The US Department of Education will host a webinar for districts wishing to consider applying to participate in a pilot program to implement "student centered funding". Under the approach, districts become exempt from a number of the spending requirements associated with federal programs if they implement a program that combines state, local, and federal funds and create a "student-centered" funding approach that allocates funding out to the campus level on a per-student basis with additional weights for ELL and low-income students. Under the requirements, districts wishing to participate would be required to ensure they will allocate more per-pupil funding for students from low-income families to high-poverty schools and at least as much funding per-pupil for English learners to high-poverty schools as they did in the preceding year. Additionally, funding provided through IDEA and Perkins is not eligible for consolidation under the program.
USDE plans to accept 50 districts for its initial pilot year of implementation.
A power-point explaining the program is
here. If you would like to participate in the webinar, you can sign up
here for a June 20 presentation, or
here for June 21.