33-1002G. CAREER TECHNICAL SCHOOL FUNDING AND ELIGIBILITY. (1) School districts and public charter schools may establish career technical schools that qualify for funding appropriated for the specific purpose of supporting the added cost of career technical schools. These funds will be appropriated to the state board for career technical education, to be expended by the division of career technical education. In order for a school to qualify for funding as a career technical school, it must make application to the division of career technical education on or before the fifteenth of April for the following fiscal year. This includes applicants for new schools and renewal applications. Approved public charter schools with career technical education programs will receive the same added cost unit as any other eligible school on an actual approved cost basis not to exceed the per-student cost for a traditional instructional delivery method. All career technical schools must meet all three (3) of the following criteria:

(a) The school serves students from two (2) or more high schools. No one (1) high school can comprise more than eighty-five percent (85%) of the total enrolled career technical school students. In the event a student enrolled in the career technical school is not enrolled in a public high school, the eighty-five percent (85%) will be calculated based on the public high school attendance area where the student resides. This provision does not exclude a public charter school with a statewide boundary from applying for appropriate added cost funds authorized for career technical education, irrespective of the instructional delivery method.

(b) The majority of the school’s program offerings lead to some form of postsecondary credit, such as dual credit or other advanced opportunities, as defined by the state board of education, or include apprenticeship opportunities.

(c) All school programs offer at least one (1) supervised field experience for all students.

(2) All career technical schools must also meet at least one (1) of the following three (3) requirements:

(a) The school is funded separately from schools that qualify for computation using regular secondary support units.

(b) The school has a separate and distinct governing board.

(c) The majority of the school programs are provided at dedicated facilities that are separate from the regular high school facilities.

History:

[33-1002G, added 1998, ch. 261, sec. 2, p. 864; am. 1999, ch. 329, sec. 2, p. 854; am. 2016, ch. 25, sec. 7, p. 39; am. 2018, ch. 341, sec. 1, p. 781; am. 2019, ch. 298, sec. 1, p. 881.]