A proposed amendment to the MSFF, the new school funding law, would reduce funding to public schools by millions of dollars.
When the law was drafted, it changed the student count on which school funding is based from average daily attendance to net enrollment, and the definition for net enrollment included all students enrolled in the school district, pre-k through grade 12. Last year, when the Legislature was trying to get support for the new funding formula, the per-district funding estimates they showed school superintendents, legislators, and parents were based on enrollment figures that included pre-k students. The funding schools received this year also included pre-k students.
Legislators apparently didn’t intend to include pre-k in the new funding law’s definition of net enrollment, because some pre-k programs are funded through other means, and now HB 1630 includes an amendment to the law that would change the definition of enrollment to omit pre-k students. That change would reduce funding to individual school districts by hundreds of thousands of dollars below what we were promised when the new law was proposed and below what school districts received this year (many millions of dollars statewide). It also presumably would leave districts with no state funding at all for many 3- and 4-year-old children with special needs who are served in these pre-k programs. The MAEP funded special education based on teacher units, which covered these pre-k programs. The MSFF funds special education on a per-student basis and makes no provision for funding these pre-k special education students if they are not counted in net enrollment.
When the new funding formula was being debated, legislators promised to fully fund it the first year and into the future. Support for the new law was based on the total funding school districts were promised. Legislators need to make good on that commitment. If a change is going to be made to the funding law, it should not cost school districts funding they were promised.
We also are hearing today that Speaker White is ramping up pressure on representatives to support HB 1433, which provides both public and private school choice. It is critical that your representative hear from you – and your friends and family – urging a NO vote on HB 1433 and other dangerous bills still pending in the House.
Please call your representative every day until the February 13 floor deadline with this message:
VOTE NO on HB 1432, HB 1433, and HB 1617 and keep your promise to fully fund public schools based on the law as passed last year.
Capitol Switchboard: 601.359.3770
Find additional contact information for legislators
Speaker White: 601.359.3300
The issue with the new school funding law is a perfect example of why we raised alarms last year about the way it was drafted: a rushed process with no hearings and without input from the Mississippi Department of Education. Legislators don’t need to make the same mistake again by trying to provide a quick fix for a complicated problem. While we feel sure this was an unintended consequence, we also believe that the new school funding law would not have received the support it did at the lower funding level that omitting pre-k students would have yielded.
Here are brief descriptions of the bills The Parents’ Campaign opposes that remain on the House calendar for floor votes:
- HB 1432 – allows charter schools in C districts and loosens oversight and accountability of charter schools
- HB 1433 – creates private and public school choice, diverting public money to private schools and imposing significant administrative burdens on school districts
- HB 1617 – allows homeschool students to participate in public school activities and athletics, creating an unlevel playing field that favors homeschool over public school students and inflicting an enormous administrative burden on public school administrators
Please share this information with others who love their public schools and want to keep them strong. Reductions in public school funding and the school choice sham will take our schools and our state backward – we can’t afford to let that happen. Representatives need to hear about these bills from voters back home every single day until the Thursday deadline. Our children are counting on us, and together, we’ve got this!
