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OLR Bill Analysis
sSB 1028
AN ACT IMPLEMENTING THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION.
SUMMARY
This bill makes several changes in the statutes regarding interdistrict
magnet schools.
The bill makes permanent the requirements that a magnet school’s
total enrollment (1) have no more than 75% of students from one school
district and (2) meets the reduced isolation setting standards (i.e.,
desegregation) developed by the education commissioner. These
requirements are set to expire after the 2023-2024 school year. It also
makes permanent the law barring the commissioner from awarding
grants to magnet schools that do not comply with these enrollment
standards. This ban is set to expire after the 2022-2023 school year.
The bill leaves unchanged an exception that allows the commissioner
to award a grant for an additional year or years to a noncompliant
school if she finds it appropriate and approves a plan to bring the school
into compliance with the residency and reduced isolation setting
standards as existing law requires. (Reduced-isolation standards
consider the racial composition of the school’s student body.)
The bill also:
1. sunsets a targeted magnet school grant (§ 2),
2. reinstates the ban on Sheff-region host magnet schools charging
tuition to sending school districts (§ 3) (see BACKGROUND),
3. allows the education commissioner to revise the magnet school
reduced isolation standards (§ 4), and 2023SB-01028-R000440-BA.DOCX
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4. allows the commissioner to award grants from existing Sheff
settlement funds for four purposes under the settlement (§ 5).
It also makes several technical changes, including two in the statutes
addressing the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunities for
Military Children (§ 6).
EFFECTIVE DATE: July 1, 2023
§ 2 — SUNSETS TARGETED MAGNET SCHOOL GRANT
The bill sunsets a targeted magnet school grant at the end of FY 23
(June 30, 2023). The grant applies to a magnet school operated by a
regional educational service center (RESC) that (1) began operations in
the 2001-2002 school year and (2) for the 2008-2009 school year enrolled
at least 55% but not more than 80% of the school’s students from a single
town. (The school, Edison Magnet School in Meriden, no longer exists
in that form; it was moved to Waterbury and reconstituted as ACES at
Chase and is eligible for other magnet grants.)
§ 3 — REINSTATES BAN ON MAGNET SCHOOL TUITION
The bill reinstates and makes permanent the prohibition on Sheff
magnet schools operated by local or regional boards of education
charging tuition to school districts sending students to the magnets. The
ban had expired after the 2018-19 school year. Sheff magnet schools are
schools operating under the Sheff v. O’Neill state Supreme Court
decision and related stipulations and orders (see BACKGROUND).
The bill, as under existing law, (1) applies the ban to preschool
programs and kindergarten through grade 12 and (2) includes an
exception that allows the Hartford school district to charge tuition for
any student enrolled in the Great Path Academy, which it operates in
Manchester.
§ 4 — REVISING REDUCED ISOLATION STANDARDS
As discussed above, current law generally prohibits the education
commissioner from awarding operating grants to magnet schools that
fail to meet the state’s reduced isolation standards. But it also gives her
the discretion to award the grants to noncompliant schools while 2023SB-01028-R000440-BA.DOCX
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assisting them with their efforts to regain eligibility. The law sets
minimum criteria for the commissioner to use in setting the standards,
including (1) at least 20% of a magnet school’s enrollment must be
reduced isolation students and (2) a school’s enrollment may have up to
1% below the minimum percentage, if she approves a plan for the school
to reach the 20% minimum or the percent she established in the
standards. It also requires the commissioner to define “reduced isolation
student.”
The bill authorizes the commissioner to revise the standards as
needed and adds the requirement that they comply with the Sheff
decision and any related stipulations or orders. (It also allows the
commissioner to revise, as needed, the alternative reduced-isolation
enrollment percentages for the 2018-2019 school year. Those
percentages expired in 2019, so it is unclear if this has any legal effect.)
§ 5 — GRANTS TO ASSIST SHE FF PROGRAMS
The bill allows the commissioner, to help the state meets its Sheff
desegregation obligations, to award grants from funds appropriated for
the Sheff settlement for academic and social student support programs
at (1) magnet schools, (2) the Open Choice program, (3) the interdistrict
cooperative program, and (4) the state technical education and career
high schools.
By law, unchanged by the bill, the commissioner can transfer Sheff
money for grants for unspecified purposes for the same programs, also
including grants to state charter schools.
BACKGROUND
Sheff v. O’Neill State Supreme Court Decision
In this 1996 decision, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that the state
had a constitutional obligation to remedy the educational inequities in
the Hartford schools caused by racial and ethnic isolation (238 Conn. 1
(1996)). The court ordered the state legislature and the governor to craft
a solution and legislation was passed to create voluntary desegregation
in Hartford by creating magnet schools and using other programs such
as Open Choice. 2023SB-01028-R000440-BA.DOCX
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Sheff Region
The Sheff region includes the school districts for the following towns:
Avon, Bloomfield, Canton, East Granby, East Hartford, East Windsor,
Ellington, Farmington, Glastonbury, Granby, Hartford, Manchester,
Newington, Rocky Hill, Simsbury, South Windsor, Suffield, Vernon,
West Hartford, Wethersfield, Windsor, and Windsor Locks.
Related Bill
sHB 5003, §§ 2 & 4, favorably reported by the Education Committee,
also makes changes in the magnet school grant law by removing the
current array of grants and replacing them with two new grants.
COMMITTEE ACTION
Education Committee
Joint Favorable Substitute
Yea 40 Nay 0 (03/17/2023)