STATEMENT OF RICHARD D. TAYLOR, SUPERINTENDENT, WIDEFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT, COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am Richard Taylor, superintendent of schools, Widefield-Security Schools, Colorado Springs, Colo.

I have a prepared text too. Rather than going through it I would just like to make some comments.

Mr. PERKINS. Without objection, your prepared statement will be inserted in the record at this point.

(The statement referred to above follows:)

STATEMENT OF RICHARD TAYLOR, SUPERINTENDENT OF WIDEFIELD-SECURITY SCHOOLS, COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.

Hon. Carl Perkins and members of this subcommittee, I am Richard Taylor, superintendent, Widefield-Security Schools, Colorado Springs, Colo. I wish to extend my appreciation for the opportunity to present some points of view regarding H.R. 9948 to this committee.

The passage of this proposed legislation will enable school districts with children from low-income families to provide the buildings necessary for implementation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The combining of lowincome building legislation with impacted area legislation is realistic since they are both concerned with areas that do not have the necessary funds to construct needed educational facilities.

The extension in time for Public Law 815 allows districts such as the one I represent to do planning that has more meaning than the previous limitations of 1 or 2 years. The 3 percent to qualify for Public Law 815, regardless of the size of the school district, establishes a much needed basis of equality.

It is my hope that the provisions of H.R. 9948, which allow for "special projects conducted by the local educational agency," and "facilities to provide innovative facilities or equipment," will be interpreted in a manner which will allow experimentation and the use of new innovations in the educational process. One of the shortcomings of Public Law 815 has been in this area. To relate to a specific example, I have been attempting to have included in a vocational high school, an area for a training program in data processing. Both the section of the building to house the equipment and the equipment necessary to implement the program have been rejected by the U.S. Office of Education as not being allowable for the expenditure of Public Law 815 funds.

It seems that a program such as data processing, which is one of the fastest growing industries in our Nation, is still too new to be included as a necessary school program within the existing provisions of Public Law 815.

Another very strong part of H.R. 9948 is that buildings are related to over-all State plans for construction. I feel that State departments of education and local school districts working together are in a better position to determine their needs than agencies that now have determination, to some degree, with Public Law 815.

My general conclusion of H.R. 9948 is that it will meet a national educational need immediately after its enactment, and will become one of the two greatest education bills of this age.

I should like to request that consideration be given to the establishing of a committee of public school personnel who are directly involved in the application of this legislation, for the purpose of evaluating and suggesting changes, if needed, to keep the act current with educational demands. I believe this would aid this legislation with its intent to increase educational opportunities throughout the Nation.

Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR. We have a little background. I believe I represent the district somewhat different in that its size is not as large, although the percentage of Federal students certainly is. Ten years ago this was a rural district, 10 classrooms and 24 students. It now has 6,000 students in this 10-year period of time. The growth has been from 24

to 6,000, and still continues at about 10 to 12 a year, but the percent of federally connected children average about 57 percent each year.

Now in my prepared text, relating to it again, I certainly support the extension of Public Law 815 because without this type of legislation, we could not operate the schools. There would have been no way to do this.

Mr. PERKINS. What brings about that terrific impact?

Mr. TAYLOR. The American Air Defense Command, the Air Force Academy, Fort Carson, Peterson Field, and on and on, but these are the main ones. This is what we call the typical bedroom community. You have no industria! wealth at all and homes do not begin to support schools. So, going back again, we could not have operated without Public Laws 874 and 815, and we find it difficult to operate with them at times.

Yesterday we started construction on a building through Public Law 815 funds on which the Federal Government's allotment was $750,000. The local funds involved are $1,500. Now the reason they are so limited is that this is all we have left under the legal bonding capacity of 15 percent. We passed 11 bonds in the last 10 years and we are simply out of money all of the time to try to provide facilities to keep children in school. In spite of this, I will have about 1,000 students on half-days until the building is completed.

With Public Law 815 of course, because of this, it must continue if we continue to educate children, because you cannot educate them unless you have a place to get them together first. There have been some minor problems and not to be critical, but I would like to point out something with Public Law 815, and it can tend to limit programs, because when you come back to the provision for minimum facilities the interpretation of this means whether you have certain programs or not, and as a case in point, I have attempted in the building of a Vocational addition to my school to include data processing, because in our area this is an important industry. We can place more students trained in data processing than in auto mechanics. Yet the Office of Education does not consider that area as being one within the allowable construction part of this bill.

So this is a thing that, as I look at the implementation of the construction act, with construction to implement the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, I would like to ask you people to be aware that limitations are not allowable that would attempt to limit programs. Ithink this deserves some consideration.

Again, it is not to lay the blame, but to believe this is an area that should be considered. I personally would like to see a committee of working school people, people who apply funds through the Federal programs to in some way have a line of communication with you people as we do with the Office of Education, to set up guidelines to do this so when you find a program is becoming outdated because of the change in times and because the needs of the child today are different than they were yesterday, and they will be different tomorrow that we don't get so far behind. I am not quite sure I know how to set this up. I think that with these comments I would like to thank the committee for the privilege of appearing before you and certainly urge that the extension of Public Law 815 and Mr. O'Hara's and Mr. Ford's bill

that would provide assistance to suburban communities such as ours, certainly be considered in this.

Mr. PERKINS. Thank you very much.

Mr. ROSE. I would like to clarify one point in your written testimony or I would like for you to do it. On the first page you have the statement that—

The 3 percent to qualify for Public Law 815, regardless of the size of the school district, establishes a much needed basis of equality.

Were you talking about Public Law 815 or 874 there? We have 5 percent all the way across.

Mr. TAYLOR. I was talking about Public Law 874.

Mr. ROSE. Then I thought the record should be clear. It is Public Law 874 rather than 815. That is what you were talking about. That is in the 9022 bill.

I would like to point out on my last page you will notice two changes in pen on page 10, where I changed minimum school facilities to normal school facilities. Then I changed funds available to funds normally available. We have found that strict adherence to minimum facilities has limited the advancement of education.

Now, if Mr. O'Hara's approach were included along with Public Law 815, I don't think it would be so bad, because as he has pointed out, and I believe Mr. Hanks pointed out, the school district with its funds of minimum facilities, has had to take care of 50 percent of the children and any absorption such as an overload, and then 100 percent of the non-Federals. If we were getting non-Federal aid or aid on a Federal increase too, then perhaps we could more nearly rise above minimum facilities in an overall program.

I have said to these fellows in the school district that has the-well, it is the fourth largest in the State of Oklahoma-we do not have a swimming pool in the entire school system, and we have three high schools and five junior high schools simply because we have not had enough money to supplement the minimum facilities which were underwritten for the Federal children under Public Law 815. It has taken all of our money to put in our part of the B children we will say, and then the non-Federal increase A. It would not be such a burden if we had something also on the non-Federal, we might be able to rise above it. But I have taken the position that we should do all we can at the local level, and I firmly believe that, but we perhaps should not put the maximum into minimum facilities and leave nothing at the local level to improve the educational program as the local taxpayers envisioned, along with the leadership of the schools, and so therefore, I changed it to normal.

Now then I believe our next person

Mr. PERKINS. Before you introduce your next witness I would like to ask Dr. Taylor a question. I noticed you referred to data processing and I took it from your testimony that the Office of Education would not permit funds to be expended under Public Law 815 for that purpose. Do you know whether that is the cause of the newly enacted Vocational Education Act construction bill under which funds can be obtained for that purpose?

Mr. TAYLOR. No, sir. It is not. I point to this as one example of several things we can find. It is because of the definition of minimum

facilities relating back to what a majority of the schools are doing, within a given State.

Now, on the surface this seems great, but when you get into majorities you are comparing high schools of all sizes, and in a State like Colorado where there are many rural districts, a high school with 80 students does not compare with a high school with 1,000 and they would not have a program such as this. We are hoping to get them to a point where we can have adequate programs as necessary in individual schools.

of

Mr. RADCLIFFE. I have not read the act for sometime, but to the best my recollection that definition of minimum facilities is not in the act. There is a requirement that the facilities be minimum facilities, but the definition is an administrative interpretation.

Mr. TAYLOR. That is right.

Mr. RADCLIFFE. That interpretation seems strange. I can understand Mr. Rose not getting a swimming pool but

Mr. TAYLOR. It is hard to understand why, in the same approval, you can teach building trades, machine shop, but to take and eliminate a program when other schools are not doing it, you cannot do. The point I would like to have people aware of is, this puts a heavily impacted district that does not have local funds to do these things where we can never lead. We can never even keep up. We must be

behind.

years

Mr. RADCLIFFE. In other words, they are saying because most of the schools in the State teach auto mechanics, in your particular situation you are restricted to auto mechanics, even though you need data processing skills in your area?

Mr. TAYLOR. Yes. We are the center of the data-processing area in the State, and because of the North American Defense Command, in some ways a part of the Nation.

Mr. RADCLIFFE. I do not think that is consistent with the intent of the act.

Mr. TAYLOR. I would not like to see the Elementary and Secondary Education Act bogged down with the same kind of thing.

Mr. PERKINS. Did you ever apply for construction funds under the Vocational Education Act?

Mr. TAYLOR. No, sir; not for construction funds. I have for programs, and, incidentally, I do have a data-processing lease approved under the Vocational Education Act of 1963, if we can come up with the 50 percent of the moneys to match.

Mr. RADCLIFFE. Mr. Taylor, this is one of the problems of the structure of these acts. If construction funds, Federal construction funds. were routed through your State Department of Education in Colorado, do you think they would impose any such restrictions?

Mr. TAYLOR. Well, in this case they would not because our commissioner is very definitely for this program and has tried to assist me in obtaining it. Otherwise, I don't know. I have a lot of faith in our State department of education. I think it is one of the better ones. Mr. RADCLIFFE. Do you think this might be a better way to handle the funds?

Mr. TAYLOR. No, sir; I do not. In the general overall handling of it, I appreciate the way it has been handled. I think with some look at some of the minor problems that it could still be handled good in this

manner. I think perhaps what I am saying is when something really works maybe that is not the time to make a change.

Mr. RADCLIFFE. Well, it is really not working in your situation. Mr. ROSE. Generally speaking it does, and I would be the first to say that minimum school facilities should not include, we would say, swimming pools. The point I was making was, of course, that there should be a sufficient amount of the local funds available for at least some of the above minimum facilities. And if we go back to look at Public Law 815, it restricts, I believe, in the term "minimum facilities" only to auditoriums and stadiums in which there is a charge made for attendance, and therefore any restrictions that had been placed, such as Mr. Taylor has mentioned is a result of the definition or the criteria defining "minimum facilities" by the administrative agency which is the U.S. Office of Education, and it can well be that some history made along this line may help to change it.

Mr. PERKINS. I think the department, Mr. Rose, has prepared an explanation in connection with minimum facilities, as used in the act and if there is no objection, the data prepared by the department will be inserted in the record at this point.

(The document referred to above is as follows:)

STATEMENT REGARDING THE TERM "MINIMUM SCHOOL FACILITIES" AS USED IN PUBLIC LAW 815

Public Law 815 was enacted September 23, 1950, to provide Federal assistance for the construction of school facilities in areas in which Federal activities have been or are being conducted.

Section 210 (10) of the original act (now sec. 15 (9)) defined school facilities as follows:

"The term 'school facilities' includes classrooms and related facilities; and initial equipment, machinery, and utilities necessary or appropriate for school purposes. Such term does not include athletic stadiums or structures or facilities intended primarily for athletic exhibitions, contests, or games or other events for which admission is to be charged to the general public. Except as used in sections 203 and 204, such term does not include interests in land and off-site improvements."

Under the terms of this original act quoted above, eligible school districts could use the Federal grants to construct any type of school facility desired except those expressly prohibited by the second sentence of section 210(10).

In 1953 there were major changes made in some provisions of Public Law 815 by the passage of Public Law 246, 83d Congress. The changes made at this time included the concept of "minimum school facilities." The act, as amended by Public Law 246, provided that the Federal payment to an eligible school district in no event could exceed the cost of constructing "minimum" school facilities in the district. The following provision was added to section 210 (11) (now sec. 15(10)):

"Whether or not school facilities are minimum school facilities shall be determined by the Commissioner, after consultation with the State and local educational agencies, in accordance with regulations prescribed by him."

The amended act did not define minimum school facilities but congressional intent with respect to the meaning of the term is to be found on page 9 of House Report 702, dated July 3, 1953, which explained the amendments to Public Law 815 made by Public Law 246. This report reads as follows:

"The term 'minimum' school facilities used in the bill (H.R. 6049, 83d Cong., 1st sess.) does not mean that the test to be applied will be one based on the use of inferior materials or on the provisions of inadequate space for the basic school needs of the children ***the term 'minimum' school facilities merely insures against Federal participation in expenditures beyond those needed to conduct an adequate school program, and hence, spreads Federal funds as far as possible to meet adequately the basic needs. Under this concept, the Federal payment to the school districts will be based on the cost of the type of facility which the average school district has in recent years been building out of its own funds."