Opinion ID: 1756151
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Categorical and Professional Development Funding

Text: Categorical funds are available in addition to the foundation funding for programs like the Alternative Learning Environment for at risk students, where the State provides funding of $3,250 multiplied by the number of identified ALE students. There was no increase in funding in this category for the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 school years.
Act 2283 of 2005 provides that for the school years of 2005-2006 and 2006-2007, funding for the English language learners is $195 for each eligible student. This represents no increase from the 2004-2005 school year. The Masters found that children from non-English speaking homes have greater educational needs than those from English-speaking homes. The legislative committees made no inquiry to school superintendents about the funding needs for the English language learners prior to or during the 2005 session. Insufficient funding for this program requires National School Lunch Act revenues to be used to support this program.
Additional funding under Act 59 of the Second Extraordinary Session of 2003 for students eligible under the National School Lunch Act was based on the number of students eligible. In 2005, the General Assembly amended Act 59 by Act 2283 and, in doing so, changed the method of counting students who qualified for additional funds. This caused a decrease of $9,542,400 in the money spent on behalf of school-lunch students in the 2005-2006 school year. The funding for NSLA students does not account for any increase or decrease in the average daily number of the students for the current year.
Professional development funding supports a coordinated set of planned learning activities for teachers and administrators. This funding was reduced from $50 multiplied by the previous year's average daily membership (ADM) for school year 2004-2005 to a projected $41.11 multiplied by the previous year's ADM for school year 2005-2006. The difference in funding may be due to funding provided to the Arkansas Educational Television Network to develop an online professional-development program for teachers.