Alternative school programs across Washington face new rules for the 2011-12 school year due to legislation designed to create more oversight of the programs and ensure students receive proper instruction.
The legislation, signed by Gov. Chris Gregoire on June 15, removes some of the ambiguity of existing laws for alternative learning experience programs, but also reduces funding and flexibility for those programs to meet the needs of students and families.
Alternative learning experience programs are state-funded and generally include online schools and parent-partnership programs, a hybrid of traditional school and homeschooling.
Students in the programs have individual learning plans, talk with teachers weekly in person or via technology, and are subject to the same educational standards as students in traditional school programs. Homeschooling is not considered an alternative learning experience because there is no state funding included.
FUNDING CHANGE
The biggest change under the new law is how the programs are funded. According to the legislation, "there are different costs associated with providing a program not primarily based on full-time daily contact between teachers and students and not primarily occurring on-site in a classroom," so students will be funded at a lower level than those in traditional programs.
The law calls for reducing state allocations to such programs by 10 to 20 percent, leaving it up to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction to figure out how to implement the cuts.
According to OSPI, the cuts will be made as follows:
Alternative learning experience programs will be funded at 80 percent of the basic education funding formula for the 2011-12 school year. In other words, if a school district receives $100 from the state for each full-time student in a traditional school program, the district will receive $80 for a full-time student in an alternative program.
However, if a program has its students meet face-to-face with a teacher for at least an average of one hour per week during the school year, it will receive a funding cut of 10 percent instead of 20 percent. There is an exception for online schools, which can meet the same criteria by having its students "meet" with teachers through interactive online, voice or video communication rather than in-person. That applies only to students who take all of their classes online.
Whether the funding is applied on a student-by-student basis or as an entire program is unknown at this point.
According to the Washington Families for Online Learning nonprofit group, the funding cut could be detrimental to school districts' abilities to offer online programs.
"Some programs will shift. Others will shut down. Most programs are likely to survive one year since districts have already made commitments to students and teachers," according to the group's latest blog post after Gregoire signed the legislation. "The second year of the budget cycle will be the most devastating."
For the Meridian Parent Partnership Program, the largest of the alternative programs in the county with more than 900 students, the difference between the 10 and 20 percent funding cut is a bit more than $500 per student, said Mary Jo Harvey, principal of the program.
OTHER CHANGES
Another major change, especially for parent-partnership programs, is tighter restrictions on what classes and curriculum state funds can be used for, removing the ability for families to be reimbursed for curriculum purchases and fees.
For example, in Meridian's program, families were allowed to use "curriculum and instructional support" funds to buy curriculum materials and to pay for classes with "community-based instructors," as long as the class or curriculum fulfilled a requirement in the student's individual learning plan. Classes allowed under such rules included music lessons, online classes and swimming lessons.
But under the new law, family reimbursements are eliminated, requiring all purchases to be done by the program. When a family needs a specific text or material, they can ask the district to buy it, but only if it meets specific criteria.
State funds also can't be used to pay for classes or electives unless "substantially similar experiences and services" are available to students in the traditional program.
How the new rule will play out is still a bit of an unknown for alternative programs. In Meridian, Harvey and district officials are discussing offering similar co-curricular options to students in the traditional program, giving "individual options for all our students," Harvey said.
But, in her opinion, if traditional schools and alternative programs offer "substantially similar" courses and programs, then how are the alternative programs alternative?
"If all the opportunities are 'substantially similar,' then we're really not giving students options," she said.
Other changes to the law include:
- Starting in the 2013-14 school year, online programs must offered by a provider approved by OSPI.
- Alternative programs must report annually to OSPI about their finances.
- A prohibition against staff receiving bonuses for attracting students from outside of the program's school district.
