Posted: Saturday, July 5, 2008 12:00 am
The Corvallis School District started using a weighting process in 2002 to funnel money to students enrolled in school's special education and English language programs. Some administrators said they had more students with special needs, and that meant having to spend more money.
Other principals agreed to allocate some of their budgeted monies to provide for such students. Thus, a weighting formula was created.
This formula was to be reviewed in 2005, but it wasn't. In 2007, a group of five principals and two administrators met to evaluate whether it was working. They discovered the "weighting" idea had become unbalanced.
Some schools with large populations of special-needs students were receiving allocations that were being "double-" or "triple-weighted" for several different factors, such as having both a disability and being an English Language Learner. This created an overlap because, under the old formula, schools were getting "paid" two to three times for the same child.
The result? In 2007-08, the weighted per-student funding at Garfield was $732. Jefferson received only $168 - a $564 difference per student that had built up over time.
These disproportionate amounts of money funneled to the schools with more special-needs students enabled those schools to add extra counselors and programs. Others, whose weighted allocations were significantly less, could not afford to hire extra counselors or fund an art or drama program. School administrators realized that too much funding had shifted to some schools at the expense of others. The conclusion was that the formula needed an adjustment.
Under the new formula, every school receives fewer weighted dollars per student. The biggest difference between schools, however, has been cut to $309. Lincoln School, where 72.4 percent of students qualify for the Free and Reduced Lunch program, will receive an average of $383 more per student. Hoover Elementary School, where 13.8 percent of students qualify for the federal meal program, will get an extra $74 per student.
- Carol Reeves, Gazette-Times reporter