On May 7, 2024, the General Assembly passed H.B. 5523, a budget stabilization bill that appropriates funds for fiscal year 2025 and makes a number of different policy changes to K-12 education and other areas. Along with maintaining the $150 million in additional funding for K-12 education in FY 2025 that was allotted as part of the state budget passed last year, the bill overhauls how Connecticut distributes state education funding to school districts.
This collection of policy briefs covers Connecticut's multilingual learner population, their education, current challenges, and opportunities to improve education programs and services for multilingual learner students and their families.
We surveyed school district leaders in Connecticut in order to quantify how the expiration of federal COVID-relief funds will impact schools, staff, and students. Survey results revealed district leaders believe the loss of ESSER dollars will impact thousands of students and educators through cuts to programs, services, and staff, and make it more difficult to address student learning and mental health needs, support higher-need students, and improve student academic performance.
During the 2023 regular legislative session, the Connecticut General Assembly passed a bill of rights for the parents and guardians of multilingual learners. This infographic, available in English and Spanish, explains the Multilingual Learner Parent Bill of Rights and what protections are afforded to parents/guardians as they navigate their student's education.
District Reference Groups (DRGs) are a classification system that groups local and regional public school districts together based on the similar socioeconomic characteristics and status of their students. Developed by the Connecticut State Department of Education, the DRGs have not been officially updated since they were first released in 2006. Although not for official use, the School and State Finance Project has replicated the DRGs using updated data and the same methodology and variables as the original DRGs.