By: Stuart Bennett

The September meeting of the Georgia State Board of Education was organized around one of its busiest agendas in many months as that body, through its waiver process, looked for ways to provide flexibility to local systems as they deal with the continuing recession.  This meeting returned to its traditional format this month after several months of experimenting with a shorter structure in order to reduce expenses.  This month's report will focus on the work of the rules committee, with a mention of charters, and an initial look at the FY2010 Supplemental and FY 2011 budgets.

So let's get this party started! It was all about the rules this month as they deliberated several major rule revisions and approved a number of system waivers to both state law and state board rule; a+9-ll of these actions will ultimately grant systems additional flexibility to address their declining budget. The first rule to be amended was State Board Rule 160-5-1-.18 COMPETITIVE INTERSCHOLASTIC ACTIVITIES IN GRADES 9-12: NO PASS/NO PARTICIPATE. This rule was amended to include specific provisions from State Board Rule 160-5-1-.19 GRADES 6-8: COMPETITIVE INTERSCHOLASTIC ACTIVITIESand was subsequently repealed.  The new combined rule will still require student physical examinations, and the requirement that students must pass 70% of their subjects in order to be eligible to participate in competitive interscholastic activities in grades 6-8. Currently students are required to pass five subjects carrying credit toward grade promotion. In addition, multiple exploratory classes taken during the same semester will no longer be required to be averaged together and counted as one grade to determine eligibility. The state board returned authority to the local system to govern their own middle school athletic programs when they amended the rule to include a statement that the school principal shall regulate competitive interscholastic activities and ensure that all staff members adhere to local board of education policies, the State Board of Education requirements. Finally, the rule includes language that promotes accessibility to interscholastic activities by children of military families required in legislation passed last session. The amendment of this rule effectively brings together all provisions concerning interscholastic activities for grades 6-12 into one State Board Rule. To indicate this change, the title of 160-5-1-.18 will be changed from Competitive Interscholastic Activities in Grades 9-12: No Pass/No Participate to Competitive Interscholastic Activities to Grades 6-12. Whew! I know that was intense, but as you can see necessary to fully explain the state board action.

Now on to the long anticipated repeal of and revision to the Hospital Homebound Rule (160-4-2-.31).  The Department has been working on this rule for the past 18 months and has proposed several revisions to this rule. The revisions provide local systems with a well-developed rule that can be applied consistently in all districts. Because the expansion of the rule has been significant, the "repeal and replace" option is being utilized. Significant changes to the rule include; adding online learning as a method of providing instruction; clarifying "intermittent" hospital/homebound services; clarifying "absences due to pregnancy" to accurately reflect Title IX; clarifying the requirements for the adult who must be present during instruction; clarifying that the physician making the referral must be the attending physician for the diagnosis for which the services are recommended; establishing a plan for instruction and reentry; and placing responsibility on the local school/system team to set parameters for submission of updated referrals to prevent ongoing, often unnecessary hospital/homebound instruction. Please visit review this rule at www.gadoe.org for full details.

The final rule initiated this month was a revision to rule 160-5-1-.33 INVESTING IN EDUCATIONAL EXCELLENCE (IE2): LOCAL EDUCATION AGENCY (LEA) CONTRACTS FOR FLEXIBILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY TO IMPROVE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT. This is the rule that was put in place last year to implement House Bill 1209.  The corresponding rule was adopted in October, 2008 before any Local Boards of Education (LBOE) had entered into an IE2 contract with the State Board of Education (SBOE) under the provisions of the new law. The IE2 rule and law allow local school districts to request increased flexibility from certain state laws, rules, and regulations in exchange for increased accountability and defined consequences through a contractual agreement with the State Board of Education. The major changes to the Rule include; Update the rule name; Align rule definitions in this rule with other SBOE rules; Provide greater public transparency with a public notice of intent to seek a partnership contract and public hearing requirements that are aligned with the state's open meetings requirements; Clarify that the local contract must include a contingency consequence(s) if parents do not elect to convert to an IE2 school to a charter school as a result of not making its five-year goals; and Provide for an SBOE review process over two regularly scheduled SBOE meetings that also incorporate a public hearing before any SBOE action is taken.

There were over 20 systems granted 79 waivers this month;  two individual system waivers for Title 20 and four  systems were given relief from the middle grades facility requirement that grades 6-8 must be located in the same facility to earn middle grades funding. This flexibility was granted to Colquitt, Murray, Rabun and White Counties for an additional four years.  The majority of the waivers granted were the result of the department's request a few months ago  for systems to let them know if there either State Board Rules or Title 20 code sections that would help them better address the current budget cuts and created a streamlined process to apply for these waivers. The result was a comprehensive action that included 9 waivers with a summative spreadsheet the in total granted 79 weavers to 24 school systems covering 8 separate statutes.  This summary of the waiver requests can be seen by simply following this link. There were several other Items one of note was the State Board approval of the Georgia Performance Standards for CTAE and Health.

Finally, in a concise budget presentation, Deputy Superintendent Scott Austensen gave a very grim yet sobering view of both the 2010 Supplemental and the FY 2011 State Budgets.  It appears the department may be facing an additional 10% budget cut for FY11, and additional cuts to QBE could be on the horizon if revenues don't pick up, please stay tuned . . .