By Camas Frank
San Luis Obispo County’s school districts are getting ready to find out just how well they’ve done in the year since legislation changed the way local budgets were prioritized and held accountable.
The new school funding law, called the Local Control Funding Formula or LCFF began in 2014 as, “a new way for schools to focus on student success,” by requiring all school districts to involve stakeholders (such as parents) in planning and decision making.
That was coupled with Local Control and Accountability Plans or LCAPs, which is where the SLO County Office of Education comes in.
County Superintendent of Schools, James Brescia, has been making the rounds at PTA meetings and community groups to explain some of what his agency expects to find, as they audit the districts’ progress and prepare for next year.
“We’re seeing more money coming into our budget than we have in years; compared to last year it’s a lot,” he explained, tempering the news of good fortune with a reminder that, adjusted for inflation, the funding levels are really returning to pre-recession figures. “It’s the best outlook we’ve had in 10 years, but the funds come with increased local responsibility as well as control.”
Since last year each of SLO County’s 10 districts has been required to draft district and school-wide goals and outline the steps they will take to achieve those for all of their students, including those in special needs categories.
By way of example, San Luis Coastal schools chose to focus on intervention programs to bring up performance among students in specific subjects where they were falling behind.
Arroyo Grande (Lucia Mar) targeted career and technical training for bulking up and Paso Robles took on some of the accelerated learning coursework that San Luis Coastal had modeled with its Teach School.
“The Governor’s office has been pushing for local control,” Brescia said. “Decentralization would be a fair word to use, in response to the people who say, ‘Well, what makes Sacramento think they can make better decisions for our students than we can?’ Now that could give bad decision makers the power to hang themselves, but that’s why we conduct oversight, to make sure that schools have actually done what they said they would do with the money.”
He added, “I don’t see anything negative happening here.”
The review of 2014 is gearing up for Spring 2015, with the state asking the County Education Office to collect data on the fulfillment of LCAPs ahead of the June budgets.
“It’s a different function for our office than anything that’s been done over the last 30 years,” said Brescia, who just took over the office in December. “But it lets the public see what’s going on as the money comes back.”
