RD339 - Options for Increasing Student-to-Teacher Ratios or other Cost Savings in Local or Regional Detention Center Education Programs - October 31, 2014


Executive Summary:
The General Assembly included language in the 2014 Appropriation Act directing the Department of Education to present, by October 15, 2014, options to the Board of Education for increasing student-to-teacher ratios or other savings in the state operated education programs in local and regional juvenile detention centers. The Department was also directed to present the report to the Chairmen of the Senate Finance and House Appropriations Committees by October 31, 2014. The General Assembly specifically directed the Department in Item 136 C.19.d. of the 2014 Appropriation Act to:

" By October 15, 2014, the Department of Education shall present to the Virginia Board of Education, options for increasing student to teacher ratios or other savings, including requesting the State Board of Education or federal government to consider waiving certain teacher staffing requirements given the uniqueness of the setting, prorating funding if localities choose to operate based on unnecessary gender separation, whether there may be options for achieving efficiencies in the 23 centers based on regional groupings based on proximity, working with the Department of Juvenile Justice and Department of Correctional Education if appropriate, and a review of how other states handle education in juvenile detention centers. The Department shall also submit the report to the Chairmen of the Senate Finance and House Appropriations Committees by October 31, 2014."

Section 22.1-209.2 of the Code of Virginia requires the Board of Education to ensure that an education program in local and regional detention centers is implemented from state funds as provided in the appropriation act and that such programs are supervised. The Department of Education contracts with school divisions where the detention centers are located to provide the education services. The school divisions hire the teachers assigned to these education programs and compensate them (reimbursed by the state) according to the division’s teacher salary schedule and fringe benefits, including Virginia Retirement System contributions. The Department of Education assigns staff to provide state-level supervision and compliance monitoring of the programs. The student enrollment in the state operated education programs located in the 23 local and regional detention centers was approximately 600 students statewide on September 10, 2014.

The detention center education programs are typically staffed with one administrator, one part-time or full-time administrative assistant, and licensed and endorsed teachers to deliver required content area instruction, special education and English Language Learner (ELL) services (where there is a heavy concentration of ELL students), and instruction in elective areas or graduation requirements such as economics and personal finance and career and technical education that allow students to earn necessary credits required for graduation, general educational development (GED) instruction or other longer-term, post-dispositional services to prepare students to return to the home school and community. The vast majority of detention teachers have a post graduate professional license with an endorsement in a high school subject area in which courses are verified by a Standards of Learning end-of-course test and required for graduation. In addition, the employed teachers either have a high interest and/or experience working with at-risk students in order to address the unique characteristics and needs of this population.

Students in juvenile detention education programs are very often African-American males, 16 years of age, more than two grade levels behind in both reading and mathematics, and are not earning credits at the expected rate to obtain on-time graduation.