Volusia Schools to end Title I program Plus One funding for district schools

Volusia County Schools will end its Plus One program for five of its Title I schools, according to officials.

During Tuesday’s school board meeting, district administration officials took questions from school board members and the public voiced concerns.

The federally funded program allows for the district's top five highest poverty-ranked schools to provide an extra hour of instruction for students and, consequently, additional pay for teachers.

As of last year, those schools were Edith I. Starke Elementary, Westside Elementary, Palm Terrace Elementary, Holly Hill School and Turie T. Small Elementary.

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The program "does not add additional curriculum but rather gives teachers and students more time to cover the elementary curriculum,” according to the district’s website. “Extra time allows teachers to cover the curriculum in more depth and provides students with greater opportunities to master skills and concepts.”

Plus One started in 2003 in Volusia as a pilot program at Woodward Avenue Elementary School, implemented only for single-gender classes at the time. Since then, the district has offered several different iterations of the program.

In 2011, the state of Florida mandated and provided funding for the extra hour of instruction for the 300 schools ranked lowest in reading levels.

Two years ago, state legislators struck the language mandating the extra hour and withdrew the funding; Volusia Schools, however, continued the Plus One assistance through federal funding to five schools using the poverty ranking.

Why is the district ending Plus One?

Julio Nazario-Valle, chief academic officer, said several considerations, including school grades, factored into the district's decision to end the program. The schools' poverty rankings change every year, and as the program helps improve students' performance, the schools' rankings change. A school that received Plus One money one year would not receive it again if it was no longer among the top five.

"The whole point is not to have Plus One in schools year after year after year," said Volusia Schools Superintendent Carmen Balgobin. "Our students' time is valuable as well. And if we are going to have (Plus One), it should be for a purpose, which is to (address) the remediation needs or acceleration needs of students and move on."

Volusia Schools Deputy Superintendent Rachel Hazel added that all of the district's Title I schools would still be able to allocate the portion of their Title I funding used for Plus One. That money will be redistributed from the Title I federal funding to all Title I schools based on the county's per-student allocation and used to support other student programs as each school wishes.

According to a statement from the district, other factors also contributed to the decision, including:

• Elimination of the funding source two years ago, causing Title I budgets that can be tailored to meet the needs of Title I schools to be cut.

• An addition of 30 minutes to all elementary school days, causing the extra hour of instruction for students to be reduced to an extra 30 minutes.

“This restructuring will allow for more choice for students and teachers, as well as give the opportunity for schools to design programs that meet the needs of each individual student,” the statement added. “The money is going back to the schools in their Title I budget for discretionary projects that will provide direct support to the schools.”

Funding will still be available to schools

Hazel told board members Tuesday that the decision, which was up to the district’s administration and not the School Board, was not a cost-saving measure.

“The money is Title I money,” Hazel said. “That money goes back to the Title I budget, which must be used to support students.”

Title I "provides financial assistance through states to local school districts and schools with high numbers or percentages of children from low-income families," according to the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability.

These funds may be used for professional development; strategies to improve students' skills outside of the academic subject areas; early intervention services; extended-time programs; parent involvement; and other strategies. These funds can also be used school-wide in high-poverty schools or to assist specific students in Title I schools.

Volusia Schools offers other types of Title I programs, such as family programs and tutoring, as well as subject-specific instructional programs that focus on literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, executive function, cognition and even computer technology.

Florida received more than $863 million in Title I funding for the 2021-22 school year, according to OPPAGA.

In addressing the district's reasons further, Nazario-Valle said Title I schools can benefit from other sources of funding to support additional learning and after-school-hours initiatives, including state and federal grants, such as the UniSIG grant, for instance, awarded earlier this year.

UniSIG is given by the federal government to Title I schools that earn a grade of “D” or “F" in the school year. Its purpose is to set aside funding to help recruit and retain teachers in schools that are in Tier One of School Improvement support (any school that earns a single grade of “D” or has a graduation rate of 67% or less) and ensure they have the resources and staff to improve student outcomes, which could be an alternative for some of the Title I schools in the district.

In 2021, Champion Elementary, Palm Terrace Elementary, South Daytona Elementary and Westside Elementary received the UniSIG grant.

“They can use that money to be able to attract ‘effective’ and ‘highly effective’ teachers with either $7,500 bonus for ‘effective’… or $15,000 for ‘highly effective,’” Nazario-Valle said, using Turie T. Small Elementary as an example.

He further argued that schools can use these types of grant funds on planning time, tutoring, professional learning and other areas.

“These funds actually go back to the schools,” he said. “So the increase (in) per-student allocation is going to give that money back to the school, which gives the school a little bit more autonomy to decide how to best service the school instructionally, the students instructionally.”

Plus One teachers, union president express concerns

During public participation in the School Board’s meeting Tuesday, several audience members, including current and former district teachers, expressed their concern over the decision.

Elizabeth Albert, president of the Volusia United Educators union, asked the district to reconsider its decision.

“The Plus One program currently provides two and a half hours of additional academic learning time per week, which equals 95 additional academic learning hours a year,” Albert said. “The reduction of academic classroom learning time by this amount is more than concerning to me and the teachers and staff members I serve.”

Albert expressed doubt as to how cutting back on student learning time would improve or maintain current learning levels.

“The proposed plan to replace classroom learning time with tutoring will not include all learners at these sites,” she said. “While interventions currently provided during the additional learning time are part of the daily schedule for every child, tutoring is optional, and there is no guarantee that those who need it will receive it.”

Sheila Buchart read a letter from a Plus One school teacher asking that the decision should not be made “hastily” and calling for the district to give parents, students, teachers and school staff at Plus One schools more time to adjust to the changes.

Albert echoed the same point.

“If our focus is on remediating learning loss and filing the gaps that have been created by almost three years of interrupted learning due to COVID, then please allow additional time for (Plus One) to remain in place,” she said. “We cannot say every minute counts if we are willing to take so much of it away.”

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Volusia Schools to end Plus One, redistribute money to Title 1 schools