Students getting their l lunch at a primary school in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Amanda Mills/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
School leaders from across Maine are pushing for a change to education funding that would allocate more money to districts with larger shares of economically disadvantaged students and those experiencing homelessness.
Despite the financial burden to the state and municipalities, many superintendents and educators as well as some mayors advocated for the investment in students who need more robust support to stay and succeed in school.
And while Maine students generally performed poorly on the most recent national assessments, scores for economically disadvantaged students on both state and local assessments were even lower, amplifying the need for additional classroom support, according to several administrators and stakeholders who spoke at a public hearing before the Legislature’s Joint Committee of Education and Cultural Affairs Wednesday.
The current Essential Programs and Services (EPS) state formula for determining state and local contributions to public education relies on several factors, but a major one is each district’s enrollment, called per pupil count. For every economically disadvantaged and multilingual student, more money is allocated to each district. The EPS formula essentially counts every student who is economically disadvantaged as 1.15 students — meaning there is an additional 15% weight per pupil.
A bill introduced by Rep. Kristen Cloutier (D-Lewiston) would change the weight from 15% to 25%, increasing the amount of money districts with economically disadvantaged students would get per student.
The proposal cost more than $70 million, according to written testimony from the Maine Department of Education, which would be split between the state and municipalities.
That’s a worthwhile investment, according to proponents of the bill, which included the Maine School Management Association, the Maine Educators Association and several superintendents from throughout the state. During the last school year, more than 64,000 Maine students — or 38% of all students — were considered economically disadvantaged, according to MSMA.
“This is not just about money. And I know the $70 million is a lot… but this is about making a decision based on what’s right and wrong,” said Biddeford Superintendent Jeremy Ray.
Machias Bay Area Superintendent Scott Porter echoed Ray, saying that additional funding would be “a game changer for Washington County.”
“We need more resources to address the needs of thousands of students — this would impact thousands of students in a positive manner,” he said.
School districts are allowed to determine how to use EPS funds. This can include paying for academic interventionists to help students catch up; social workers that can address their needs beyond school, including access to food and shelter; or transportation to ensure these students can access career and technical centers if they want to learn trades, according to Sanford Superintendent Matt Nelson.
During the COVID pandemic, the funding formula was temporarily changed to 20% more per economically disadvantaged student.
“We were able to see the necessary impact that that change made for our students and for our educators,” Nelson said of this change, asking the committee to make the increase permanent.
Funding for unhoused students
The EPS funding formula does not currently provide any special allocation for students experiencing homelessness.
A separate bill introduced by Rep. Michael Archer (D-Saco) would expand the funding to provide districts with an additional weight of 50% per each unhoused student.
The students would be identified by their district as a homeless child or youth under the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
“This is becoming such a huge part of our population, that I think it’s appropriate, now to consider this piece moving forward,” Ray, the Biddeford superintendent said. “While we all look at the dollars and cents that go into this, I think both parties can agree that a child who is homeless needs some extra
funds or wraparound services around them, they are not in that position by any fault of their own.”
Transporting students who don’t have a permanent address to and from schools in York County is a big challenge, Ray said. That includes gas mileage, finding someone to drive a van to pick up and drop off students, and the transportation time. When his district receives requests to transport students who may be temporarily located an hour away but are enrolled in Biddeford schools, for example, the district does not have any additional funding assigned to meet those needs, he said.
Keeping track of students is a challenge, DOE says
The Maine DOE didn’t testify for or against the two bills, but provided some context about the challenges of tracking economically disadvantaged and homeless students. If the changes the bills propose were made to the funding formula, an accurate count of both categories would be required, which is hard to do in Maine for several reasons.
Since the state started offering universal free meals, it has been increasingly difficult to track economically disadvantaged students, since the number of students eligible for free breakfast and lunch was the primary way districts would track their poverty counts.
While the department has begun relying on other ways to estimate economically disadvantaged populations — such as looking at Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Medicaid data as a proxy for student-level poverty — eligibility in these programs is limited and Maine’s poverty calculations remain difficult to validate, according to the DOE testimony.
Identifying students experiencing homelessness presents a similar challenge. Students lacking a regular nighttime residence have to be identified by schools and reported to the DOE, but this identification can occur at any time during the year. Once a student is identified as experiencing homelessness under the McKinney-Vento Act, they carry homeless status through the end of June, after which a liaison will connect with families to determine if they still lack stable housing. But the EPS model is designed to fund districts based on data collected on October 15 each year.
This would make it difficult to correctly account for and allocate necessary funds. “Pupil counts conducted on October 1 would not capture an accurate picture of students experiencing homelessness over the course of the school year,” the DOE said.
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