow Commerce City Schools to implement standards-based report cards in kindergarten through fourth grade. Standards-based report cards are currently used at Commerce City Primary and Commerce City Elementary schools in kindergarten through third grade. Approval of this waiver will extend the utilization of standards-based report cards to grade four.

Another system waiver was granted to allow Murray County Schools to implement a 170-day school year for teachers. Beginning with the 2009-2010 school year, Murray County Schools will implement a 160-day school year for students which will be equivalent to the existing 180-day school year in the number of instructional minutes provided and will meet or exceed the minimum number of instructional minutes presently mandated by SBOE rule.  The 170-day school year for teachers will be equivalent to the existing 190-day school year in that teachers will work a minimum of 1,520 hours.  The school year for teachers will continue to include 10 days for planning beyond the 160 instructional days. The final waiver granted by the state board for an annual approval for alternative schools for seat time waivers to 142 local education agencies listed on the attached list are requesting approval for their Alternative Education Programs to waive the following  seat time requirements: Award units of credit for graduation based on 150 clock hours of instruction; Schedule students for a minimum of five high school class periods; Require no less than 330 minutes of instructional time per day for grades 6-12. The Alternative Education Programs included in this waiver request contain alternative learning opportunities for middle and high school students in both assigned and volunteer programs. The school districts are requesting AEP waivers for 23 schools or 264 programs within a school.  The programs include Early College, Performance Learning Centers, Crossroads Alternative Centers, Ombudsman Learning Centers, Credit Recovery, and other locally developed alternative learning programs. The department recommended approval of this year's request with an additional caveat that the approval of these waivers be conditional upon the local education agencies submission of an additional form that assures that students in Alternative Education Programs are working towards a Georgia diploma and that students are instructed using the Georgia Performance Standards or a curriculum aligned to these standards. In additional to this requirement it is also mandated that after a full year of implementation, academic achievement as measured by state assessments and AYP determination will be reviewed.

The Charter Committee had a lengthy meeting this month with an agenda that mainly contained items for information and reports. The committee was given an update on the new charter commission formed under HB881. Of note is that while 12 charter applications are in "the pipeline" for consideration by the State Board, 34 applications are awaiting action by the Charter Commission, including five statewide virtual schools.  Of the 34 applications, 20 have been denied by local boards of education. Though the state board had received a request from Bulloch County School Superintendent Lewis Holloway to override the commission and deny the commission's July approval of a charter for CCAT a long time special state chartered school in Statesboro, the state board chose to take no action, thus denying the Bulloch County request. We will keep you informed as to that system's next step.

Finally the budget, Deputy State Superintendent and CFO Scott Austensen informed the state board that the budget instructions for the 2011 budget required the department to develop budget proposals two include a 4%, 6% and 8% reduction to the 2010 budget for the GADOE. This will put the department more than 30% below the 2009 budget, that's nearly a one third reduction over a two year period.  State revenues are still declining and we are concerned that more reductions are in the plan for this year's (2010) budget.  We will stay on top of this situation and let you know. So stay tuned . . . . .