Data capture for the March 21st payment is 02/15/24 at 5 pm. 

Reminder: Payment 9 will be based on data captured that is passing integrity and generating ADM in AzEDS. Actual data in AzEDS will be used to calculate ADM for Payment 9.

Please ensure data is reconciled and free of integrity errors prior to the data capture date. Review the following reports in AzEDS: 

• INTEG15 – ensure data is free and clear of membership ADM Integrity errors 
• STUD10 – validate all students are listed in AzEDS 
• ADM15 – ensure all students expected to generate funding are indicated as fundable 
• ADM20, SPED20, and EL20 – ensure ADM amounts for each ADM type  

Important Note: FY24 Calendars need to be submitted, approved, and certified for ADM and funding to be generated. 

Please submit a School Finance HelpDesk ticket if data assistance is needed.

For immediate release: February 5, 2024
Contact: [email protected]
 

Horne extends deadline to schools for Holocaust instruction reporting
Failure to respond will be added to school report card

PHOENIX – On the same day that state legislators have introduced legislation - prepared at the department and submitted at Superintendent Tom Horne’s request - to strengthen the Arizona law that requires Holocaust education in public schools, Horne is announcing an extension of the deadline to February 23 for schools to report their compliance with the current law.

Horne has sent an updated email to district superintendents and charter school representatives to ensure all schools report on whether or not they are complying with current Arizona law,  A.R.S. § 15–701.02, that requires students to receive instruction in the Holocaust and other genocides at least once in middle school and once in high school. The existing law does not specify the amount of time for that curriculum and the requested changes solve that problem.

Horne said, “Since we first requested that schools attest to their compliance with the state mandate for Holocaust education for middle and high school students, we have received many responses, but not all districts and charters have replied. Arizona law is clear that this is a requirement for middle and high school students.  As Superintendent, I have the legal authority to make sure that laws pertaining to education in Arizona are being followed. Therefore, my enforcement action will be that for the online ADE School Report Card we will indicate in red letters any school’s failure to respond to the Holocaust education verification by February 23.”

Horne added that Representatives David Marshall, a Republican, and Democrat Alma Hernandez have co-sponsored legislation to bolster the current law requirements for Holocaust education. The bill will require that students in grades 7-12 will have to twice complete a three-day program on the Holocaust and other genocides.

Horne noted, “After the horrific events of October 7, there was a one-sided pro-Hamas presentation at Desert Mountain High School that produced antisemitism among students and made Jewish students uncomfortable and fearful. If Holocaust studies are presented, students will be less gullible to antisemitic presentations and this legislation will strengthen that effort. I am grateful to Representatives Hernandez and Marshall for their bipartisan work to strengthen this law.”

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ADE/ESS is excited to share that Arizona’s 2024 IDEA Conference will be held from September 4–6, 2024 at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge in Phoenix.

This year’s theme is Expect, Engage, Achieve. This cross-stakeholder event is intended for special education administrative staff, youths and young adults with disabilities, family members and caregivers, state agency staff, educators, service providers, and community members who share a commitment to student success.

The event will feature over 75 professional learning opportunities, including IDEA legal issues, instructional practices, national trends and hot topics, special education compliance, preschool and secondary transition, and content for related service providers.

ADE/ESS is pleased to request proposals for this year’s conference. Please consider submitting presentations that represent your creative and research-based work. See the attached 2024 IDEA Conference Call for Papers Guidelines for information on how to submit. Session proposals are due March 31, 2024.

ESS appreciates this opportunity to learn with each of you and looks forward to the year ahead. Stay informed by visiting the IDEA Conference website for conference updates, including registration information. Questions can be emailed to the IDEA Conference inbox.

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT       

Special Education Data Updates Webinar: Wednesday, February 21, 2024

The Exceptional Student Services Data Management team will host the next live Special Education Data Updates webinar on Wednesday, February 21, from 2:00 to 3:00 pm. This session will cover a variety of data topics that will include (subject to change):   

• Reminders 

• Trending topics 

• Top Three Integrity Errors 

• Q&A    

Registration is required to attend. Please register by clicking this link. If you have any questions, please email the ESS Data Management inbox.

The School District Employee Report (SDER) On-Line Application is now open to accept employee data revisions. You can access this application through ADE Connect.

If there are any revisions that need to be made to your SDER data, you can log in to ADEConnect SDER Application. The deadline to submit final revisions is March 1, 2024, by the end of the day.

It is important to note that if a district's data is not submitted and error-free, it will not be included in the TEI calculation. Final TEI reports will be available on or before March 15, 2024.

For additional details about the submission of SDER data, please refer to the SDER manual.

Please submit a HelpDesk ticket if you need assistance with submitting your SDER data.

Note: Charter schools should not submit staff data or SDER data.

The Arizona Department of Education Health and Nutrition Services (HNS) is pleased to announce the availability of the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) during summer 2024. The SFSP, also known as Summer Meals Program, was established by USDA to ensure that children, 18 years or younger, continue to receive nutritious meals when school is not in session. often, these children receive meals through the School Breakfast Program (SBP) or the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and may be at risk of access to nutrition during the summer months. 

Last summer, Arizona partnered with 211 sponsoring organizations overseeing 1104 feeding locations and serving over 3.2 million meals! HNS encourages eligible organizations to start thinking about how to support their community this summer by applying as a sponsoring organization or participating as a feeding location.

• Eligible SFSP sponsoring organizations include public and private nonprofit school food authorities, public or private nonprofit residential or nonresidential camps, local, municipal, county, or state governments, public or private colleges or universities participating in the National Youth Sports Program, and nonprofit organizations. Read more...

The teams at HNS can help new programs get started or advise returning programs on how to expand program access and establish new feeding locations. Organizations can email [email protected] or call (602) 542-8700 to be connected with an HNS Specialist. 

BUDG-25 reports for all school districts have been posted to the School Finance website. FY 2024 January BUDG-25 reports have been calculated using the FY 2024 January BSA-55 information.
 

• District BUDG-25 reports are available to download from this School Finance website. For further instructions on how to navigate the website, please view this Hot Topic.

• District FY23 BUDG-75 reports are available to download from the School Finance website:
  • Select the “Start Fiscal Year” as 2023
  • Optionally, select the “Execution Date” as 11/21/2023
  • Click “Apply”

• District BSA-55 reports are available to download from the School Finance website:
  • First, select a school district and then click “View Reports”
  • Next, scroll down the page to the “School District Reports” section.
  • Finally, click the January “PDF” button. The January BSA-55 report will appear.

Please contact the Budget Team ([email protected]) if you have any questions.

Thank you!

For immediate release: January 30, 2024
Contact: [email protected]
 

Horne: State funding for education, including ESAs, has multi-million-dollar surplus
Source of state budget crunch lies elsewhere

PHOENIX – State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne has released a report for all state education funding, including the Empowerment Scholarship Account Program, that shows a projected total surplus of more than $28 million through the remainder of the 2024 state Fiscal Year that ends June 30.

Horne stated, “The myth that the ESA program is doing damage to the state’s budget is thoroughly demolished. Importantly, 59 percent of current ESA students come from public school or are Kindergartners or preschoolers with disabilities who would normally be in public school, which would be a major cost to the state. Whatever budget issues state lawmakers are facing this year, they have not been created by the ESA program or any other aspect of basic state aid for education.”

Horne added, “Critics who falsely claimed ESAs were the cause of the budget deficit erroneously counted the gross cost for each student without adjusting for the cost that would be incurred if those students were in public school. While approximately 75,000 students are in the ESA program, 1.2 million are in public schools, which means the ESA students are not a threat to those schools. ESAs give choice to parents at any income level whose child’s needs are not being met in local schools, an ability rich parents have always had.”

He continued, “Since taking office a year ago I have required that every expense request, no matter how small or large, be reviewed. Unlike my predecessor, we do not approve frivolous requests that have no educational purpose. I hired an auditor to oversee the finances and he is now the director of the entire program. In recent months we reviewed more than 250,000 orders, rejecting more than 12,000 of them. The fact there is a surplus in basic state aid, including the ESA program, demonstrate our commitment to good financial stewardship.”

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Audit PDFs can be uploaded to the Budget System. This Hot Topic provides detailed step-by-step instructions on how to upload the Audit PDF to the Budget system. Please review the following information before contacting the School Finance Budget Team with questions. 

Step 1: Go to ADE Connect (www.adeconnect.azed.gov) and click on “View Applications”    

Step 2: Click “School Finance Budget System"

Step 3: Click on “Audit PDF Upload” on the top right corner of the web page

Step 4: Click “File Upload”

Step 5: You will see the below screen with following fields:

1. Enter the Fiscal year from the dropdown
2. Click “Select Files” under Document Name and select the file to upload
3. Fill in the File Description
4. Then click “Upload”

*** Please note, PDF is the only acceptable format ***

After uploading the file, you can return to the dashboard. On the dashboard, you can view the file submission details and download the file.

Externally view and download the Audit PDFs uploaded to the Budget System

Districts can access the uploaded Audit PDFs at the School Finance Website (the same site where the BSA55 and BSA64 reports are available)

• Click on File Submission Status Report

• On the top right corner of the page, click ‘Audit PDF Uploaded Files’ and you should see the uploaded files in the dashboard.

• On the Dashboard, you can filter and view the status of the uploaded document (Historic, Current Usable, Failed). The file can be downloaded by clicking on ‘Download’ and Districts can copy the link to this file by right clicking on ‘Download.’

• Status details:
  • Current Usable: the file is the most recent processed file for that file name and fiscal year.
  • Historic: the file has been replaced with a newer successfully processed file with the same name and fiscal year.
  • Failed: the file was unable to be processed.

If you have questions after reviewing the links above, please email the School Finance Budget Team as [email protected].

For immediate release: January 23, 2024
Contact: [email protected]
 

Horne: State Board upholds ADE rejection of inappropriate ESA expense requests
Demonstrates ADE commitment to strict oversight

PHOENIX – State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne is applauding this week’s unanimous action by the State Board of Education to uphold the Department of Education’s rejection of questionable Empowerment Scholarship Account expense requests.

Horne said, “In recent months much has been made of supposedly extravagant ESA expense approvals. But our policy of reviewing all requests is far different from that of my predecessor who did allow a number of inappropriate expenses to be approved and which ESA opponents continue to falsely claim as alleged abuses today. The department and State Board have again shown this week that we take these expense approvals seriously and will not tolerate attempts to go beyond what the law permits. We allow only what public schools provide at reasonable cost.”

In Monday’s Board meeting, two expense requests that had been rejected by the department were brought to the Board on appeal by the parents. Those appeals were rejected by the Board.

One request was for a $2,300 commercial freeze dryer, which serves no educational purpose, and is therefore not allowable under state law. The other rejected request was for car seats, which are also not a legitimate educational expense. State law already mandates that every child be secured in a car seat, and parents do not have the right to use ESA funds to buy something they are already required to provide.

In coming months, the department expects to defend against an appeal from a parent requesting a $500 dune buggy, an expense clearly not allowed under the law.

Horne added, “Despite the claims we hear from opponents of the ESA program, under my watch we review every expense request regardless of dollar amount. Things such as commercial freeze dryers and dune buggies that might be approved under the previous administration are being rejected now.  In recent months, ESA staff reviewed 252,000 orders and rejected 12,200 of them. This work takes extra time and effort, but it is necessary to make sure ESA taxpayer funds are spent for valid educational purposes and are in line with state law.”

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