Senate Bill 128 Supplemental School Year Program

Rhonda:  Hi, hope all is well. It’s Rhonda with Kentucky SPIN and I wanted to come on here just to let you know a couple of things cause there’s some deadlines that are coming up, in regards to this that I wanted to talk about today. So many of you may have heard about Senate Bill 128 that was passed, the supplemental school year program. And this is where some timelines are in place if it’s something that you wish to get for your child in school. And this is for all students in Kentucky public schools.

So, what it is is the supplemental school year you may be hearing it as sort of a do-over year. It may be being called different things in your area. What it means is being able to pretty much do this school year, the 2020 – 2021 school year, over again.

Now the details, and what’s important to know about this, because this is a wonderful guidance document from the Kentucky Department of Education that really talks about it and explains all of this in detail and has some special sections in it too, which one of them I’m going to I talk about more here in just a minute.

But the link to this actual document will be in the description of the video. So that you’re able to kind of go through that and have it. It’s so wonderful for families, for professionals, everybody because you know, there’s been so much that has happened. But the reason that this has taken place was due to COVID.

So, what this means is, now the important things that I want to make sure that I mentioned here. And you’re going to see when you look at it on page two, that the timeline and the process for this. What this will be, is the supplemental, I want to read a couple of things directly from here.

A district may provide access to supplemental school year program for students who you apply, it applies only to students will be enrolled in that district, that public school district, on May 1st 2021.

Now, what has to take place and it’s going to vary how this is all rolled out throughout the state because that’ll make a little more sense here in a second. But what’s important for you to know as a parent, if you wish for your child to do that, you have to send, you have until May 1st to send to your local public school district, a letter requesting your child for the supplemental school year program.

And what it is, is you have to do that by May first. Now, if you have more than one child and you wish for all of your children or one of your child, the child to do that, you just have to make sure you name your children in there that you wish. That goes to your local public school district board of education, that letter, you’ve got to send.

Now, if you don’t wish for that, you don’t have to do anything.

Then the public school districts have until June 1st and I want to read this part to you, to decide whether to accept all requests or no request. These students request and the districts all or none decision, again, applies only to students enrolled in the district on May 1st, 2021.

Now what it is, what all that means is if you wish for your child to do that, you got to send a letter by May 1st to your local board of education.

Then the school has till June 1st to make the decision, it’s an all or nothing. Right. You can’t just do it for some students and not others, right. So that’s important to know as well. And so depending upon what your district decides is what is going to take place.

Now, one other thing that I wanted to call your attention to, because I get questions about this all the time. And the thing about, and especially now, this is the supplemental school years for all students right.

Now, there is a part in here where they talk about special populations, which is special education, children who have IEPs in school. Now, know that there are going to be a few situations because children with IEPs in school have, they attend three through 21 unless they graduate sooner.

It is very few students that do attend to that age range. So this is going to be a, that I’m that’s talking about, is a very small portion, but there could be the likelihood that passed the age of 21, if your district does the supplemental school year and you had sent the letter by May 1st that they might be able to attend, if they do that passed that age. So, but that’s going to be a very small number of students that have a disability that have an IEP in place, that that will be the case.

But another thing too, I want to make sure I mention when I was talking about the supplemental school year. That is for K, kindergarten through 12th grade. So because I also get questions about preschool age, but this is specifically kindergarten through 12th grade.

Now, something else, and this is where I get a lot of questions about this. It’s very important to understand, and many of you may have heard the term, compensatory education, especially now with COVID. If you’ve been on some of our webinars and different things like that.

Now, supplemental school year is not to be confused with compensatory education. They are two separate things. Okay. And it’s important to know that.

Compensatory education is, the compensatory education requires a school district to provide students with appropriate educational services, to compensate for failure, inability to provide a student with FAPE, free, appropriate public education.

What that means is, and not all students who have IEPs are going to get compensatory education. COVID created this situation for us, right. And what it is is the IEP services and what’s in the IEP would be, when COVID came about, provided through alternate means.

Now, if it was provided through alternate means they still got that. So what it is with compensatory education is what you should have got, that you didn’t get.

Now, there’s going to be a small portion and not all students are going to qualify for that. And it is totally separate from the supplemental school year.

So when we’re talking about this, without the compensatory education, is that it is going to be that gap. Right? So think of it this way. And I’m a visual person. Think of it, all of this, in between my hands, is what the IEP provides, right. Service, supports all of that. So the compensatory education, so you got to, would get a lot of that through alternate means during COVID and the distance learning.

What the compensatory education is, any gap, that gap part of what you did not get that you should have got. Now, here is the other thing, and that’s going to be made on individual decision based on each individual ARC, IEP team that the parent is an equal member of.

Now what’s important to know here, and I want to make sure that I read this, on the supplemental school year, is that, what it is is that it would be inappropriate for the use of the recovery program, offered to all students, to fulfill the duty to provide compensatory education.

Meaning the supplemental school year is not to serve the purpose of that.

Retaking a year is completely volunteering, cannot be substituted for the provision of compensatory education.

Because compensatory education cannot be provided during the school day, because then you’re causing more compensatory education because they are missing out on that. So I just want to make sure that you’re aware of that, that they are two separate things.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Again, it’s very important, if you wish for your child to receive the supplemental school year, you have till May 1st, send a letter to your local public school district requesting that. And then by June 1st districts are to decide if they are going to accept all those requests or not.

So I hope this has helped you all, have a great day now and we’ll talk soon, bye-bye.