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1998 SESSION

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HB 431 Excellence in public schools.

Introduced by: W. W. Bennett, Jr. | all patrons    ...    notes | add to my profiles

SUMMARY:

Excellence in public schools. Requires the Board of Education to strive to incorporate technological studies within the teaching of all disciplines and to require each school division to strive to establish a voice mail communication system after regular school hours for parents, families, and teachers by 2000. The remedial standards statute is amended to require reporting of data on the number of students failing the SOL assessments for grades 3, 5, and 8 to the Board of Education as well as reporting of the number of such students attending remediation programs. Standard 1 of the SOQ is amended to require the Board of Education to regularly review and revise the competencies for vocational education programs to require the full integration of English, mathematics, science and social studies SOLs. Occupational vocational programs must be aligned with industry and professional standard certification, where these standards exist. The requirement for local school boards to have programs for educationally at-risk students would include the students who fail to achieve passing scores on SOL tests in grades 3, 5, and 8 and high school. Students who do not pass the literacy tests or the SOL tests for grades 3, 5, and 8 will be required to attend summer school or other remediation activity. Early identification efforts must include students at risk of failing the SOL tests in grades 3, 5, and 8. Standard 3 of the SOQ is amended to require one credit in fine, performing, or practical arts for a diploma and a concentration of courses. The Department of Education will be required to conduct technical assistance visits to schools, with those schools accredited with a warning given priority for such assistance. The assistance must include an analysis of relevant school data and the development and implementation of improvement plans to assist the schools in improving. School boards are required to biennially review the Board's model student conduct code to incorporate a continuum of discipline options and alternatives. An enactment clause requires school boards with one or more schools with SOL test pass rates below 70 percent to develop a comprehensive corrective action plan with and for each school by 1999-2000. This bill is a recommendation of the Commission on the Future of Public Education.


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