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The 2011 General Assembly has ended and the State Superintendent for Public Education has declared this session transformational by providing our State and our students with the most comprehensive education reform packages to date. It is understood that these new education laws will create opportunities and even apprehension for those of us in the education arena. Some argue that these new laws will be the undoing of public education. I submit that while these new laws take many of us, including superintendents, out of our "comfort zones,” we must use these new reforms with the flexibility intended to "Maximize each student's achievement!” By placing student needs ahead of our comfort zones, we shall carry-on with our vision: Schools of Excellence... School of Choice... Clarksville Community Schools!

HB 1001: Budget — Even with the addition of $90 million of new tuition support dollars because of the revised state revenue forecast, the funding formula will still mean that 165 school corporations will receive less money in 2012 than they did in 2011. Forty-six corporations in 2012 will lose 4 percent or more of their funding.

The funding for most of the categorical areas, such as summer school, textbook reimbursement and alternative education, was frozen.
The funding for the Non-English Speaking Program was reduced by $2 million per year.
Full-day kindergarten funding was increased by $23.4 million each year. However, that still doesn’t fully fund the program.

SB 497: The Mitch Daniels Early Graduation Scholarship will provide a $4,000 scholarship to any high school junior who graduates a year early.

HB 1004: School Bus Replacement Fund— This law limits school districts’ ability to transfer money from the School Bus Replacement Fund to the Rainy Day Fund, which can be used to help other funds. It also limits districts’ levy rate. This will not take effect until 2013.

HB 1216: Public Works Projects— This bill increases the public work limits to $250,000 in 2012 and $350,000 in 2013.

SB 1: Teacher Evaluation and Licensing— This law creates a professional pay system, rewarding teachers with raises based on meaningful, individualized performance criteria.

SB 575: Teacher Collective Bargaining— This law keeps the best teachers, not the most senior teachers, in the classrooms. The law gives flexibility to effective teachers by eliminating seniority-based provision in contract language, that often create undue hardships on school administrators and great teachers.

HB 1002: Charter Schools— This law allows for more flexibility in the sponsorship of Charter Schools.

HB 1003: Vouchers— This law will provide qualifying parents the opportunity to receive a voucher to supplement the cost of tuition at a non-public school.

Sincerely,

Kimberly A. Knott, Ed.D.
Superintendent