March 20 from 5:30-7:00 pm ALN League of Women Voters Workshop

*Space for this workshop is very limited. The Rotary room at the Newport Public Library will hold two dozen people. Please come early to make sure of a seat.

Funding Our Schools-Rhode Island’s Role in Supporting Local Education

Until the passage of new legislation in June 2010, Rhode Island was one of only two states that did not use a funding formula to help support local school districts. Rhode Island’s new funding formula has been in place for almost two years, and the state has also received new federal monies as part of the Race to the Top grant. What exactly is a funding formula and what does this all mean to local school districts?

Alda Rego, Rhode Island Department of Education‘s Director of Finance, and Kristen Cole, RIDE’s Senior Finance Officer, will explain how Rhode Island’s school funding formula affects local community school funding and how the school district’s demographics are factored into the funding formula. Representatives of the Newport School District will be on hand to discuss the impact of these programs on its funding. There will also be a discussion of how the Race to the Top funds are being used by RIDE to strengthen public education in Rhode Island.   There will be time for questions after the presentations.

“The League of Women Voters believes that the state has an important role in funding education,” says Susan Wells, president of the League of Women Voters of Newport County. “Citizens need to understand how the formula works and why it is important. There is more to it than grumbling about how much more or less a district receives under the new formula. We hope this workshop will be a concrete step in forming a basic understanding of what is at stake.”

Information on Rhode Island’s funding formula is available at RIDE’s Web site:

http://www.ride.ri.gov/Finance/Funding/FundingFormula/  

• Please  join us for this informative event.
• Free and Open to the Public
• For more information or to submit questions,  please e-mail:
• Info@allianceforlivablenewport.org