Posted: 7:30 a.m.Sunday, April 12, 2015

IN-DEPTH COVERAGE

School districts wary about new way ofreporting enrollment

By Eric Schwartzberg

Staff Writer

    School districts used to count theirstudents for compensation for one week in October, but new state regulationsthat require school districts to count students every day have some localadministrators concerned.

Inthe past, districts knew from the October enrollment counts what to expect instate payments through the rest of the year. That’s not the case under the newsystem, said Lakota Treasurer Jenni Logan.

    “What we have reported to them, they havenot sent anything back to us to say, ‘These are the numbers that we have foryour district’ for student count on how we’re funding you,’” Logan said. “Every district in the state of Ohio between July andnow is being funded based on last year’s numbers.”

    That means when ODE eventually sends theactual numbers, districts may end up with numbers that are lower than theyexpected, Logansaid.

    “And the state’s going to say, ‘We gave youtoo much,’ then they’re going to yank it back in three months,” Logan said. “It’s becausethey bit off more than they could chew. They said, ‘We’re going to startcounting every kid, every day and we’re going to do it immediately.’ And nowhere we’re are, we’re doing our part, but we’re not seeing that happening atthe state level.”

    That, Logansaid, is because the state “can’t manage all that change.”

    “It was a lot of change when you look atthe counting of students, all of the testing, all of the evaluation. It was toomuch,” Logansaid. “We knew it, and now they’re proving it was too much.”

    That’s a major concern for a schooldistrict worried about Gov. John Kasich’s budget, which includes a proposedfunding change that would knock $3.1 million in tangible personal property taxreimbursement for the district to just $600,000 the first year and then down tonothing the following year.

    School districts are paid twice a month bythe state based on an amount calculated for the year, minus what’s been paidyear-to-date, divided by the number of payments remaining in the year,according to ODE spokesman John Charlton.

    “With this new count, every kid mattersevery day,” Charlton said. “At the end of the year, their annual amount willreflect the actual FTE (full-time equivalent) of students for the full year.

    At the three reporting windows, ODE updatesa district’s FTE with how the situation has changed from the last update,Charlton said.

    For example, a student starting in a schoolon the first day of the year and still there as of Oct. 31 is reported as “1”FTE.

    But say the student moves to anotherdistrict in January, Charlton said. That means in the March reporting window,that student’s FTE drops to “0.5”.     Whenthe student doesn’t move back to the district, the June reporting window forthe student’s FTE remains “0.5”, Charlton said.

    “For every payment to the district, the FTEof all students is used to calculate the annual amount, and then thesemi-monthly payment is determined,” Charlton said.

    ODE will not be able to determine what theyear’s actual FTE will be until the end of the school year, when it has thefinal picture of FTE based on when students enrolled or withdrew throughout theentire year, Charlton said.

    “So there are three updates to get uscloser to knowing the final picture, but we won’t be able to say with certaintywhat any district will be funded until the very end of the year because thefinal update is June 30,” Charlton said.

    Bob Hancock, treasurer of Hamilton CitySchools, said based on the current state foundation funding formulacalculations, the district would have to lose over 700 students in order forthis year’s enrollment to come into play, “so it is not an immediate concern.”

    Hancock said it should be noted that apolicy of funding school districts based on average daily membership countsconducted throughout the school year will have the effect of increasing classsizes in school districts where the enrollment at the start of the year is higherthan the end of the year.

    “In Hamilton,we have an average decline of 270 students from the beginning of the schoolyear until the end,” Hancock said. “Teacher staffing levels are set at thebeginning of the school year, and we will have to take the average monthlyenrollment numbers into consideration when setting staffing levels in futureyears.”

    Randy Bertram, treasurer and CFO forMiddletown City Schools, said he is concerned about losing state aid because ofdeclining enrollment, “but we must maintain the same staffing levels necessaryto educate the higher number of students.”

    “Our costs don’t decline, but our state aidwill,” he said.

GregYoung, superintendent of Ross Local Schools, said he believes he understandswhat the state is trying to do.

    “They’re trying to say, ‘We’ll pay you forthe students you actually have and the amount of time they’re at school eachday,’” Young said. “That’s the other piece of it that’s kind of new anddifferent.”

    That means districts might be penalized ifstudents are not there the whole day, such as when they allow seniors to arrivea period late or leave a period early, Young said.

    “The state’s not going to give you the fullamount of money for those kids now based on this new way of calculating stateaid … whereas in the past, if the student was there for most of the day, youstill got the full amount for that student,” he said.

    Fairfield City Schools spokeswoman GinaGentry-Fletcher said it’s typical to see enrollment fluctuate from year to yearin a district of Fairfield’s size.

    “Because a segment of our community has ahigh transient population, we adjust our projections in anticipation ofpossible losses in aid,” Gentry-Fletcher said. “We can also recoup those lossesthrough funding collected from our open enrollment program.”