Free Lunch Helps Bottom Line
....Doing well by doing good
from tasbo.org
February 09, 2009
Sometimes corporations like to draw attention to their good
works and justify it to their stockholders by making a case that it
also increases profits. The Wall Street Journal, however, opines
that that the evidence for that is not compelling. In the case of
Texas school districts getting students signed up for free or
reduced price meals is a direct and positive benefit to the
district. The doing good part of this is that times are getting
harder for a lot of families.
Here’s how it works: Texas school district income is determined by
the Weighted ADA (WADA) in the district during the current school
year. WADA is calculated from the number of students attending
school and the special programs in which they participate. A
student in the regular program counts as 1.0 and student in the
State Compensatory Education program (SCE) adds an additional 1.2
to that number making a total of 2.2 for that student. The WADA
calculation is convoluted but, as the counts are multiplied by
several factors, the commutative
axiom applies and the ratio remains the same. Each free or
reduced price student earns more than double the amount of
operating money that a single ADA alone earns.
To do a demonstration of the effect, complete the State Aid
Template for your district and then change only the number of SCE
students and notice the result it has on total aid. In this case
you are converting regular program students to SCE. Next change the
ADA and compare the results. Make the changes relatively small and
a round number like 10 will be easier to explain.
There is, unfortunately, a catch. The SCE student count is
determined by the highest six months of the previous Federal fiscal
year which runs from October through September, so only the
eligible students in August and September of 2008 will count for
the 2008-2009 school year. This is one of those things where you
will have to wait a while to be rewarded for your effort.
The reports from which the student counts are calculated are filed
monthly with the Texas
Department of Agriculture. Check out the current income
schedule, to discover how many of your students may be
eligible.
