MDE Memo Clarifies Changes to Shared Time Legisaltion

The Michigan Department of Education released a memo this week clarifying a change in the shared time provision made in this year’s School Aid budget.

Briefly, if the resident district for a non-public school does not agree to provide instruction to the nonpublic school’s students when requested, the nonpublic school can now request instruction from another district or PSA located within its own ISD or a contiguous ISD.

The new language in section 166b of the School Aid Act also clarifies that a nonpublic school is not required to submit more than 1 request for instruction to the district in which the nonpublic school is located. Nor does the nonpublic school to submit an additional request to the local district before having additional instruction provided by an eligible other district. Finally, the change eliminates the requirement that the request from the nonpublic be for a specific fiscal year.

The eligibility requirements to count nonpublic students in membership for State aid funding remain the same.

The MDE memo is available at: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/SharedTime_392856_7.pdf