GOP threatens to withhold funding to schools that don’t reopen
House and Senate Republicans want to allow the state to withhold funding from public school districts that don’t offer in-person instruction, a measure so drastic it has not received the governor’s support even as he calls for all schools to open their classrooms.
Through a last-minute bill filed during the legislature’s current education special session, House Majority Leader William Lamberth and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson want to allow Tennessee’s education commissioner to pull all or part of a school district’s state funding if the district doesn’t offer at least 70 days of in-person instruction for grades K-8 by the end of the school year.
Funds also could be withheld if public schools don’t offer in-person learning options to elementary and middle school students all 180 days of the 202122 academic year.
The law, if passed, could jeopardize funding for Memphis and Nashville public schools if the districts don’t quickly return to the classroom. Those school districts, the two largest in Tennessee, account for roughly one-fifth of the state’s public school students.
“This is not a punitive thing,” insisted House Speaker Cameron Sexton, Rcrossville, who explained in an interview Wednesday he hopes the bill passes and believes every district will be able to reach the in-person learning requirement by the end of the year.
“This is just us saying we think there needs to be an option to be in school,” he said. “I think everybody can meet that
goal of 70, so we don’t think it’s out of the ordinary for the whole state to be able to meet that standard.”
Sexton said not every student would have to be enrolled in in-person learning for that instructional day to count. Districts only have to offer in-person instruction as an option for families, including through hybrid plans where only a portion of students are allowed in the school on a given day.
Students in Shelby County Schools have remained in virtual classrooms since March. The district has not yet moved to in-person learning during the current school year.
Some elementary and special needs students in Metro Nashville Public Schools returned for in-person instruction throughout September, October and November but switched back to virtual learning – as the rest of the district’s students have done since March – after COVID-19 cases worsened in the city this fall.
It’s unclear whether those days would count based on the bill criteria, since middle schools did not reopen.
According to the legislation, the education commissioner, currently Penny Schwinn, would have the discretion to withhold money allocated to a district through the state’s school funding formula called the Basic Education Program, or BEP.
“What my hope would be is that it wouldn’t happen,” said Lamberth, Rportland, regarding the prospect of the state pulling school funding. “That they would follow through and abide by this statute and just offer an in-person instruction opportunity for their kids.
“If they just choose not to do so, then quite frankly, they don’t need as many BEP funds because they don’t have schools that are open.”
MNPS director calls bill ‘terrible public policy,’ says it would threaten layoffs
While there is currently no clear return date set for Metro Nashville Public Schools students, Director Adrienne Battle noted the district brought some students back this fall before the coronavirus pandemic worsened. The district has established criteria for when students can return based on a reduction in community transmission.
“Any proposal to take funding away from students and threaten the mass layoff of teachers in the 2021-22 school year is terrible public policy and does nothing to address any real learning challenges or gaps caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, nor does it do anything to create a safer working or learning environment by slowing or stopping the spread of the coronavirus,” Battle said in a statement Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Shelby County Schools did not respond to a request for comment.
On Tuesday, SCS Superintendent Joris Ray pointed out the apparent double standard of the state Senate barring the public from attending legislative proceedings while lawmakers call on schools to reopen.
“Watching state leaders call for inperson learning on the state legislature’s virtual video meeting today sends a mixed and hypocritical message,” Ray said in a statement.
The vast majority of employees in Lee’s executive branch, including the Department of Education, also continue to work from home.
The Memphis school district, which has remained virtual this school year, has twice delayed an in-person start date but tentatively plans to return students to classrooms Feb. 8 at elementary schools and Feb. 22 at middle and high schools.
Lee, attorney general quiet about proposed bill to cut school funding
The office of Attorney General Herbert Slatery declined to comment on the proposed bill.
A years-old lawsuit is pending against the state challenging Tennessee’s system of calculating funding for schools. The lawsuit, brought by Shelby County Schools in 2015 and later joined by Metro Nashville Public Schools, is set to go to trial in October.
Despite the governor in a Tuesday speech to the legislature bashing unnamed districts’ decisions to keep classrooms closed, Lee’s office on Wednesday declined to say whether he supports the bill or intends to sign it if passed.
“The governor believes Tennessee students should be back in the classroom, and we will evaluate this bill as it moves through the legislative process,” Lee spokesperson Laine Arnold said.
Schwinn, meanwhile, declined to comment specifically on whether she supports the bill. She said in an interview Wednesday she was focused on the governor’s other education initiatives this week and “can’t really speak to” the proposed legislation that would grant her authority to slash school funding.
If put in that position, Schwinn said she would look to the governor’s office for direction.
Legislative officials in recent weeks were in touch with Lee’s office about a separate bill pertaining to the BEP – although the focus would have been on holding districts harmless if their enrollment lagged this year, a component of the funding formula.
Lamberth and Johnson filed other special session legislation that could accomplish that goal, but the legislature probably will wait until the regular session to take up the issue of maintaining funding for districts that have experienced a decline in attendance during the pandemic.
Lee on Tuesday did not directly answer a question from The Tennessean about whether schools that aren’t offering in-person instruction should be punished. The governor instead said he believed those districts will decide to reopen and noted that state summer remedial programs being planned for this year will be held in person regardless of whether a district has remained virtual.
Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbro, D-nashville, said as a parent of a sixthgrade student, it’s “maddening to all of us” that children still aren’t in the classroom.
“But we should have prioritized schools from the beginning,” Yarbro said. “They should have been the last thing to close and the first thing to reopen, but the state hasn’t prioritized schools at any point in this pandemic, and it isn’t prioritizing schools right now.
“There’s nothing about cutting off funding to pick a political fight that’s going to help a single student.”
While Sexton said the House could finish its business by Friday, including passing the in-person learning bill, he noted that due to the Senate version not being filed until Wednesday morning, legislators would have to return Monday in order for senators to hear the legislation in committee and pass it on the floor.
Meghan Mangrum and Laura Testino contributed.
Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.