S257 - Appropriations Act of 2017. (SL 2017-57)

Overview: Sec. 7.19 of S.L. 2017-57 directs the State Board of Education (SBE) to allot additional classroom teachers to schools containing grades kindergarten through 12 when consolidation is not feasible due to the geographic isolation of the school and the school meets at least one of the following criteria for geographic isolation:

• The school is located in a local school administrative unit (LEA) in which the average daily membership is less than 1.5 per square mile.
• The school is located in an LEA for a county containing more than 150,000 acres of national forest owned by the federal government and managed by the United States Forest Service.

The SBE must allot teachers to the geographically isolated schools on the basis of one classroom teacher per grade level and must allot teachers to the remainder of the LEA in accordance with the formulas for the regular classroom teacher allotment.

This section became effective July 1, 2017.