‘No small ask’
The Board of Education wants $440M more than last year to address the state’s teacher shortage.
The state Board of Education on Thursday approved a $3.35 billion budget request for Fiscal Year 2020 that addresses Oklahoma’s teacher shortage by investing in needed classroom supports for students.
The spending plan, characterized as “no small ask” by one state Education Department official, is $440.7 million more than was appropriated for the current fiscal year.
It restores $253 million to the state funding formula to reduce class sizes and restore classroom resources in hopes of attracting and retaining teachers and improving student achievement.
Oklahoma has 1,457 fewer teachers than it did in 2010 but 41,050 more students, according to figures provided by the agency.
State schools Superintendent Joy Hofmeister said the budget represents a “strategic investment for students and teachers.”
“While a significant step forward, the teacher pay raise was not enough to stem the teacher shortage or meet the pressing needs of a growing student population,” she said. “Increasing instructional dollars must be Oklahoma’s next step forward.”
Since June, the state board has approved 2,716 emergency teaching certificates, including 151 on Thursday — 741 more than were approved over the previous 12 months.
The certificates are issued to school districts that lack qualified candidates to fill teaching positions.
The budget request also includes $58 million to hire counselors to assist students with academic planning and social and emotional needs and provide trauma-informed training to other counselors.
Funding for textbooks and other instructional materials increased by $7.25 million to $40.25 million.
The spending plan includes an additional $79 million for Support of Teachers and Students, a line item formerly called Public School Activities that directly effects classroom programs and investments.
Funding for alternative education programs to reduce dropout rates and increase graduation rates received a lineitem increase of nearly $30 million — the amount of money spent by districts in FY18, the agency reported.
The agency, meanwhile, earmarked $11.9 million for support of low-performing schools and $11.7 million to aid an estimated 78,358 children reading below grade level ($150 per student).
Training for teachers ($5.3 million) and support for new teachers ($1.7 million) is also included in the request.
“This budget that you have presented, I am very pleased to support because you’ve reached into so many areas and you’ve shown us why it’s important and why we need all these areas,” board member Cathryn Franks told Hofmeister. “It’s not just ‘let’s give teachers a pay raise and that will fix it.’ That will not fix it.”
In delivering the agency’s budget presentation, Carolyn Thompson, chief of government affairs, said the budget request was intended to “meet the needs of schools and students that were echoed so loudly by teachers this spring.”
“Their message to the Legislature was a need for restored operational dollars and strategic investments for students and classrooms,” she said.
The agency also is requesting $503.4 million for teacher and support staff health insurance — an increase of $19.6 million — and $19.3 million for administrative support.
The bulk of the spending plan ($2.55 billion) provides financial support of schools.