The 2010 legislative session saw several education bills signed into law.
SB 2033 authorizes several reforms including a statewide teacher evaluation system, performance pay initiatives based upon the evaluation system, and other pay initiatives for teachers in hard-to-staff areas and low-performing schools. It also provides a process for dismissing teachers not achieving certain ratings in the evaluation system and payment instructions through the trial de novo process.
SB 2330 creates the Empowered School Districts Act. The act allows school sites, groups of schools, or school districts to submit to the State Board of Education empowerment plans that detail innovations designed to improve school performance and request that certain statutes and rules be waived to accomplish the plan.
HB 2753, also part of the Legislature’s efforts to reform the state’s education system, lifts the cap on the number of charter schools that can be established per year. It also allows a school district which has a school site on the state’s school improvement list to sponsor a charter school. It gives technology centers and comprehensive regional institutions the right to sponsor charter schools if they are within a district that has a school site on the state’s school improvement list. The measure also allows the Office of Juvenile Affairs to operate a charter school for students in the custody of the agency. A similar bill, SB 1862, allows a federally recognized Indian tribe to sponsor a charter school for native language immersion.
SB 509 allows school districts with more than 30,000 average daily membership the option to release teachers from permanent positions at schools identified for school improvement for four consecutive years and employ the teachers as substitutes for two years. If after two years, the districts have not offered the teachers new permanent positions, the districts may release the teachers entirely. It directs the districts to provide training to teachers and states that final decisions of the districts will not be subject to the Teacher Due Process Act.
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