Extra Ed $ Coming For Storm Evacuees

Hartford—New Haven could see a $400,000 boost in its education budget this year thanks to the nearly 200 students who have moved here because of natural disasters.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration has proposed redistributing nearly $4 million in this fiscal year’s education budget to assist districts that have taken in at least 10 students because of major weather events like Hurricane Maria, which displaced many students and their families.

Dianna Wentzell, state Department of Education commissioner and her CFO Kathy Dempsey, delivered that news to lawmakers on the state legislature’s Appropriations Committee during a public budget presentation Thursday, noting that the redistribution comes because of a lower than expected student enrollment statewide.

Dempsey said that the department provides the Office of Policy and Management and the legislature statistics about student enrollment as of Oct. 1. But as of Jan. 31, the department’s ​“freeze” data shows a lower enrollment than lawmakers had budgeted for last year.

“That meant, under the formula that the governor proposed, he didn’t need all of the funding that would have been originally anticipated,” she said. ​“So, his proposal is to take that differential, which is just under $4 million and redistribute those funds because they wouldn’t have gone to anyone through the formula.”

Wentzell said that works out to about $2,023 per pupil that will be redistributed to the districts, or just over $400,000 for New Haven Public Schools.

The majority of the students who have come to the state because of weather events like Hurricane Maria arrived after that October ​“snapshot” on enrollment, Wentzell told lawmakers Tuesday. And though overall enrollment for the state is lower than expected, some school districts like Hartford and New Haven have seen significant increases. Hartford has received nearly 400 new students between October 1 and January, while New Haven has received nearly 200. She said 16 school districts in the state have received at least 10 children.

“When the numbers start to creep up as we started to see in at least five of our communities — numbers as large as an elementary school — we started to say, ​‘You wouldn’t open a school in three months,’” she said. Nor would you be able to hire more teachers to accommodate a wave of new students. Some, as one lawmaker pointed out ​‚have significant English as a second language and special education needs, which is further stretching school resources across the state during a tough time.

“This happened at a time when our school districts were not able to hire to meet the needs of the kids,” she said. ​“At first, they were just finding out what the budget was. Also, they’d already hired for the school year.

“At a time of such economic difficulty, our school districts are really not able to hire to meet kids’ needs,” Wentzell added. ​“Whether that’s just another classroom teacher because all of a sudden you need another fourth-grade teacher or it’s the need for making sure we have enough [English Language Learner] support or bilingual classrooms.”

Wentzell said that the redistributed funds will not be done so based on whether a particular school district has received more students with higher education needs. The money will be distributed strictly on how many students a district has received. She said going forward, the students who stay in the district would be counted as part of the general population of students and will be factored into the education cost-sharing formula. Wentzell also said that students with special needs also would be eligible for support from the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and through state bilingual and other grant programs.

She noted that education isn’t the only support that many of the students moving to Connecticut because a natural disaster will need.

“For kids that have experienced the trauma of being uprooted because of a natural disaster, or in this case a hurricane…they’re dealing with more than the fact that they had to adjust to a new school,” she said. ​“This isn’t a normal because-mom-or-dad-got transferred at work [situation]. This is also a traumatic event for families trying to re-establish themselves, making a decision of whether to stay or go back. There is a lot going on for kids and we know our school districts need help to have the resources to meet the kids’ needs.”

New State Rep. Juan Candelaria has made pushing for greater state aid for cities like New Haven that have embraced Maria evacuees a priority for this session. He said Thursday if the governor plans to redistribute the funds so that districts aren’t struggling to meet the needs of these new students, he thinks it is an important move.

He said it matters whether the governor plans to redistribute those funds in a grant specifically to address the needs of the students who have been evacuated to Connecticut or if the money will be allowed to be used in any manner chosen by the district. Going forward, he said, the legislature needs to look at putting more funding into bilingual education, which he said currently is an underfunded line item.

“I think there has to be a broader discussion about bilingual education,” he said. ​“ECS [state Educational Cost Sharing dollars] will not be sufficient to address bilingual education. Moving forward, as we go into the next school year, the evacuees will be counted in the October [enrollment snapshot]. So we need to address bilingual education and adequately fund it.”

Candelaria has a pair of bills that address education funding and general assistance to families from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands who are now living in the state because of the recent hurricanes. He said they are currently broadly written, he hopes to get to that level of specificity about bilingual education in committee.

The 2018 Agenda