You asked which school districts are eligible for the new school readiness spaces, family resource centers, and school-based health clinics required by the 2012 Education Reform Act (PA 12-116).

The 2012 act requires the education commissioner to provide funding in FY 13 for 1,000 new school readiness spaces and at least 10 new family resource centers (FRCs). It also requires the public health commissioner to fund at lease 20 new or expanded school-based health clinics (SBHCs) for FY 13.  The act specifies that these services must be located in educational reform, priority and former priority, certain competitive, and alliance districts. 

The governor announced the distribution of the school readiness spaces on July 10, 2012.

SCHOOL READINESS SPACES 

The Education Reform Act (PA 12-116, § 1) requires the education commissioner to provide funding for 1,000 new spaces in school readiness programs in FY 13.  The spaces must be allocated as follows:

1. 500 in the “educational reform districts,”

2. 250 in priority or former priority districts that are not educational reform districts, and

3. 250 in school readiness program “competitive districts.”

Educational Reform Districts 

The educational reform districts are the 10 school districts with the lowest performance on statewide mastery tests, according to a district performance index) the act establishes.  Table 1 lists these districts and the new spaces allocated to each.

TABLE 1: EDUCATIONAL REFORM DISTRICTS

Priority and Former Priority Districts 

Priority districts are designated using a statutory formula that includes population, concentration of school-aged children receiving Temporary Family Assistance, and academic performance on by state mastery test scores (CGS § 10-266p). PA 12-116 allocates 250 new spaces to priority and former priority school districts that are not educational reform districts. Table 2 shows the nine districts that fall into this category and their new space allocations.

TABLE 2: PRIORITY AND FORMER PRIORITY DISTRICTS

Competitive Districts

The competitive districts are those that do not fall into either of the two foregoing categories but that either (1) are among the 50 poorest districts in the state or (2) have at least one school where 40% or more of the school lunches served are to students eligible for free or reduced price lunches (“priority school”) (CGS § 10-16p(d)). 

Of the districts in this category, 19 received new spaces from the 250 allocated to such districts in the act. These districts and their space allocations are listed in Table 3.

TABLE 3: COMPETITIVE DISTRICTS RECEIVING NEW SPACES

Table 4 lists the competitive districts that did not receive a new space allocation.

TABLE 4: COMPETITIVE DISTRICTS NOT RECEIVING NEW SPACES

FAMILY RESOURCE CENTERS AND SCHOOL-BASED HEALTH CLINICS

The Education Reform act (PA 12-116, § 8) requires the education commissioner to establish at least 10 new FRCs and the public health commissioner to establish at least 20 new or expanded SBHCs in FY 13 in “alliance districts.”  The alliance districts are the 30 school districts with the lowest performance on statewide mastery tests based on DPI. 

The alliance districts are listed in Table 5. As of the date of this report, the locations of the new FRCs and SBHCs have not been announced.

TABLE 5: ALLIANCE DISTRICTS – FY 13

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