PROVIDENCE — By the end of the General Assembly’s legislative session, lawmakers had approved 91 education bills, among them changes to school-construction regulations, an increase in the age when students can drop out of school, and a requirement that high schools provide healthful snack and drink machines.

But it was the battle over a proposed 3-percent increase in state school aid that dominated lawmakers’ education discussions in the closing days of the session. The battle was one of the General Assembly’s most heated, with financially strapped districts protesting the cuts and lawmakers recommending that districts cover the drop in expected aid by working with teacher unions to reduce costs, such as teacher benefits.

In the end, lawmakers eliminated the $19.4-million increase in aid that Governor Carcieri had proposed. Now districts that were relying on an increase in state aid — such as Providence, which lost $8 million in the budget battle — are facing sizable shortfalls.

At a meeting hosted last week by the Rhode Island Association of School Committees, school administrators and school committee members discussed various strategies, including the possibility of school committees suing their home communities for more money under the state’s Caruolo Act.

“No one has filed a lawsuit yet,” said Tim Duffy, executive director of the association. “School committees and superintendents wanted to share resources about what they are going to do, what programs they were looking at cutting, or layoffs.”

MORE THAN 400 education bills were introduced at the State House this year.

Lawmakers approved new regulations that hold districts more accountable for construction and maintenance of school buildings. The state Department of Education will hire three new compliance officers — an engineer, an architect and a facility maintenance specialist, for a total of $300,000 — to work with districts to oversee projects, said Carolyn Dias, finance director for the department.

The department also received $1.1 million to roll out a more precise, consistent system to track district spending, called a “uniform chart of accounts.” The system must be in place if educators and lawmakers want to determine how money is being spent and to calculate a statewide school-financing formula, a project lawmakers have been working on for two years.

Students in grades 7 through 12 will now be required to learn about dating violence, due to the passing of the Lindsay Ann Burke Act. Burke, 23, of Warwick, was killed by an ex-boyfriend in 2005. All districts must offer lessons about sexual harassment and domestic abuse in middle and high school health classes, as some schools already do.

In a move designed to cut down on transportation costs, districts may now use vans, SUVs and small buses to transport students, rather than full-size school buses. The vehicles must have safety features and drivers must receive special licenses.

“It doesn’t make sense — economically or environmentally — to use a bus for sixty-six children to transport six,” said Sen. John J. Tassoni, Jr., D-Smithfield. “Yet in Rhode Island today, school districts must, by law, use the big buses.… Enacting this legislation is going to save our school systems a considerable amount of money.”

The dropout age was increased to 17, up from 16, and the law provides for struggling students to receive more help. Currently, about 2,000 students a year drop out of school.

Another new law requires high schools to follow the same healthful food and drink standards as elementary and middle schools, such as offering low-fat milk and 100-percent fruit juice instead of soft drinks.

Less clear is the future of the proposal to establish a statewide school financing formula. After months of studies and hearings, a proposal designed to both relieve tax pressure on property owners and allocate more money for at-risk students stalled. The state would gradually assume a greater share of education costs, although the proposal did not specify a new tax or income-generating mechanism, which would probably be needed to make the shift. The House Finance Committee said it needed more time to study the issue, and announced a study committee to continue the project.

“Education funding has been one of the most contentious budget issues in Rhode Island every year for decades,” said Rep. Steven M. Costantino, D-Providence, in a statement. “If we are going to make major changes to the way we determine communities’ aid to education, we should make sure we’re doing it properly.”

HIGHER EDUCATION officials said they were pleased that lawmakers restored $1.7 million that will update the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system at the Community College of Rhode Island’s Lincoln campus, and that they added $400,000 for dual-enrollment programs that enable low-income high school juniors and seniors to take college-level courses and earn college credit.

Lawmakers also approved the creation of a research foundation at the University of Rhode Island — a critical step for the university to build a research-and-development park on land just north of the Kingston campus.

However, Jack Warner, commissioner of higher education, warned the Board of Governors for Higher Education at a meeting last week that the state’s three public colleges could still receive bad news this summer if Carcieri’s plan to cut 1,000 state workers becomes reality. It is unclear how the cutbacks would affect higher education, Warner said.

Like school districts, the state’s public colleges will have to make do with less state aid in the approved budget.

State colleges must rely even more heavily on tuition and fees, as the state’s investment in higher education continues to shrink. For the 2007-2008 academic year, lawmakers are giving the colleges $2.2 million less than last year, or about $180 million. The state contribution to higher education grew to $197 million for the coming year, but about $17 million is a debt-service transfer, not additional money for the schools, Warner said.

In addition, plans for two new academic buildings at URI have been pushed back for a year. Now money for initial design plans for a proposed chemistry building is budgeted for 2009, and plans for a nursing school have been postponed until 2010, Warner said.

A request for $250,000 to establish a Center for Health Professions that would gather and track data on nurses and work with the colleges that train nurses to address the nursing shortage in Rhode Island failed to pass.

jjordan@projo.com