The Austin Board of Education has adopted a list of legislative priorities.

Tuesday, October 24, 2000

By LEE BONORDEN

Austin Daily Herald

The Austin Board of Education has adopted a list of legislative priorities.

The school board’s legislative committee of Bruce Loveland and Kathy Green reviewed the proposed list with the assistance of Superintendent Dr. James A. Hess.

Also participating in the process were the Austin Education Association’s leadership, the district curriculum advisory committee, staff development advisory committee and administrative council members.

The intent is for the district’s legislative committee to support he initiatives and concerns before the Minnesota School Boards Association, as well as the Minnesota Legislature and U.S. Congress.

The priorities include:

– Providing additional funding for school districts by increasing the English-as-a-Second-Language per-pupil allocation from $500 to $750.

– Provide additional funding for school districts by increasing the state and federal participation in special education costs and reduce the district cross-subsidy amount.

– Provide funding for school districts experiencing a decline in enrollment by using either the current enrollment or a three-year average of pupil units to determine general education revenue.

Among the top concerns of the Austin school board are:

– Class sizes at some elementary and secondary levels.

– Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges and participation by state of Minnesota in resolution.

Finally, the Austin board members offer these resolutions for consideration by legislators:

– That local school boards by a majority vote can opt out of the Profile of Learning portion of the Minnesota Graduation Standards with no financial penalty.

– That the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning develop and provide a uniform software to districts statewide to record students’ progress with the Profile of Learning.

– That the required number of content standards K-12 associated with the Profile of Learning be reduced by half or more. These are the content standards that are taught in the classroom and required of students.

The legislative priorities and concerns, as well as the proposed resolutions, were outlined at the October regular board meeting. They were distributed at Monday’s special meeting of the Austin school board.