The Washoe County School Board discussed the upcoming budget and student attendance policies at a meeting held on Tuesday.
The board voted to give preliminary approval to removing a cap on the number of absences allowed during a school year. Normally it's 10% of school days or 18 days. The change means students won't automatically fail due to poor attendance alone.
Some students may not access full time, in-person instruction in the school building, but rather engage in distance education, online courses, and any other hybrid learning model which may impact their attendance.
The board gave preliminary unanimous approval to change the wording of attendance policies to include both distance and hybrid learning. It's preliminary so that parents can now review and comment on the recommended changes for the next 13 days. The policy will again be reviewed at next month's meeting.
The board also discussed the Special Session's impact to the budget for the coming school year.
Millions of dollars of cuts are estimated – like about $15.5 million in reduced grant funds.
More than 70-full time positions are impacted as well. However, district officials say they don't anticipate layoffs. Positions that are eliminated would be reassigned to other open positions.
Here are the programs where funds were entirely eliminated: the Read by Grade 3 program, the new Nevada Education Funding Formula, Turn Around Schools grant and teacher supply reimbursement funds.
Programs that were partially cut from the legislative session includes Gifted and Talented Education - which was reduced by 60% or about $1.2 million in funding.
There are several other programs like school safety funding and school police enhancement that were partially cut as well.
The school district is anticipating an additional $50-million in CARES Act funds to be distributed to school districts to support COVID-19 related learning impacts.
For Fiscal Year 2021, the State of Nevada has estimated a General Fund shortfall of $1.2 billion. Governor Sisolak has identified a number of budget solutions to cover this gap which include significant reductions to State departments and higher education. For K-12 education, a total of $166 million in reductions to categorical grants has been identified. No reduction to the per-pupil basic support guarantee to school districts is proposed.
Members of the community are invited to watch the meeting and submit public comments before and during the meeting for Trustees at publiccomments@washoeschools.net
Related: WCSD Responds to Teachers' Union Letter Asking to Not Reopen Schools
