In 2023, the Indiana General Assembly passed legislation eliminating textbook and curriculum fees for families.
But questions still remain about “noncurricular” materials and what fees can still be assessed parents. School officials say there are gray areas and hope for clarification from the state.
In a related issue, some districts say the state reimbursement for curriculum materials doesn’t cover their costs.
The Legislature appropriated $160 million per year for the current biennium to pay for those curricular areas, including textbooks, workbooks and computer devices, such as iPads and Chromebooks, provided to students for school use.
How schools are handling those gray areas “is all over the map,” said Scott Bowling, executive director of the Indiana Association of School Business Officials.
The guidance from the Indiana Department of Education has been if schools want to charge any fees, they needed to get an opinion from their legal counsel.
While there is a document from IDOE, it doesn’t go in depth enough into all the different things schools traditionally have charged for, said Bowling, former superintendent of Crawfordsville Community Schools.
“There is a lot of ambiguity out there, and schools are doing different things across the state, based on the opinions they’ve gotten from their attorneys,” he said.
He added, “From my perspective, I’m not sure the legislation is clear. It’s one of the things we talked to legislators about during the last session, was to try to have some clarity on what schools could charge and what they couldn’t,” he said.
Band & field trip fees, for instance
Among the gray areas are band instrument rental and field trips. For band instruments, some districts have a fee and some don’t, he said.
While a musical instrument is necessary for band and could be considered an essential curricular material, “You could probably argue that both ways,” Bowling said. “I know that is a big gray area across the state.”
What is clear in the law is that districts can’t charge families for anything that is curriculum or curriculum-related, Bowling said. That would include textbooks, workbooks, devices such as Chromebooks provided to students and educational software.
Robert Taylor, executive director of the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents, agrees “we need to go back and look at the definition of curriculum material and make it much more black and white in a very gray world we live in.”
That way, schools would better understand those situations in which they can assess fees.
As an example, he cited career technology education courses in skilled trades where protective clothing is required, such as gloves, steel-toed boots or hardhats.
“Are those considered curriculum materials the school pays for or are those extra materials that parents would pay for so the student could take the course?” Taylor said.
The law says with a credit course, the curriculum materials are the school’s responsibility. “But I don’t think anyone saw that far into it … what are the additional materials needed to complete a particular course?” There are basic instructional materials necessary for instruction, but there also are materials nice to have because they expand the curriculum, he said.
IAPSS also hopes for clarification “on what items are considered curricular materials that the state will fund through an appropriation … and what are considered non-curriculum materials that are supplemental,” Taylor said.
Reimbursements not always sufficient
Another major issue is whether the state appropriation to fund textbooks and curricular materials is sufficient.
For some districts, it does cover or primarily cover the costs. For others, it does not.
The appropriation is $160 million per year this biennium, and for 2023-24, that came out to about $158 per student reimbursement statewide.
Schools send their curricular expenses to IDOE, which takes the total and divides it by the number of students statewide. That provides an amount per student that is multiplied by how many students each district has.
“Some schools say they are doing okay” and almost all textbook/curriculum costs are covered, Taylor said.
Others come up short and have to use other district funds to cover the shortfall.
At South Vermillion Community Schools, Superintendent Dave Chapman says the state reimbursement for textbook/curricular material costs is “pretty much covering” expenses.
“It’s better than it was in the past,” particularly with the socio-economics of the school community, he said.
As far as other fees, high school students who take career technical education classes as part of the Wabash River Career and Technical Education co-op may have to provide some of their own equipment for classes, he said.
Otherwise, the district has avoided charging fees, he said.
At Lake Central School Corp. in northwest Indiana, the district’s state reimbursement was about $700,000 short of expenditures for curriculum materials. Its expenditures were about $2.2 million, and it received a little over $1.4 million, according to Rob James, the district’s director of business services.
Other districts have faced shortfalls as well, he said.
The district, which has about 8,900 students, has discussed the matter with its local legislators, he said, and he’s aware IASBO has brought up the matter to others in the Statehouse.
“The feedback we’ve received is that legislators are aware there is a shortfall in that area and they are hoping to do something about that” in the next budget cycle, James said.
In January, when the General Assembly begins crafting that budget, they will have two years of IDOE data from fall 2023 and fall 2024 on what those costs are for districts.
“We hope our legislators will take that data and make the appropriation what it needs to be to cover those costs,” James said.
To cover the shortfall, districts may have to put some projects or expenditures on hold, such as facilities, maintenance or equipment, to make up the difference, he said.
Others may issue debt to do those facility or maintenance projects rather than put them on hold.
As far as noncurricular fees, “It is very minimal at our district,” James said. “We understand the intent of the law.”
For example, the district used to charge parents a small fee for student agendas, but the district now picks up that cost. The district does charge families for what could be described as “extra things,” such as student field trips.
Also, for music or band classes where students must have an musical instrument, families have the option of renting instruments from the school. Students could also use an instrument from home or rent from an outside vendor.
“It’s not a required fee, but an option we give our students,” he said.
Statewide survey
House Enrolled Act 1243 passed this year requires each public school to participate in an annual statewide survey concerning school fees charged to students or parents to be eligible to receive a distribution from the state’s curricular materials fund.
According to Courtney Crown, IDOE communications specialist, the intent of that survey is to increase clarity and transparency statewide and locally around student fees.
Schools must annually report all student fees charged to families, including the total collected under each fee, and the law requires IDOE to post the data online.
The fees in this annual statewide survey are those collected for activities occurring during the school day and not extracurricular activities, such as sports.
On Sept. 20, IDOE was expected to share the new data collection form with schools, which must be submitted by the end of October.
On Oct. 1, a separate data collection will open in which schools must report the total cost of providing curricular materials for the year.
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