By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD – Two education related bills advanced with non-germane amendments in the House Education Funding Committee, Tuesday with unanimous support for Senate Bill 491 related to minimum education standards language and another, Senate Bill 531 which was opposed in part by Democrats that looks at developing data to understand the level of school meals debt in addition to having the state legislature support the development of a community college curriculum in Coos County for cosmetology.

The second bill would not allow for collection of identifiable information on who is not paying for lunch and breakfast but would look to see if those meals went to those who are qualified for federal free and reduced meals, proponents said.

State Rep. Dave Luneau, D-Hopkinton said he did not like the aspect of the later bill related to cosmetology saying it sets a bad precedent. He said the community college system does not need to get the legislature to choose curriculum and “I don’t believe we need it.”

But both bills advanced to the full House.

CURRICULUM FRAMEWORKS

Every 10 years the state board of education and the department of education institute procedures for maintaining, updating, improving, and refining the minimum standards for public school approval.
The law says each school district shall be responsible for maintaining, updating, improving, and refining curriculum.

“The curriculum shall present educational goals, broad pedagogical approaches, and strategies for assisting students in the development of the skills, competencies, and knowledge called for by the minimum standards for public school approval and academic standards for each area of education,” from math, to science, reading and literacy among a few, according to the bill.

“The curriculum frameworks shall serve as a guide and reference to what New Hampshire students
should know and be able to do in each area of education….frameworks do not establish a statewide curriculum. It is the responsibility of local teachers, administrators, and school boards to identify and implement approaches best suited for the students in their communities to acquire the skills and knowledge included in the curriculum, to determine the scope, organization, and sequence of course offerings, and to choose the methods of instruction, the activities, and the materials to be used,” the bill reads.

It goes on to indicate the state board of education shall adopt rules for approving alternative credit leading to graduation.

According to the methodology “this bill enables students to utilize education freedom account funds to pay for certain career and technical education funding and removes references to ‘curriculum frameworks’ as they relate to the substantive educational content of an adequate education.”

Dr. Nate Greene, a division director for the NH Department of Education called it a clean up bill rather than a policy change.

Over the past 20 years or so, he said there have been academic standards documents that have been referred to as curriculum frameworks but in reality they are academic standards.

“So this is a case where you have one thing but depending on who is talking about it, it is being called by two different names and this cleans up that confusion. So curriculum frameworks are academic standards and in most cases, academic standards are curriculum frameworks. In either case the academic standards themselves are adopted as regulations in the back half of the minimum standards. So the academic standards we are talking about here are already a component of the ED 306 minimum standards. So they are part and parcel of the same documents, essentially.”

Responding to concerns by Luneau, Greene said relative to the oversight committee “these academic standards still fall squarely under the authority of that oversight committee within the 306 minimum standards.”

SCHOOL MEAL DEBT

School meal debt is becoming an issue for districts, with one district reporting more than $100,000 of debt.

But just how many of those meals went to poor children is about to be studied under a measure that was advanced yesterday by the House Education Funding Committee.

While SB 531 establishes a task force to study the feasibility of the creation of cosmetology related
programming in Coos County, it also now includes and amendment which requires a report of student meal debt by school districts and public chartered schools to the department of education.

Greene said he thought some districts might have a problem with developing that data and noted that not all schools provide free and reduced meals.

The analysis of the bill is that it does two things: Establishes a task force to report on the feasibility of creating a cosmetology program within the Berlin Regional Career and Technical Center and New Hampshire community college system and two: requires school districts and public chartered schools to maintain accurate annual records of student meal debt and to submit such records to the department of education.