Lucky Leadership Awaits! 🍀✨
|
The AESA leprechaun struck gold yesterday! Don’t miss your chance to invest in your leadership journey and uncover golden opportunities for growth, networking, and professional development.
Plus, thanks to the AESA Foundation, small scholarships are available to help offset expenses such as lodging and travel. Funding amounts and recipient selection are based on availability. The scholarship links are included in the application forms of eligible programs.
Executives in Residence
A yearlong, performance-based experience designed to develop the next generation of ESA CEOs. With mentorship from seasoned leaders, hands-on leadership experiences, and a powerful national cohort, participants gain essential skills to lead with confidence. *Scholarship available through the AESA Foundation!
Apply >>
Leadership Academy
Specifically designed for current ESA CEOs, this immersive professional learning experience equips leaders with the tools to navigate today’s evolving educational landscape. *Scholarship available through the AESA Foundation!
Apply>>
Summer Leadership Conference
Pack your bags! Region 13 is hosting us in Austin, TX, for an energizing leadership experience in the heart of the South.
Register>>
|
Strengthen Your ESA’s Advocacy Impact!
|
Registration is officially open for AESA’s three-part webinar series designed to help ESAs navigate state policy, build strong advocacy strategies, and take action for meaningful change!
Dates: April 29, May 14, and June 3
|
Congress Passes CR to Complete FY25
|
After weeks of uncertainty about a potential government shutdown, Congress has approved a year-long continuing resolution (CR). This completes Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 appropriations and provides level-funding for most of the key K-12 formula programs, including IDEA, Title I, Title IV-A and REAP. Read more here.
|
How Medicaid Cuts Will Harm Students
|
A new report looks at what would happen to school health services, student resources and district funding if Congress cuts Medicaid.
“How Medicaid Cuts Will Harm Students & Schools” (March 2025) features data from a nationwide survey of over 1,400 school district leaders, including superintendents, school business officials and school health coordinators — the vast majority of whom expect reductions in school health services and staff, and increased taxpayer burden, if funding is reduced. In addition, 90% of survey respondents expect Medicaid cuts would lead to reductions across their district’s budget, outside of school health services.
Protecting Medicaid protects students, schools and communities. We encourage you to share this report, executive summary and related graphics with your networks.
|
Reposted from EdCounsel update:
On 3/11/25, USED announced a major reduction in force (RIF) that, together with other recent employment actions, reduces the agency’s workforce by nearly 50%. In its press release, USED described the RIF as part of the agency’s “final mission,” a reference to Secretary McMahon’s first message to the staff. According to the press release, affected employees will be placed on administrative leave beginning on 3/21/25 and, per regulations and collective bargaining agreements, will be paid through 6/9/25. lndications are that the RIFs were not applied equally to all offices, with early reports of some offices being completely eliminated and others losing everyone except the office head. USED has not yet published an official accounting of the RIF, although in its release noted: “All divisions within the Department are impacted by the reduction, with some divisions requiring significant reorganization to better serve students, parents, educators, and taxpayers.”
The RIF has been challenged in court. Recall that because Congress established the Department of Education and added to its responsibilities through subsequent federal laws, only Congress can officially eliminate USED or relieve them of those mandated responsibilities.
What does this mean for education?
The impact of a RIF this size will undoubtedly be significant, even before we are certain about which offices are affected in what ways. USED is by far the smallest cabinet agency, with just over 4,000 employees prior to the Trump Administration. Yet USED is responsible for administering more than $70 billion in education grants (such as Title I and IDEA) and more than $150 billion in federal student aid for higher education. Additionally, the agency is responsible for enforcing federal civil rights laws, collecting and providing education data, promoting education research, etc. One concern is that there will not be enough capacity to provide needed, statutorily defined services to the field, and certainly not of similar quality or timing. The following are some examples of how the RIF may play out for different parts of the education ecosystem. It is meant to be illustrative, not exhaustive, of the RIF’s potential impact:
- At the educator, student, and family level, there is real reason for concern about interruptions in funding, support, and civil rights protections including, for example, for students with disabilities and delays (including children who are not yet school-aged), homeless students, or English learners. Federal financial assistance delays may interrupt students’ postsecondary pathways.
- At the state and local levels, any number of federal functions ranging from technical assistance to funding to staff SEAs and LEAs could be compromised, if not immediately than in the near term. For instance, many early childhood programs depend on federal guidance and oversight from USED, including for Part C of IDEA, which serves infants and toddlers with disabilities or delays.
- At the federal level, in addition to the human costs of a RIF like this, there will be the loss of critical expertise and institutional knowledge.
- At the ecosystem level, access will be lost to critical data and R&D that helps identify both problems and progress and that provides educators and families with information about what works, for whom, and under what circumstances.
Find more information and links to recommended articles here.
|
|
AESA Joins 30 National Organizations in Letter Opposing CRA
|
AESA joined more than 30 other national organizations in a joint letter to Congress. The letter urges the Senate to vote against S.J.Res.7, a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s E-Rate hotspot decision last year. The FCC’s Order allows schools and libraries to obtain E-Rate funding to provide wireless internet hotspot devices and service to students, school staff, and library patrons. Almost 20,000 schools and libraries across the country are currently in the process of applying for several hundred thousand hotspots, which often have multiple users. This resolution, if passed, would prevent millions of students and library patrons across the country from obtaining internet access. Read the full letter here.
|
Celebrating and Supporting IDEA
|
AESA is proud member of the IDEA Full Funding Coalition. The coalition has committed to raise awareness and urge Congress to fully support the legislation that supports over 7.5 million students with special needs. Find a social media kit and join the effort to amplify the message!
|
SBO Perspectives: A Must-Listen Podcast for School Business Officials
|
Each week, we'll spotlight a podcast that highlights the voices and insights of our members. Check out AESA’s curated list of ESA podcasts. Is yours missing? Contact Claire Sowder to add it.
|
AESA member Northwest Regional Education Service District (OR) joined forces with Valley Stream Union Free School District 24 (NY) to share their expertise on financial planning, operational efficiencies, and innovative approaches to managing school resources. Their conversations shed light on emerging trends, best practices, and the evolving landscape of education administration.
|
Have we missed one of your ESA’s stories? Send submissions to csowder@aesa.us to be included in future editions of Online News.
|
|
Smart Strategies to Lower Next Year’s Benefits Costs
|
Budgeting and forecasting costs for next school year are likely front and center in conversations at your service agency and for your member districts this time of year. Do you feel resigned that everything must automatically cost more next year? What if you could affect change on your medical benefits renewal rates with what you do over these next six months?
Depending on where you are in your plan year you may have reached the midpoint of your medical plan. Have you had conversations with your medical benefits consultant on how your plan is performing? Are you all working hand-in-hand to tailor communication to your employees?
At Universal Benefits Consortium, we wanted to share a few things we are laser-focused on and how we are working with our districts and agencies this time of year. We hope you are having similar conversations with your consultant to adapt your current situation for the second half of this plan year:
- Claims History: Do you know your current loss ratio? Have you had to leverage your stop loss coverage? Are there individuals with catastrophic claims? Is your population as a whole accessing health care more than you initially thought or relative to last year when you signed your renewal rates?
- Supplemental Offerings Embedded in Your Medical Plan: Can you offset some of those high-cost claims by encouraging employees to utilize additional services included in your medical plan, such as telemedicine or low and no-cost outpatient surgery or complex scans and imaging. GLP-1s and other specialty medications can quickly put a strain on your claim costs? Can you help employees set up direct delivery of their drugs from your international pharmacy partners, so pharmacy costs are lowered, and your employees receive those medications at no cost? This is an area where you can make the greatest impact on plan utilization and renewal rates if your consultant has tailored a plan that includes added services for pharmacy benefits.
- Reporting and Communication: Universal Benefits Consortium makes it a priority to meet with our clients monthly to share data, talk strategy and develop communication plans that encourage employees to use free and no-cost offerings embedded in their medical plan. If you aren’t regularly having these conversations and receiving communications help, be sure to ask your consultant to partner with you on this!
At UBC, our goal is to help the districts and agencies we serve to secure the lowest net cost while providing the greatest benefit options. We know this is one of the largest line items in your annual budget, and it takes a partnership and constant communication to help you achieve maximum cost savings and ultimately lower premiums come renewal season.
If you want us to evaluate your current plan’s performance, we are happy to meet with you for free and with no further obligations. We are here to help a population that does so much for so many! Questions? Send us an email at amanda@ubc-benefits.com or call us at (214) 708-5868
|
|
