The School District of Lee County could lose more than $4 million in funding due to \u201cduplicate\u201d students.<\/p>\n
The issue was addressed during the school board\u2019s meeting on Nov. 4.<\/p>\n
The workshop presentation highlighted duplicated students due to Family Empowerment Scholarships and Personalized Education Programs.<\/p>\n
Director of Budget Kelly Letcher said there are students who are receiving scholarships for alternative schooling, while also listed as being enrolled in the district during the October full-time equivalent (FTE) student survey.<\/p>\n
There are a total of 546 such cases.<\/p>\n
Thirty-six students are receiving the Family Empowerment Scholarship in their district, 10 of whom dropped out of the school after FTE, three who enrolled in the school after FTE and receive the Family Empowerment Scholarship.<\/p>\n
There are 451 unique abilities duplicates \u2014 nine of whom dropped after FTE and one who enrolled after FTE. The personalized education program has 59 duplicates.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not sure what they are going to do. This is about a $4.5 million hit to the district if they don\u2019t make an adjustment and we lose for these students,\u201d Letcher said.<\/p>\n
The adjustments are based on October actual student FTE numbers. The FTE is based on instructional minutes students earned over the course of the year.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Dr. Denise Carlin said they have been in contact with the Legislature and the Department of Education concerning duplicates.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no flag. We don\u2019t receive notice of that until they enroll into the system,\u201d she said. \u201cThe funds are already out there. That is why we brought it to the Legislature. They are aware of the exact issue and trying to work through it, to rectify the situation so we are not in the same situation this time next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Business Services Executive Director Sarah Cox said they wait for the state to send files and then it is identified which students are enrolled in public schools. Some of the issues are created by the timelines \u2014 paying new and renewing the scholarships.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe information is given to us after the fact. The accounts are frozen once identified. The student accounts are frozen,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Cox said phone calls are made to identify if they are enrolled in public schools or if the withdraw form is completed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe money is sitting in limbo until there is a response from the family as to where their student is located,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Board Member Armor Persons said the problem is that the students do not all have a student ID number when they go to a charter school, private school or become home schooled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey go by their name. A definite student ID number could be an easy fix,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Legislature is looking towards that goal. That is probably the best answer from listening to the Legislature. That is the problem \u2014 not a universal way to track these students like it is within our school system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carlin said the Legislature and Department of Education recognize the enormity of the impact and assured them they are working on the problem diligently to get it turned around.<\/p>\n
Letcher said on day 10 for traditional schools, the FTE was down 1,474 from school-by-school projections \u2014 district forecast \u2014 which resulted in pulling back approximately $9.2 million from schools at the time. The second survey, October FTE numbers, looked at the weighted FTE, base student allocation and comparable wage factors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are down about 2,083 FTE from the forecast, about $8.2 million. Our charter schools are down 618 FTE, (possible loss) of $3.5 million and the district is down 1,465 FTE (possible loss) of $3.7 million,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Letcher said when they allocated funds to schools at the beginning of the year, the legislative session had not ended. She said it was her best guess, or projection.<\/p>\n
\u201cI over projected,\u201d Letcher said.<\/p>\n
With the school allocations being funded at higher levels of losses, the funds were at different levels. She said the base student allocation and comparable wage factor allocated was $100.42 per WFTE more than they received.<\/p>\n
\u201cI allocated greater than I had to. I allocated at a higher rate that I actually received,\u201d Letcher said for ESOL allocations. \u201cI allocated additional over what is actually received from the state. We got hit twice on this one \u2014 the largest area of our decrease that we saw in the FTE was our ESOL population. We lost regular allocation and above allocation for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carlin said they will be more transparent with schools in terms of dollars receiving based on students walking through the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are some glitches in the process and our principals are willing to go back and work on it,\u201d she said, adding that there were a handful of students that lost pretty significant amounts of money. \u201cWe have a mechanism in place that schools are closely monitoring. Exceptionalities and ESE funding is different than 1.0 FTE. We will be doing that work through the fall and into the winter with allocations for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n