Title I funding plans weighed

• By MARSHA SILLS
• Advocate Acadiana bureau
• Published: Jul 8, 2009 - Page: 1BA

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LAFAYETTE — The Lafayette Parish school system is still developing a plan on how it will spend more than $7.4 million in Title I stimulus funds over the next two years.

A committee will meet sometime this week to solidify the expenditures, which must be approved by the School Board and reviewed by the Louisiana Department of Education, said Patsy Williams, interim federal programs director for the school system.

Last week, the School Board was updated with a tentative plan on possible expenditures using the allocation of $3.73 million for each of the next two years.

Title I covers education funding for disadvantaged students and for schools with a certain percentage of low-income students.

Federal law requires a certain percentage of the funds be spent in specified areas, such as homeless student programs and supplemental educational services for low-performing schools.

The preliminary list shows nearly $1.1 million in required expenditures in both years with the remaining funds spread out to cover programs the system says it needs help maintaining.

Those programs include:

• $900,000 (each for both years) to pay for five Pre-K classes, including a new early childhood program at Alice Boucher Elementary.
• $528,000 (each for both years) for the district’s extended learning program that provides before- and after-school homework help and enrichment activities.
• $180,000 to pilot a “Destination Learning in Math and English Language Arts” software program in the first year.
• $393,300 in the second year to implement the Destination Learning software in 22 labs if the pilot program is successful.

Lafayette Parish School Superintendent Burnell Lemoine said the district is awaiting word from the state on whether the money can be used to fund programs, such as LEAP summer remediation, that are offered to Title I and non-Title I students.

“It becomes a supplanting issue,” Lemoine said, adding that no state funds are available for the Louisiana Education Assessment Program remediation summer program in the coming year. 

Students in fourth grade and eighth grade, in most cases, must pass the LEAP test to be promoted.

The $7.4 million in Title I stimulus funds supplements the $9.5 million in regular Title I funding allocated to the district for the upcoming school year.

Lemoine said the district’s extended learning program was in danger of being reduced in the coming school year. Last year, a surplus of regular Title I funds helped pay for the extended learning program at Title I schools. No surplus is expected this year so the stimulus funds could help keep the program going, he said.