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October 14, 2003 TO THE ADMINISTRATOR ADDRESSED: Re: Career and Technology Education Funding Changes / Dual Credit Policy Changes The purpose of this letter is to communicate two policy changes that affect the funding of certain career and technology education courses and the treatment of certain dual credit career and technology courses for attendance accounting purposes. Rider 74 to the appropriations made to the Texas Education Agency by the General Appropriation Act (House Bill 1) directs the commissioner of education to identify career and technology courses “least in need of the additional funding provided by the allotment,” and further directs that no funds appropriated for career and technology shall be used to provide weighted funding for those courses. After considerable discussion of the requirement and its implications, it has been determined that the following courses will no longer be funded with the career and technology weight: • Career Investigation (12721100) While these courses will no longer be funded with the career and technology weight they are still considered valid career and technology courses and must be reported through PEIMS as applicable. For PEIMS reporting purposes these courses may be reflected on the 090, 170 and 415 records. Student attendance for these courses will not be reported on the 410 record. Please note that this change does not impact current PEIMS reporting requirements as stated in the 2003-2004 PEIMS Data Standards. Since these specific courses are not eligible for funding as career and technology, they would not be reported as contact time through the 410 record. In addition to the requirement to remove weighted funding for certain courses, House Bill 415 removes a restriction on dual credit courses with a one-year phase-in period for some courses. The bill removed the funding limitation on dual credit courses generally, but retains the previous treatment for the 2003-04 school year for most courses. The bill directs that dual credit courses that are not awarded academic credit under rules of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board be funded under the Foundation School Program. Certain career and technology courses taught for dual credit may be eligible for funding in the Foundation School Program for 2003-04 in specific situations. A career and technology course for which credit is also awarded by a partner higher education institution may be counted toward the two hour or four hour requirements for funding attendance in the Foundation School Program only if the credit is for a course in the Workforce Education Course Manual (WECM) published by the Coordinating Board. For those courses that receive higher education credit for courses outside the WECM list, and therefore considered “academic”, school districts will continue to exclude the contact time from the determination of ADA eligibility. This policy will be effective for the entire 2003 04 school year. As mentioned above, HB 415 retains for the 2003-04 school year prior treatment of dual credit courses that receive academic credit from a higher education institution. To reiterate that policy, any course taught for dual credit that results in academic credit from a higher education institution may not be counted toward the two or four hour attendance accounting rule for purposes of determining the student’s status for full-day or half-day attendance eligibility. The only exception is the one cited in the previous paragraph. Beginning with the 2004-05 school year, there are no restrictions on the dual funding of any course, and any instructional time for high school credit can be counted toward the two or four hour standard. Questions concerning the policies in this letter may be directed to the Department of School Finance and Fiscal Analysis at (512) 463-8994. Sincerely, Joe Wisnoski, Deputy Associate Commissioner for  |
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