Kentucky School Advocate
May 2023
By Brenna R. Kelly
KSBA staff writer
Thanks to a provision added to a bill on the final day of the legislative session, Kentucky school districts that have experienced growth will receive more funding in this school year.
The 28 districts that have seen an increase in their average daily attendance (ADA) will benefit from the measure, while districts that have seen a decline will not see a decrease.
Since the pandemic, most districts have been receiving Support Education Excellence in Kentucky (SEEK) funding based on the district’s ADA for the 2018-19 school year. That means without the last-minute provision in House Bill 553, the districts that have seen growth would not have received funding for those new students.
The bill directed the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) to make an additional SEEK calculation for this school year to capture the most recent attendance data.
The increases in ADA vary greatly, from 426 students in Warren County to .01 students in Southgate Independent, according to KDE. That will translate to an additional $2.7 million for Warren County and $43 dollars for Southgate.
Robertson County’s ADA grew 8.25% which will mean an additional $187,007 for the 413-student district.
HolbrookThe morning after the legislature passed the bill, Robertson County Superintendent Sanford Holbrook stood in the school’s cafeteria and shared the good news.“We’ve got some extra money because our enrollment increased,” he told the students. “Guess what one thing we are going to get for sure with that money … a new playground next year!”
In a video of the announcement, students cheered as Holbrook thanked his local lawmakers, Sen. Steve West, R-Cynthiana, and Rep. William Lawrence, R-Maysville.
Holbrook and other superintendents from the growth districts, along with KSBA’s Director of Advocacy Eric Kennedy and Kentucky Association of School Superintendents Executive Director Jim Flynn, met frequently with lawmakers during the session to ask for the increased funding.
“I’m not asking you to give me a handout, I’m asking you to let me have the money my district deserved for ADM (average daily membership) and the ADA that we have,” Holbrook said he told lawmakers.
In recent years, the district has added students as families moved into the county and open enrollment allowed some students outside the county to attend the school.
The district had been planning to eliminate two classified positions if the funding did not come through, Holbrook said. Now, in addition to the new playground, the positions will remain and the district will be able to buy some new Chromebooks.
“This was a team effort of the superintendents of the growth districts, Eric Kennedy’s support and help, and Jim Flynn advocating for us in Frankfort,” he said. “We needed this because we’ve got the kids and we didn’t want to deprive kids because of finances.”
Some of the largest growth has been in Warren County where Warren County Schools grew 2.78% and Bowling Green Independent added 1.95%.
Rep. JacksonRep. Kevin Jackson, R-Bowling Green, who served five years on the Warren County school board before being elected to the House in 2022, told WBKO-TV that some lawmakers wanted to wait until next year’s budget session to address the growth issue.“But in talking to our superintendents, they really felt like they needed that money now – they didn’t want to start dipping into the reserve funds,” he said. “If this money helps kids, if it helps teachers, if it helps the school system, it’s well worth the fight. And with my background, being in education, I was gonna go to the mat and do everything I could to help get that done.”
Warren County Schools Superintendent Rob Clayton said they plan to use a majority of the money toward combating the workforce shortage, including better compensation for staff and faculty.
In addition to Jackson, Bowling Green Independent Superintendent Gary Fields thanked Reps. Michael Meredith, R-Oakland, Robert Duvall, R-Bowling Green, James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, Jason Petrie, R-Elkton and Sen. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, for “working through the final hours to provide funding of approximately $500,000 for Bowling Green Independent Schools.”
FieldsFields said his district has already had to use reserve funding to cover increased expenses due to the growth.
While passing HB 553 in a Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee meeting, Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Ryland Heights, advised school districts to be prepared to return to a typical cycle of SEEK funding for next year based on actual ADA. While that could mean good news for the 28 growth districts, the remaining 143 have seen their average daily attendance decline from the pre-pandemic numbers. Many have seen double-digit percent declines, according to KDE.
“I do want to be very, very clear that the SEEK formula is due to reset for the next school year,” he said. “It is the intention of the General Assembly that SEEK formula will reset in the next school year, so everybody needs to be making their plans as appropriate for that.”