State Representative Tim Harman, a graduate of Plymouth High School who now lives in Bremen held a Town Hall meeting on Saturday in Plymouth. He was joined by Representatives Chris Judy from Fort Wayne and Ben Smaltz of Auburn.
The event was held at Washington Discovery Academy and a number of teachers and administrators from the Plymouth School Corporation attended to hear what is happening in Indianapolis with education.
Representative Harman said he had 9 school districts in his district. He said, “8 of the 9 are seeing an actual percentage increase in funding between 1 and 3 percent. Culver is the only one scheduled to see a small decrease.”
Harman said the philosophy on funding is “every school will receive an equal amount of money per child across the state, roughly about $5,000 and from there you tweak it up based on the number of students receiving free and reduced lunch, honors programs and technical programs offered by a school and the percentage of special needs students.”
Harman discussed the large funding disparity currently between large and small schools on the amount they are receiving per student with the low end being $5,500 and on the high end $8,600. The average he said was about $6,700. “That gap is going to be shrunk to about $1,600 when all is said and done,” Tim said. His thoughts are that this will help out rural and suburban schools.
Representative Harm explained the shift in funding by saying, by 2017 the funding difference should be no more than the $1,600. As of right now it’s estimated for this school year the gap it to be about $2,800 between the highest and the lowest. The gap next year is suppose to drop to about $2,150 and the gap in the school year 2016-2017 would be about $1.600.
