Senate Bill S5415

                                 BILL NUMBER:  S5415

 TITLE OF BILL :
An act to amend the education law, in relation to establishment of a
facilitator center for private and parochial schools


 PURPOSE :
To establish a mechanism to more efficiently and effectively
administer federal, state and local education funds intended to
benefit the students and teachers in the state's independent and
religious schools and to promote, foster and encourage academic
excellence and scholastic achievement in such schools.

 SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :
Section one establishes the Facilitator Center for Independent and
Religious Schools as a means by which such schools may choose to have
their respective federal, state, and/or local education funds
administered.

Section two establishes an immediate effective date

 JUSTIFICATION :
A number of state and federal education funding programs are designed
to benefit all children and teachers regardless of whether they are in
public or independent/religious schools. These include 12 of the 16
              

title programs under the federal Elementary and Secondary Education
Act (ESEA) as well as the state's several instructional material aid
programs.

In most cases, however, these funds, including the funds intended to
benefit children and teachers in independent and religious schools,
must be administered in public schools, which further burdens public
school administrators with programs designed to benefit children for
which they have no direct responsibility. Moreover, independent and
religious school administrators often find it difficult to access such
funds in an efficient, effective and timely manner.

The Regional Facilitator Center for Nonpublic Schools was established
in the early 1980s to serve independent and religious schools
throughout the state. In addition to other services, the Facilitator
Center has served as a "third party administrator" for a number of the
federal education title program funds on behalf of groups of religious
and independent schools.

Codifying the Facilitator Center in state law will enable the
religious and independent schools to choose to have their state
education funding programs administered by the Facilitator Center.
This will provide significant administrative relief for public school
districts currently required to administer such programs and will
enable religious and independent school administrators to access these
programs more effectively and efficiently for their students and
teachers.

 LEGISLATIVE HISTORY :
This is a new bill

 FISCAL IMPLICATIONS :
None to the state or public school districts.

 EFFECTIVE DATE :
Immediately.