Fall classes are proceeding smoothly across the state, but state lawmakers meeting over the weekend at the State Capitol in Charleston learned that problems remain with last year's federal format.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, provides federal and state financial aid to students, and an updated version of the form released late last year was plagued with problems that continue to this day.
Sarah Armstrong Tucker, chair of the Higher Education Policy Commission (HEPC), told the Legislative Oversight Committee on Education Accountability (LOCEA) on Sunday that paper FAFSAs are still being processed, and warned that the U.S. Department of Education has already announced that it will delay issuing the application to students for next school year again this year.
“Typically, the FAFSA is ready on Oct. 1,” Tucker said, “and they've announced it won't be ready on Oct. 1. They're aiming for Dec. 1.”
Tucker said he also worries that a change of administration after the November election could cause further delays.
“One of the things that happened with the rollout of the FAFSA is nobody paid enough attention to the vendors that were going to produce this form,” she said. “So as people start to leave the company and senior leadership may not come on board until January or February, what's going to happen with the FAFSA? Who's going to be on the ground monitoring it to make sure it actually gets issued on December 1st? I have a lot of concerns about that and I've had a lot of questions about it, and I haven't had good answers to those questions.”
In late April, Governor Jim Justice declared a state of emergency for higher education, paving the way for states to circumvent the FAFSA filing requirement for state education scholarships. During a special session in May, the West Virginia General Assembly formally extended the state of emergency through October with Senate Joint Resolution 102.
Sen. Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia, questioned Tucker about an $83 million loan package approved by Congress during a special session in May to repay federal funds delayed by the FAFSA issues, which also included about $32 million to help colleges and institutions with some of their operating costs.
“All of the agency's funds that were used to offset other expenses have been spent,” Tucker said. “The agency has the funds and they are using it appropriately as it was intended.”
Tucker also said students are using the remaining $40 million to cover scholarships.
“As far as emergency grants go, most of them are helping students make up the gap between state aid, federal funding and tuition and fees,” she said.
Health policy changes
Senate Education Committee Counsel Hank Hager spoke to LOCEA about the proposal to replace and repeal the West Virginia State Board of Education (WVBOE) Policy 2423, “Health Promotion and Disease Prevention.”
The changes will remove some existing health requirements, such as physical and oral hygiene exams for students in grades 2, 7 and 12. Requirements for students entering preschool or kindergarten will remain. Similarly, the requirement that all students receive the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough) vaccine before entering grade 12 will also be removed for students who have completed the primary DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough) series.
The policy will be open for public comment until September 16th.
Responding to a question from Sen. Roland Roberts (R-Raleigh), Deputy State Superintendent Sonia White said the policy change is primarily for cleanup purposes.
“This policy hadn't been changed since 2015. Since 2015, we've had a global pandemic, we've had state law changes, etc.,” White said. “So we cleaned up the policy, added new codes that were in there, cleaned up the language, so that if, for example, federal law changes, we're referencing the latest federal law and we don't have to open the policy over and over again.”
School Discipline Data
State lawmakers also had a chance Sunday to see the direct impact of their approach to school discipline issues. House Bill 2890, which will be passed in 2023, would allow teachers to move troublesome students to a separate setting during the school day to maintain order in the classroom.
Jeff Kelly, vice chancellor for accountability programs at the Department of Education, submitted disciplinary data to LOCEA for the 2023-2024 school year, the first year the law is in place.
“It says, 'Any student who is removed from the classroom three times in any one month must be suspended,' and that number was 204,” Kelly said.
The suspensions under HB 2890 represent just a small portion of the more than 29,000 students who will be suspended more than 35,000 times statewide in the 2023-24 school year.
Kelly also noted that students who have not received disciplinary action make up about 80 to 82 percent of the student body.
A more detailed analysis of the data will be presented at the WVBOE meeting on Sept. 11.
“You're talking about over 60,000 pages of disciplinary data,” Kelly said. “And to whittle that down to a level that we can provide to you is going to be a challenge. We've had a lot of discussions about exactly that.”