RD123 - Annual Report on the Status of Regional Alternative Education Placements for 2006-2007


Executive Summary:
The Regional Alternative Education Programs were established by the General Assembly in 1993-1994 with the intent of involving two or more school divisions working in collaboration to establish options for students who have a pending violation of school board policy, have been expelled or suspended on a long-term basis, or are returning from juvenile correctional centers. The General Assembly provides state funding based on allocated slots to the programs. A Virginia Department of Education formula based on staffing patterns and the composite index of local ability to pay determines funding amounts for each of the 29 operating programs.

Item 135.C.11.f of Chapter 3, 2006 Acts of Assembly, Special Session I, included several new provisions for reallocating unused student slots in regional alternative education programs and stated that the “The Department of Education shall report by June 30 each year, to the Chairmen of the House Appropriations and Senate Finance Committees, the number of available student slots, students placed, the request of unused slots, and the number of unused slots subsequently used by each school division for each Regional Alternative Education program.”

Statewide, there were 1,822 slots allotted by formula among 29 regional alternative education programs for 2006-2007. Twenty-seven (27) of the 29 programs indicated that they would have placements for all slots assigned to each division in each regional program. Two regional programs reported that there would be unused slots in one of their participating divisions. In each of these two regional programs, one of the other participating school divisions requested the additional slots.

Based on the process for distribution of slots established by the Department of Education, the unused slots were distributed to the requesting school division being served in the Regional Alternative Education Program. As stipulated in the new biennial budget provisions, the requesting school division received only the state’s share of tuition for the unused slot that was allocated for the originally designated school division. Follow-up correspondence to the school divisions receiving the unused slots indicated that the reassigned slots were used by their school divisions.