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ARIZONA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Forty-seventh Legislature – Second Regular Session
Minutes of Meeting
House Hearing Room 5 -- 2:30 p.m.
Chairman Shultz called the meeting to order at 2:37 p.m. and attendance was noted by the secretary.
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Vicki Anderson |
Rita Leyva |
Kent Scribner |
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Doris Goodale |
George Martinez |
Joseph Thomas |
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Art Harding |
Dave Naugle |
Martin Shultz, Chairman |
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Michael Hunter |
Thomas Schoaf |
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Jay Blanchard |
Dr. Sandra Dowling |
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Rhonda Bannard, Inspired Connections
Gretchen Kitchel, Senior Public Affairs Representative, Arizona State University
Ken Behringer, Arizona Legislative Council
Janice Palmer, Arizona School Board Association
Remarks by Chairman
Chairman Shultz stated that when the Commission was established by S.B. 1068, there was an information agreement that Senate and House Education staff, and Department of Education staff would support the Commission, along with the private sector. He said the name cards for members would be made permanent, the Commission would like to receive the minutes in advance of each meeting, wants to ensure public notices are issued in a timely manner, and that the website, while active, will become more useful.
Welcome and Introductions
Chairman Shultz welcomed the people in the audience and each stood up and introduced themselves.
Carol Shipman was present and took photos of Commission members.
Commission members introduced themselves.
Final Look at the School District Redistricting Commission Public Hearing Presentation
Rhonda Bannard, Inspired Connections, distributed to Commission members Draft 3 - Public Hearing PowerPoint (Attachment 1) and asked the members for input.
Individual members commented on their titles, page 2 of the PowerPoint.
Definitions and Terms on page 2 of the PowerPoint were discussed.
Mr. Hunter commented it would be best to use statutory terms, i.e., the terms urban and rural have different statutory definitions, and rural does not necessarily equate with small.
Mr. Harding noted some terms in the PowerPoint are statutory and some are not.
Chairman Shultz said it would be best to have a common understanding of terms to more effectively communicate with the public during hearings.
Mr. Hunter explained small school districts get special financial treatment and are exempt from expenditure limits.
Mr. Schoaf said he thinks when the Commission speaks of redistricting, it should be talking about creating new districts that are unified.
After further discussion, Mr. Shultz stated the Commission has stipulated that a glossary will be included in the PowerPoint presentation, and the definitions and terms will be described as nearly as possible to the statutory definition.
Chairman Shultz said a question for the Commission is whether to include the rationale for the creation of the Commission.
Mr. Schoaf said the legislation contains the purpose for the Commission, and everyone can draw their own conclusions of the rationale behind the legislation. He said the Commission must quickly decide which issues and items to look at to come to a personal conclusion on whether to vote for or against combining or creating school districts. He said there is a list in the legislation that must be considered, but there are other things some members will want to consider. The Commission must agree before looking at any school district so that the same criteria are used for every set of districts, and should ask the public if there are other items that must be considered. The Commission must be able to say the process is fair.
Mr. Martinez said it is important to make the distinction when talking about two different things:
Chairman Shultz summarized that while trying to characterize the rationale of the Commission, members want to identify the considerations and issues, add a few that have been offered, and get public input.
Mr. Schoaf said the Commission has not yet had a substantive conversation of what it is the Commission is going to do and how they will do it.
Mr. Shultz said if the process seems deliberative, that is by design. He said the Commission is about to the point to have that conversation.
Mr. Hunter said the starting point is every district that is not a unified district, and members need to find out why they are not unified, what obstacles need to be overcome, and if it makes sense to unify.
Chairman Shultz noted that according to statute, the Commission is dealing with school districts which are not now unified.
Ms. Bannard said some press releases have gone out listing the information for the presentations by the Commission. She said she will prepare the PowerPoint for presentation in Prescott and will provide a copy to each member.
Update Presentation on Arizona State University Decision Theater on School District Redistricting Commission Project
Gretchen Kitchel, Senior Public Affairs Representative, Arizona State University (ASU), said she has put together the bare bones of a presentation regarding the ASU Decision Theater. She said the Commission needs to decide if there are specific additional items that the Decision Theater can gather data on to put into the process. She suggested at their first meeting at the Decision Theater, they could look at the data she has put together and that will help the members to make further decisions on specific data, primarily as to geographical, financial and student count changes.
Chairman Shultz said if the Decision Theater is ready by the next scheduled meeting to literally describe the school districts in Arizona, and show how they can make geographical changes, primarily financial and student count, the Commission would then be in a position to think about what additional iterations might be appropriate, particularly as to data oriented criteria.
In response to query from Chairman Shultz, Ms. Kitchel replied the Decision Theater could be ready for the Commission to hold their next meeting on April 20, 2006.
Mr. Naugle questioned what kind of data as to why certain districts should be unified will be input at the Decision Theater.
Mr. Shultz said once the basic data is input at the Decision Theater, and the Commission sees how that works, members will be asking if they can add additional data and if it would be relevant to the decision process.
Ms. Kitchel said the Decision Theater will help to define options, and then to narrow down what decisions the Commission needs to make.
Chairman Shultz explained the
theory of organization. The Committee is supposed to be thinking consistently
with the statute and education and the best way to configure education
K-12. That is what the statute is all about.
Mr. Schoaf said at this stage the task is overwhelming. The state needs to be broken down into smaller pieces to see where these districts are in their political subdivisions and how the districts relate to one another to see if there are any candidates to consider. He said he does not believe assessed valuation or tax rate is relevant yet. At some point, tax rates would be one of the things members would want to consider, along with a lot of other detail to see if it really makes sense. Members need to understand why these districts went up separately and why they should be put together now, and is there a reason today that the Commission should recommend to taxpayers that districts should combine or be a unified district. At the Decision Theater, with the exception of the tax information, members see information about which districts are candidates for the process.
Presentation of Research Activity by Ken Behringer, Arizona Legislative Council
Mr. Behringer distributed to the Commission a Report to the School District Redistricting Commission (Attachment 2). He explained the report includes the e-mail links to the studies considered when preparing this report. He said the report examines empirical studies, literature reviews and statistical data from government sources that address the effects of school district size on economies of scale, student achievement, efficiency and reform. Mr. Behringer proceeded to summarize the report for the Commission.
Mr. Behringer explained there is significant support for the idea that there are economies of scale and diseconomies of scale as school district sizes increase. There is no agreement as to where those points are. He said education structure is different among the states, as are the size of the districts. There are many school districts in the State of Maine, and one school district in the State of Hawaii.
Mr. Behringer said the studies show that the greater efficiencies are taking smaller districts and making them into medium size districts. Therefore, this information is good for identifying candidates. There are no case studies on how to do that but the materials should help the Commission identify possible candidates.
Chairman Shultz commented that some of the studies actually describe how several states got to the point of changing their school district configuration. Arizona had choices established twenty years ago and school districts that choose to unify were incentivized to do so, i.e., the Kingman area. He said the Commission did not expect Mr. Behringer to find precision in the literature that would give members the silver bullet. The research does not give super clarity, but provides a good idea of factors and considerations in some of the relationships that occurred. He said the report is extremely helpful and appreciated.
Mr. Schoaf asked if the studies defined their definition of cost per pupil. Mr. Behringer said the studies defined what they included in the cost formula.
Mr. Schoaf asked if under the student achievement section any of the studies looked at districts before and after unification as opposed to consolidation. Mr. Behringer said he believes all of the studies were consolidation.
Mr. Hunter said there might be some relevant data regarding the Kingman unification. Other unifications in Arizona were transporting districts which might still be relevant to some of the case studies.
Mr. Hunter commented on Mr. Behringer’s presentation. He said the studies are useful to the Commission, although the national case studies are about consolidation, not unification, and the discussion about economies in scale is relevant primarily in looking at how Arizona has dealt with the idea of a lack of economies of scale. There are about 210 unified common, or union, high school districts. Of those, about 50 are qualified for the small school district adjustment, which means they have less than 100 high school students, and less than125 K-8 students, which qualifies them for a budget adjustment, a complete lifting of the spending cap.
He said while he agrees taxation is not the most important thing to look at, it is very important when talking about economies of scale and efficiency, especially since that is how Arizona responded to a lack of economies in scale. As the state changes, different districts have become dependent on that revenue, the higher per pupil cost, and dependent in many instances on the higher tax rate. That provides an obstacle to what otherwise might be the rational decision to unify with another district. There are other instances where districts qualify for the small school weights wherein certain weights apply to the student count, and increased funding when less than 500-600 students. There are districts that are looking at the benefit of unification, but the obstacle is that they would lose funding by unifying. Along with the bill that created this Commission, there were changes to the finance mechanisms, which are constantly changing. He said it is important to look at assessed valuation and tax rates applied because there is a presumption in Arizona of relatively equal tax rates. Tax rates are very important because that is how Arizona has responded to the issues brought forward in this study.
Janice Palmer, Arizona School Board Association (ASBA), explained the ASBA has no financial incentive or disincentive as far as unification of school districts. She cautioned the members that the Commission is about unifying school districts, not about consolidating school districts. She said the policy behind S.B. 1068 was about alignment of curriculum which would be better for student academic achievement. She said the Commission should be looking at what will be the best step to ensure our kids are successful. She noted in the PowerPoint presentation, student achievement is number seven. She said there is a lot of talk about administrative cost savings, rather than the intent of the Commission, which is academic achievement and how to better the education system in the State of Arizona. She said there would be initial costs for unifying school districts.
Chairman Shultz said the
Commission would stipulate that they know their charge is unification
K-12, and the success of school kids in Arizona. The theory is that the
unification of districts not now unified will, in fact, facilitate that continuous
curriculum and allow the kind of analyses necessary to help every student move
through the program. When there is a continuous curriculum, there is better
chance of dealing with potential dropout situations.
Ms. Palmer said in some areas there could be instances where there is a common school district and a high school district that is better than a unified district because of the leadership in the districts, and it might be the opposite in other areas. She cautioned there not be a one size fits all theory.
In response to request from Mr. Shultz, Ms. Palmer said she did have information about smaller schools that might be helpful and would provide that to the members. She said the Arizona Education Association (AEA) would be a good source for information regarding teachers’ salaries. She said the conversation has been at the Legislature that the elementary school personnel would receive salary increases. She said high school districts do receive a larger weight for their per pupil amount. She questioned if there will be money available to bring every teacher’s salary up to a high school salary because the funding mechanism is unknown.
Mr. Shultz said the legislation requires that the school boards will make the decisions, and plans developed will be taken to school boards for review, which will give the Commission feedback before anything goes onto the ballot.
Chairman Shultz said the first
public hearing would be on March 30 in Yavapai County at
6:30 p.m. at the Performance Hall at Yavapai College.
Chairman Shultz said the Commission must choose a Vice-Chairman.
Mr. Hunter moved that George Martinez be the Vice-Chairman of the Commission. The motion was seconded. The motion carried.
Vice-Chairman Martinez said he would chair the March 30 public hearing at Yavapai College.
Mr. Shultz said notification of the first public hearing will be through press release, information distributed by leaflet to the schools, and information on the official Commission website.
Mr. Shultz said the next meeting will be held at the ASU Decision Theater on April 20, 2006.
After review of the minutes, Mr. Shultz said his name is spelled incorrectly and Deidre Hahn represents the ASU Decision Theatre. He said the Commission will review the minutes with a fine tooth-comb, and in the future will have the minutes in advance. He said he would hold approval of the minutes for the next meeting because there are a number of changes.
Mr. Naugle noted there will be a public hearing in Tucson before the next Commission meeting, and asked if each member could notify via e-mail if they will be attending.
Without objection, the meeting adjourned at 4:55 p.m.
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Yvette O’Connor, Committee Secretary
March 16, 2006
(Original minutes, attachments and tape are on file in the Office of the Chief Clerk
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SCHOOL DISTRICT REDISTRICTING COMMISSION
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March 16, 2006
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