Topeka ? Legislators are considering a bill to change how school districts determine which students are at risk of failing and to ensure that funds are specifically allocated to help them.

However, school officials said Wednesday the legislation would limit local decisions on how to spend money and which students to assist.

“This is a huge policy shift,” Diane Gjerstad, lobbyist for the Wichita district, told the House Education Committee.

State law now defines “at-risk” students as those eligible for free lunches. Legislators adopted the definition in 1992 because education officials said research showed such students had a higher risk of failure.

A bill by Rep. Jim Yonally would expand the definition to include juvenile offenders or those who are pregnant, have failed a class, have been absent 50 percent of the time or are addicted to drugs or alcohol.

Districts now receive an additional $386 in state aid for each at-risk pupil if they have an assistance program approved by the State Board of Education.

“I’m trying to get a little more money into the system to help students,” said Yonally, R-Overland Park.

As written, however, the bill requires no additional state dollars, because most of the students it would cover already qualify for free lunches, according to the Kansas State Department of Education.

Gjerstad said Wichita, like other districts, pools its aid for at-risk students to provide all-day kindergarten, alternative high schools and special programs for schools struggling to meet achievement goals. The district is seeing results in testing, especially at the elementary level, she said.

“The number of kids that are proficient in second grade for writing is so high that they may have to revamp the test,” she said.

In the Kansas City district, where 77 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, programs are provided to boost all students’ achievement, superintendent Ray Daniels told the committee.

Changing the criteria would mean the district would have to find millions of dollars to continue those programs or develop others.

“In either case, the students whom this bill is designed to serve would be the losers,” Daniels said.

Yonally said his bill also would address some concerns in a Shawnee County judge’s preliminary order declaring that the state’s school finance formula is constitutionally flawed.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has proposed increasing aid to districts per at-risk student from the current $386 to $1,028 over the course of three years, and funding all-day kindergarten for schools with high concentrations of poor students.

Gjerstad said that proposal would permit the Wichita district to reallocate existing at-risk funds.