House Subcommittee advances bill to expand full-service community schools

House committee room (Photo by Sky Arnold)

The House K-12 Subcommittee advanced a bill Wednesday morning to expand full-service community schools across the state.

The bill, sponsored by Representative Kirk Haston, R-Lobelville, establishes a community schools grant program to benefit public schools, administered by the University of Tennessee. Local districts would be able to opt in and apply for grants to create so-called full-service community schools within existing public schools. Those schools would offer a pipeline of coordinated academic, health, and social support services to students and their families both during and outside of regular school hours.

“Research shows that properly implemented, full-service community schools can lead to reduced absenteeism, increased math and ELA (English language arts) scores, and reduce school discipline rates,” said Representative Haston. “Community schools produce a higher return on investment with every one dollar invested yielding more than seven dollars in net benefits.”

Under the bill, local education agencies (LEAs) would conduct a comprehensive needs and assets study of the district and the community, and based on that study, develop an action plan to establish a full-service community school. The district would then enter into a memorandum of understanding with community partners and providers to offer services. Potential services could include early education programs, expanded learning opportunities, and classroom support from elementary school through a student’s transition into the post-secondary environment and workforce, as well as social, health, nutrition, and mental health services and supports.

Caitlyn Stewart is District Coordinator of Community Schools in Hamilton County and serves as co-chair of the Tennessee Community Schools Network. She told lawmakers that a school-based health clinic is a primary example.

“Students who maybe don’t have a primary healthcare provider or access to the necessary physical needs, maybe they have vision needs, they are struggling to get a prescription or eyeglasses,” said Stewart. “The community school coordinator can help facilitate those supports within the building. It’s a one stop shop within the school building.”

Currently, there are 158 community schools operating across Tennessee. Each is overseen by the State Office of Research and Education Accountability (OREA). Under the new bill, OREA oversight would be removed, with the University of Tennessee overseeing the grant. This raised questions from several members.

Representative Sam McKenzie (Photo by the Tennessee General Assembly)

“Is that really the best way to administer and monitor the grant, one that could potentially have a significant impact?” asked Representative Sam McKenzie, D-Knoxville.

“We believe that because of the robust system of the University of Tennessee partners throughout the state that it would be able to bring in a lot of supportive infrastructure to districts that might not have the capacity,” said Stewart. “Whether funding or through personnel to support at the systems level to make sure we have what we need in order for the community school strategy to work.”

Representative Geno Bulso, R-Brentwood, asked if previous OREA reports had noted any deficiencies. Stewart referred to a 2018 report that noted inconsistencies in the framework of community schools and recommended standard metrics to measure the success of the community schools model. She said changes were made.

“We have taken those recommendations and addressed them as a state coalition, utilizing common metrics so we can do common reporting to show what it looks like not only at our individual community levels, but also in terms of collective impact across the state,” said Stewart. She also said the state network would be open to periodic OREA monitoring.

Representative Bulso had other concerns, saying several constituents have spoken to him about the bill and are opposed, because they see it as the school system overstepping its boundaries. He said some also worried about the grant being operated by the University of Tennessee.

“Obviously, no offense to the University of Tennessee, a very fine institution. But higher education, as we all know, is very left leaning in this country,” said Representative Bulso.

Representative Gino Bulso (Photo by the Tennessee General Assembly)

This sparked an objection from Representative McKenzie, which in turn prompted Chairman Mark White R-Memphis to tell Bulso to speak on the bill, not the University.

“I have constituents who are concerned about some of the liberal tendencies of our universities infecting our K-12 educational program,” Bulso said. “Does this give higher education the ability to start influencing developmental, family, health, and other comprehensive matters that pertain to K-12 education?”

“There is absolutely no proof to that. My university, the University of Tennessee, is not considered a left-leaning, liberal school. People bring things to us as representatives all the time that are extremely polarizing. We don’t bring those into this committee meeting,” responded Representative McKenzie. “We don’t bring those polarizing things into our committee as we deliberate to best educate our children, we bring facts into this room, and that was not a fact.  We need to deal with the facts before us and not conjecture.”

Drew Sutton, Government Relations Coordinator for the Tennessee Education Commission, addressed Bulso’s concerns.

 “To be clear, the University itself serves a very narrow role in this bill as the grant administrator and evaluator,” he said, going on emphasize that UT would not be involved in services or agreements with community partners in any way.

Stewart also stressed that the model puts local parents and community members in the driver’s seat.

“Within the community school strategy, a lot of our school communities have site-based hearing committees and formal pathways by which parents and caregivers are able to provide input as well as participate and be key decision-making participants and partners in these processes,” said Stewart. She also pointed out that parents would have to give permission for any services provided.

Committee members also discussed the cost of the bill. It calls for $234,000 to fund UT positions overseeing the grant each year.

Sutton explained the positions would be reclassifications, meaning they would not be new hires to the University staff. The bill also requires local districts to have a full-time employee dedicated to coordinating and implementing grant requirements. Representative Haston reiterated that this is not mandated, it would simply allow local districts to opt into the grant program.

The bill passed in a six to two vote, with Representatives Bulso and Slater voting against it. It now moves to the full House Education Committee.