Contacts needed to move Senate Bill 358 forward

By Katie Johnson posted 10-29-2020 08:12 PM

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Senate Bill (SB) 358 was introduced a bit over a month ago, but to this point, it has made no movement after three hearings before the Senate Education Committee. Our organizations, along with the Ohio Association of Elementary School Administrators and Ohio Association of Secondary School Administrators, provided proponent testimony for SB 358 before the Senate Education Committee members on September 2, 2020. That testimony can be found here.

We also provided an e-Alert on September 3 outlining key provisions of SB 358. That e-Alert can be reviewed here.

Contacts with legislators are needed to encourage them to act on SB 358 with some essential changes that include:

Extension and broadening of waiver authority for ODE;
Extension of the flexibility to hold virtual board meetings under the Ohio Open Meetings Act;
Elimination of the new territory transfer law; and
Elimination of the academic distress commissions.

Changes to the EdChoice Scholarship Program, or EdChoice, are needed before the February 1, 2021 application window opens for the 2021-22 school year. While SB 358 extends the temporary “freeze” of new vouchers for another year, it does not provide sufficient relief to the 517 buildings that are still losing a substantial amount of revenue to private schools. We ask that the following provisions, in addition to what is currently provided in the bill, be included to address EdChoice-related issues:

Freeze school districts’ voucher deductions at FY 2019 levels since the foundation formula is frozen and foundation aid payments are at reduced FY 2019 levels;
Clarify that only one 60-day window for EdChoice applications will be available to voucher students by removing the rolling application window;
Allow buildings to exit the eligibility list during the safe harbor period if they meet state improvement criteria;
Clarify that a voucher student moving to a new district and building that has not yet been subject to voucher deductions cannot continue to be eligible;
Provide additional funding to districts for the offset of losses from vouchers; and
Phase-out the building performance-based voucher program, replacing it with an income-based program (as outlined in the current version of SB 89).

We urge members to contact both your House and Senate members this week in support of the provisions in SB 358, to push for the additional items to be added, and to urge for expedited passage of the bill.

Please feel free to contact us with questions.

Important Links

#LegislativeAlert
#Advocacy
#LegalandLegislative

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