| New Business - Curriculum/Learning Support |
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Title: Recommendation: Description: The current advertising fee collected for fee-supported community education classes is $5 per registrant. This fee is used to help offset approximately 50% of the cost of printing and postage for The Palm Beach Community Educator, which is distributed countywide to each household three times per year. The other 50% of the cost is offset by categorical workforce education/adult education dollars. The $5 fee has been in effect for five years. The Educator is distributed to approximately 595,000 households and will increase to approximately 610,000 households by the end of this school year. The number of households continues to increase approximately 3% per year. Workforce education/adult education dollars have been reduced since 1997 and cannot keep up with the growing population of Palm Beach County. These dollars are used to provide the base operation of the adult and community education programs. With reduced funding, there is no vehicle to absorb the rising costs of distributing The Palm Beach Community Educator to all residents. Community schools have used revenue from fee-supported classes to provide K-12 support programs that cannot be funded from categorical workforce education/adult education dollars. Programs funded through this revenue include FCAT remediation, SAT preparation, family literacy, tutoring, study skills, and parenting. The Office of Adult and Community Education and the Assistant Principals for Community Education have broadened the community schools' K-12 outreach to non-community schools by using the 10% indirect funds set aside from fee-supported classes. The Office of Adult and Community Education is, therefore, requesting an increase in the advertising fee to $10. Financial Impact: For Additional Information, contact: Attachments (list):
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