HB 825

Abstract

Public school funding; At-Risk Program established. Establishes the At-Risk Program for the purpose of supporting programs and services for students who are educationally at risk, including prevention, intervention, or remediation activities required pursuant to Standard 1 (§ 22.1-253.13:1); teacher recruitment programs and incentives; Dropout Prevention; community and school-based truancy officer programs; Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID); Project Discovery; programs for English language learners; the hiring of additional school counselors, testing coordinators, and licensed behavior analysts; and programs relating to increasing the success of disadvantaged students in completing a high school degree and providing opportunities to encourage further education and training and requires a portion of the state funding provided for such At-Risk Program to be allocated to school divisions on a flat per-student percentage rate set out in the general appropriation act and a portion of such funding to be allocated to school divisions on a variable rate set out in the general appropriation act based on the concentration of poverty in the school division.

Public school funding; At-Risk Program established. Establishes the At-Risk Program, defined in the bill as any state funding provided for programs of prevention, intervention, or remediation or pursuant to the at-risk add-on for the purpose of supporting programs for students who are educationally at risk. The bill requires (i) the determination of the amount of state funding for which a school division is eligible pursuant to the At-Risk Program to be based on the school division's identified student percentage, defined in the bill as the fraction, expressed as a percentage, that results from dividing the number of identified students enrolled in a school division by the total number of students enrolled in such school division, weighted by the factor of 1.5, and then adjusted by the addition of a percentage that corrects for undercounting English language learner students as identified students and (ii) such funding to be distributed as follows: 60 percent on a flat per-student rate and 40 percent on a variable rate set out in the general appropriation act based on the concentration of poverty in the school division. The bill provides that any school division that would have received more state funds for the at-risk add-on and programs of prevention, intervention, or remediation than it would pursuant to the consolidation of such state funding sources under the At-Risk Program established in the bill shall be held harmless and shall not have its share of such state funding reduced, effective for the 2024–2025 school year through the 2026–2027 school year.