Ohio schools - including the Athens City School district - will receive less money for poor students next year from the federal government because of a restructuring of federal education law.
The money -- distributed to states by Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act - funds programs to aid disadvantaged students, said C. Todd Jones, associate deputy secretary for budget for the U.S. Department of Education.
The act was passed in 2002 and requires that the department use the most current census data available to determine where disadvantaged students live, and thus how to distribute the money.
According to the Department of Education's Web site, Title I monies fund programs enrolling 12.5 million students. To be eligible for school-wide Title I funds, a school must have 40 percent or more of its students living below federal poverty lines.
Three schools in the Athens school system are eligible for Title I funding: Chauncey, the Plains and West elementary schools, said Sharon Parsons, the district's Title I coordinator.
Chauncey Elementary has 247 students, the Plains Elementary has 433 and West Elementary has 273, said Matt Bunting, the district's treasurer.
Parsons said most of the funds go toward hiring more staff to lower the student-teacher ratio at those three schools. The average student-teacher ratio for Chauncey Elementary is 14:1; for the Plains, 17:1; and for West, 16:1. For the rest of the district, the ratio is 18:1.
Parsons said the district would have to wait for the final budget to determine what would be cut, but as the numbers stand, the cut could cost the district at least one person.
It will take a lot of effort (to absorb the funding cut)
she said.
In 2002, the last year for which statistics are available, the poverty line for a family of four was $18,392, according to the Census Bureau's Web site. In 2000, that figure was $17,604.
In 2000, Ohio had 239,711 children living in poverty, compared to 7,957,012 children nationally, Jones said.
According to the department's budget proposal, estimates for the 2004-2005 school year show Ohio losing $3,385,975 - less than a 1 percent change.
Athens City Schools stand to receive $61,000 less than last year - a 1 percent change exactly.
U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lisbon, said that while he understood that the change was based on economic factors, it was still unwelcome.
This means fewer children benefit and these are the poorest children we have he said. This is not the best time to be making those reductions
certainly.
J.C. Benton, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Education, echoed Strickland's comments.
We're disappointed that federal dollars won't be there
Benton said. But the government has their formula for how that was determined.
In a February letter to Secretary of Education Roderick Paige, U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said he recognized the department's goal to help disadvantaged children, but the decision to use new census data would further limit states' resources to meet their responsibilities.
Marcie Ridgway, Voinovich's spokeswoman, said the senator was very concerned about the effects of the Title I funding change.
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