Financing Schools

The school finance formula, as currently written, accounts for adequate and equitable funding of K-12 schools. The weightings in the formula for career and technical education (CTE), bilingual education, transportation, at-risk, and high-density at-risk funding are critical to ensure equitable funding.

Increased funding provided by CPI adjustments compensate for rising costs. This is critical for Salina Public Schools to maintain services for students and to retain and recruit staff.

Specific priorities:

• Fully fund schools through the existing constitutionally-suitable school funding formula.
• Renew the current school finance formula, including inflationary adjustments (Consumer Price Index), to address students’ needs and ensure each student and school have the capacity to meet the Rose Standards or foundational structures under the Kansans Can vision.
• Oppose programs, including, but not limited to, vouchers, education savings accounts, and tuition tax credits. Such programs divert public funding from public education to schools that are not required to serve all students, including those who are disadvantaged, disabled, or those with the greatest needs.
• Expand Excel in CTE (SB 155) funding to include technical education courses provided at four-year postsecondary institutions and up to 15 hours of general education courses per student.

Public Funds for Public Schools

All schools, activities, and programs supported by public funds should be held to the same enrollment and accountability standards. Public schools accept all students regardless of background, prior schooling, academic and behavior challenges, or disability.

The most vulnerable students are highly likely to stay in their home community after completing their K-12 schooling. Local workforce demands and community stability require that all students receive a high-quality education. The most vulnerable students, including those who are disadvantaged and disabled, are most impacted by legislation that diverts public funds from public schools.

Specific priority:

• Oppose any programs that divert public funding from public education to schools that are not required to serve all students, including those who are the most vulnerable.

Unfunded Mandates

Unfunded mandates place pressure on school districts’ budgets. Examples of recent unfunded mandates include the 2023 law that allows non-public school students to participate in KSHSAA-sponsored activities at their local public schools and transportation expectations caused by the out-of-district enrollment expectations.

Although families that choose homeschool or send their children to private school pay taxes, those tax dollars do not impact school budgets unless the students enroll in public school. Because school funding is based on enrollment, requiring schools to provide extracurricular and co-curricular programming for students who are not enrolled in the public school is an unfunded mandate.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires transportation be provided to special education students when it is deemed necessary by the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) team. With the provisions for open enrollment provided by HB 2519, this would require school districts to travel well outside their district boundaries to transport these students to and from school, each day, at great cost to the district.

While special education transportation costs are 80% reimbursable by the state, this cost is subtracted from the overall state special education budget prior to finalizing the per teacher entitlement districts receive for categorical aid. With increased special education transportation costs statewide, the net effect would be a decrease in categorical aid. Because categorical aid is the primary source of funding for special education programming, this would result in a net loss in special education funds available to districts, further
exacerbating the impact of the state’s shortfall in funding special education at the required 92% rate. More of the available dollars would be diverted from classroom services to transportation.

Specific priority:

• Oppose legislation that places unfunded mandates on the K-12 public education system or provide funding for the new requirements when legislation is enacted.

Recruitment and Retention of Highly Qualified Teachers

The quality of the teacher in the classroom is the strongest predictor of student success that we control; therefore, recruiting and retaining high quality staff is foundational to a strong educational system. Recruitment and retention of qualified staff is a growing challenge for Salina Public Schools and many others.

Research from RAND's All Work and No Pay report reinforces these findings, showing that the national teacher shortage is rooted in burnout, low pay, and the increased demands placed on educators. Kansas is no exception, where these factors are compounded by high disengagement rates and the perception that teaching is undervalued.

According to the Kansas State Department of Education’s 2023 Teacher Retention Survey, teacher engagement has declined since 2021. In 2023, 55% of teachers reported feeling disengaged, compared to 46% in 2021. Disengagement contributes to teacher retention issues, as engaged teachers are more likely to stay in the profession and contribute to student success.

Factors including societal perceptions of teaching, salary growth potential, inadequate support for mental and emotional health, and challenging student behaviors contribute to teacher retention struggles in Kansas. At one time, teachers spent their entire career in the profession. This is no longer the case. Teachers with 4-11 years of experience, those who have second jobs, and those who hold advanced degrees are at a higher risk of leaving the profession. These issues, combined with inadequate compensation and limited career advancement opportunities, are driving educators out of the profession, which in turn worsens the existing shortage.

Although specific data for Salina Public Schools shows a strong commitment to maintaining teacher quality, the district still experiences the statewide challenges of recruitment shortages and high turnover, particularly in specialized areas such as special education.

For policymakers, these statistics underscore the urgent need for legislative action. Increasing salaries, improving mental health resources, and enhancing professional development opportunities could significantly improve teacher retention. Additionally, addressing societal attitudes toward teaching through public campaigns and better support for managing student behavior would help create a more sustainable workforce in Kansas education.

By focusing legislative efforts on these areas, Kansas can better recruit and retain the quality educators necessary for fostering student success and maintaining robust public education systems.

Sources: KSDE 2023 Teacher Retention Survey, RAND All Work and No Pay Report, Salina Public Schools, Kansas State Department
of Education.

Specific priorities:

• Reduce the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System’s (KPERS) mandatory waiting periods for working after retirement to 30 days.
• Establish equitable working-after-retirement provisions for all public employees. For example, the Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP) allows eligible members to keep working after they are eligible for full retirement. Instead of losing benefit payments during that time, the member can both continue working (receiving a salary) and at the same time, have his/her retirement benefit deposited into a DROP account each month. When they officially retire, they receive the balance of the DROP account and begin receiving the monthly retirement benefit.
• Eliminate the additional KPERS fees placed on school districts or employees returning to work after retirement.
• Provide local districts with funding to provide mentoring to future teachers enrolled in apprenticeship or transition-to-teaching programs.

Special Education Funding

All children, including those with disabilities, have a right to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). This is achieved through the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which mandates special education services be provided to children with disabilities from birth through age 21. Special education services are also mandated by Kansas regulations and statutes (SEECA, Kansas Special Education for Exceptional Children Act).

The demand for and cost of special education services has outpaced available funding for special education. By law, special education services must be in addition to the general education program provided to all students. The services must be specially-designed instruction to meet the needs of the individual child. In Salina Public Schools, 22% of our students have a disability that requires special education services and this number continues to trend upward.

Kansas law requires that 92% of the excess cost of special education be funded by the state (K.S.A. 72-3422). While the federal government has committed to cover up to 40% of the excess cost of providing these students their essential IDEA-mandated special education services, most estimates place the federal contribution at 11-15%. The shortfall places the burden of meeting the federal IDEA law on Kansans at both the state and local levels. Currently, approximately 75% of the excess cost of special education is being provided by state and federal dollars. This causes Salina Public Schools to divert over 2.1 million general fund dollars every year to cover the unfunded excess cost of special education for Salina students.

Specific priority:

• Fund special education at the 92% statutory level.

Mental Health

For many students, access to behavioral and mental health services precedes academic success. The Mental Health Intervention Team grants help remove barriers to accessing services, decrease missed class time, and increase consistency of services. This grant allows Salina Public Schools to employ mental health school liaisons to support families when students need mental health support. The result is more students receiving needed support for mental health needs in a timely manner. The partnership and communication between the schools and mental health professionals provides a necessary bridge to addressing individual and community needs by aligning and leveraging resources across entities to create a network of support.

Specific priorities:

• Support initiatives to address social-emotional and mental health needs of students.
• Increase support for the Mental Health Intervention Team grant.
• Restore the prior level of funding (75%) for public school systems participating in the Mental Health Intervention Team grant. Fund mental health centers without decreasing public school support.

Early Childhood Education

To raise the education levels of the Kansas workforce, we must begin in the early preschool years. Early childhood is a time of rapid brain growth and strong preschool programming has a powerful return on investment. Well before students enter K-12 public schools, learning opportunities begin the trajectory to postsecondary success. Investing in early education creates a pathway to a more equitable future and greater academic success, which leads to higher-paying jobs and community gains that impact society beyond the individual child. All Kansas children must have access to high quality early childhood education to ensure every child enters school with the social-emotional and academic skills to be successful. Studies show increased duration of time in high quality early education programs provides greater benefit to develop stronger academic, cognitive, and social literacy skills.

Specific priorities:

• Support the state’s strategic framework vision for ensuring that every child thrives: All children will have their basic needs met and have equitable access to quality early childhood care and education opportunities, so they are prepared to succeed in kindergarten and beyond.
• Fund full-day preschool education for special education students and preschool-aged, at-risk students.
• Fund half-day preschool for all general education four-year-olds who attend a preschool provided by public school districts.

Local Board Authority

Public schools in Kansas provide education for students with a wide range of backgrounds and from many different family structures. Religious and moral beliefs of the families we serve vary widely. The development of positive relationships between the child, the child’s teacher(s), and the family are central to maximizing learning. This does not happen through legislation.

Teachers must have the ability to adjust lessons in response to student mastery or non-mastery of learning outcomes. Effective teachers are consistently assessing learning progression and adapting instruction for the students during the learning process.

This may include adding resources to teach prerequisite skills or extend learning. Having the staff to manage and comply with requests from all parents to adjust instruction, instructional materials, or assessment practices for their individual student will require a tremendous increase in funding to schools. Mandating how curriculum and instructional resources are shared with families will divert taxpayer dollars and resources away from the students in the classroom and toward bureaucratic tasks.

Specific priority:

• Allow local boards of education – those elected at the local level to provide oversight to our schools – to set policies for lesson planning, materials challenges, and transparency.