Kentucky — United States Department of Education to the Honorable Jason E. Glass (March 16, 2023)

Summary

A letter dated March 16, 2023, from the Department of Education to Commissioner Glass of the Kentucky Department of Education, responding to its written plan for a reasonable level of tolerance under State maintenance of equity requirements. The letter describes the SEEK Guaranteed Base funding formula and says Kentucky has 22 very small LEAs out of 171 LEAs statewide, defined as enrollments of 700 or fewer students. It states that the proposed 10 percent tolerance would impact six very small LEAs and that the Department determined the approach reasonable. It also states Kentucky will need to make an additional payment to one highest-poverty LEA.

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Full text

                       UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION


                                              March 16, 2023

The Honorable Jason E. Glass, Ed.D.
Commissioner of Education
Kentucky Department of Education
300 Sower Boulevard
Frankfort, KY 40601

Dear Commissioner Glass:

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) received your written plan for a reasonable
level of tolerance when calculating whether the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) has
met State maintenance of equity requirements under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021
(ARP Act). This written plan applies only to a subset of Kentucky’s local educational agencies
(LEAs).

The ARP Act State maintenance of equity requirements help ensure that State funding supports
LEAs with high concentrations of poverty and the students who have been subject to
longstanding opportunity gaps in our education system and experienced the greatest impact from
the COVID-19 pandemic. These requirements are vital for ensuring that States maintain funding
to address the impact of the pandemic on students’ education, and for protecting students in high-
need and highest-poverty LEAs from disproportionate cuts if reductions in State effort do occur.

The Department determined that it is consistent with the State maintenance of equity
requirements to allow a State educational agency (SEA) to calculate whether it has maintained
funding equity with respect to its very small high-need and highest-poverty LEAs within a
reasonable “tolerance level.” The Department’s determination is based on the possibility of
significant volatility in the calculated per-pupil funding amounts for very small LEAs caused by
small changes in student enrollment, which may be unrelated to whether an SEA has achieved
the intent of the requirements. (See Frequently Asked Questions, American Rescue Plan
Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Program, Maintenance of Equity
Requirements, July 26, 2022, Question 21(a).)

According to materials provided by KDE, the Kentucky General Assembly establishes a per-
pupil funding amount, known as the SEEK (Support Education Excellence in Kentucky)
Guaranteed Base. State statute provides “add-ons” to the SEEK Guaranteed Base to reflect the
additional costs associated with educating certain students including at-risk, exceptional children,
home and hospital education, and limited English proficient students. The Guaranteed Base plus
SEEK add-ons results in an Adjusted SEEK Base allocation for each LEA.

In the context of these funding weights, KDE asserts that calculated per-pupil funding amounts
for very small LEAs are significantly affected by small changes in student population. This
makes the per-pupil funding amounts in Kentucky’s very small LEAs an imperfect indicator of
whether the SEA has achieved the intent of maintaining equity in funding across LEAs.
KDE considers LEAs with enrollments of 700 or fewer students to be very small. Under this
proposed threshold, Kentucky has 22 very small LEAs out of 171 LEAs statewide. For these 22
very small LEAs, KDE proposes to implement a 10 percent tolerance, impacting six very small
LEAs that collectively serve .8 percent of Kentucky’s students.

After reviewing KDE’s tolerance proposal and accompanying data, the unique circumstances in
the State, and our further State-specific analysis, we have determined that this approach includes
a reasonable level of tolerance when calculating whether Kentucky has maintained equity for
very small LEAs.

Finally, KDE’s proposal indicates that Kentucky will need to make additional payments to one
highest-poverty LEA that experienced a disproportionate reduction in per-pupil funding in
FY 2022 and is not captured by this very small LEA tolerance proposal. Please advise the
Department when this additional payment has been made.

We appreciate your diligence in developing this proposal. If you have any questions, please
contact your program officer at: Kentucky.OESE@ed.gov.

                                                   Sincerely,
aura Jimenez
                                                   Laura Jimenez

                                                   Laura Jimenez
                                                   Laura Jimenez
                                                   Director, Office of State and Grantee Relations
                                                   Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
                                                   United States Department of Education


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