Legislative liaison: testing pilot passed and voucher spending now totals nearly $400 million

Michelle Childs, the district's legislative liaison, briefed the board on state bills that affect district operations and funding.

Childs said HB2422, a pilot program to reduce testing in 10 local education agencies, passed and was signed by the governor on May 11. "This is a pilot for 10 LEAs, to pilot reducing testing. That one did pass, and it was signed by the governor on May 11," she said. She also noted that HB1785, which would allow private school students who reside in a district boundary to play interscholastic athletics under certain enrollment thresholds, passed unanimously and was signed on May 5.

On school funding, Childs summarized changes to ESA/Freedom Scholarship rules and described recent increases to voucher amounts. "The Freedom Scholarship...will increase from 20,000 to 35,000," she said, and later observed, "So at this point, we're up to almost 400,000,000 in vouchers, so when they got to our bill to fund preschool special education, they said there's just not enough money for that." Childs linked the voucher totals to the legislature's decision to place the district's preschool special education bill behind the budget.

Childs also described a proposal to extend a 25% college discount to non-educator state employees' children that carried a $45 million fiscal note; she said lawmakers prioritized other voucher spending over that expansion. The liaison said some bills were taken "off notice" and therefore did not pass this session.

Childs asked to follow up at a forthcoming legislative meeting for more implementation details about which schools will participate in the HB2422 pilot and how the pilot’s outcomes will be reported.