Problems with current Institutional Education Funding and the need for the passage of House Bill 1969
· Institution schools in Washington are operated in state Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration facilities, county juvenile detention centers, and rehabilitation centers such as group homes and treatment centers. The schools are staffed and operated by a school district or educational service district.
· Institution schools in Washington are limited to the state funding they generate during monthly one-day counts. This is the same counting method that all schools in Washington use.
· The attendance in these facilities fluctuates radically. The official count does not accurately reflect the number of students that are served by the detention school within a given month.
· Detention schools have no control over the number of students that may or may not be in the facility on the official count day.
· The official count does not take in to consideration the wide variation of student populations within a month.
· Washington is one of the only states that uses one day monthly counts to fund detention center school programs.
· Institution schools have a number of funding challenges:
· Local levies and tax dollars can’t be used to supplement them. (RCW 28A.193.040)
· No additional state funds (e.g., I-728) can be used to assist them.
· No special education services funds are specifically provided even though up to 80% of the youth at any given time may be eligible to receive these services.
· County detention schools get no specific allocation in their funding formula for administrative costs, secretarial costs, or data entry costs or para-educator support. All of these costs must be paid for out of the funds detention centers receive to provide educational services for students.
· To alleviate some of these issues institutional education schools would like greater predictability and stability in their funding. A short-term proposal to help solve this problem is to:
· Guarantee Institutional School funding at 90% of the previous year’s level for the upcoming school year.
· This amount would guarantee a base funding level regardless of monthly counts.
· If monthly counts exceed the base guarantee, institutional schools would receive additional funds based on their monthly counts.
· This base guarantee funding would allow school districts and educational service districts providing educational services in detention centers to:
§ Maintain more efficient staffing and programs that meet the needs of high-risk students in detention centers.
§ Create a staffing plan for the entire school year without worrying about how to eliminate staff and programs because of some low monthly counts.
§ By providing funding stability to detention centers educational staffs are assured of their jobs for the school year and students are assured the educational services that they deserve.
§ Long term funding solutions should look at doing away with monthly one day student population counts. Instead institutional education schools should be funded as programs. As programs, institutional schools would receive adequate funds so that they could provide educational services for the facility’s highest anticipated population during the school year.