QEIA explained in workshops; apply by March 30

With a March 30 deadline fast approaching to apply for funds made available by settlement of a Proposition 98 lawsuit against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, CSBA recently co-sponsored five workshops around the state to advise school districts on the process.

The Quality Education Investment Act, passed last year as Senate Bill 1133, frees up nearly $3 billion in education funding over seven years following settlement of the lawsuit filed by Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, the California Teachers Association and other litigants over funding the governor withheld from schools in 2004-05 and 2005-06. CSBA was an intervenor in this lawsuit and agreed to the settlement, which dealt only with the issues of how much money was owed to schools and when those funds would be allocated.

Rick Pratt, CSBA’s assistant executive director for Governmental Relations, and consultants from School Services of California Inc. presented workshops on QEIA in Garden Grove, Fresno, Ontario, Sacramento and Santa Clara. Nearly 200 local district officials attended the Sacramento session, where the speakers took participants through a step-by-step process that highlighted key dates and requirements. They outlined all the operational issues districts will face, such as recruiting and hiring qualified staff, accommodating student facility needs and negotiating contracts.

Districts can apply on behalf of eligible schools for a portion of the $2.9 billion that will be available for grades K-12. Only deciles 1 and 2 schools will be eligible for funding, primarily for class-size reduction, counseling, and teacher and principal training. However, only a third of these schools will actually receive funding, according to Pratt. SB 1133 authorizes districts to apply for alternative programs that can serve up to 15 percent of all pupils funded.

Pratt drove home some important points.

“This is not just a compliance program, in which districts need only be concerned with inputs such as class size, student-counselor ratio, professional development or teacher experience index,” Pratt said. “It is also a performance program, in which [districts] must meet specific output expectations. If they do not, they will be eliminated from the program and lose their funding.”

Pratt urged boards to pay close attention to QEIA’s stringent requirements.

“Their districts’ budgets will be on the line,” he said, because they could lose funding at any time during the seven-year period by failing to meet all of the law’s provisions.

“Effective implementation will depend on cooperation with their teachers’ unions, which has collective bargaining implications,” he noted.

The selection process adopted by the state Department of Education will require districts with more than one eligible school to prioritize their schools for selection, Pratt said. That means districts will need to carefully develop the criteria they will use to prioritize schools and be prepared to respond to the concerns of the families served by schools that are assigned lower priority and do not receive funding.

Related link:

Forms and guidance for QEIA funding applications are available from the state Department of Education @ www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fo/r15/qeia07rfa.asp