CCS/HCS/HB 1711 - This act generates numerous modifications to the state's education policy.

SECTION 82.293 - This section asserts that, absent explicit statutory authority, the city of Lee's Summit shall not impose a surcharge nor any fee in order to compensate a school district.

SECTION 108.140 - This section allows school districts to use bond proceeds in order to pay expenses relating to the bond issuance.

SECTIONS 160.011, 160.051, 160.530, 161.092 and 166.260 - These sections allow public schools to establish family literacy programs. Additionally, funding for family literacy programs is added to the priority list of "statewide areas of critical need for learning and development". Further, family literacy personnel are made eligible to receive a portion of the funds already allocated to address said statewide areas of critical need for learning and development. Also, these sections allow local boards of education to include family literacy programs in the "child at-risk in education programs" which utilize moneys already distributed to school districts by means of the state aid formula.

The act mandates that, starting in fiscal year 2005, a portion of the state school aid appropriation shall be distributed by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to establish and fund family literacy programs in school attendance centers declared academically deficient or school districts declared unaccredited or provisionally accredited. This amount shall be 1.5% of the total line 14 distribution. DESE will promulgate rules for the distribution of these family literacy funds.

Additionally, the act requires the State Board of Education to make an annual report to the General Assembly and the Governor concerning coordination with other agencies and departments of government that support family literacy programs.

Further, this section asserts that the Board of Education shall grant provisional teaching certification to persons with a valid teaching certificate from another state who meet certain criteria.

SECTION 160.518 - This section expresses that the State Board of Education shall identify or, if necessary, establish one or more developmentally appropriate alternate assessments for students who receive special educational services. Any student who receives special educational services shall be assessed by an alternate assessment upon a determination by the student's individualized education program team that such alternate assessment is more appropriate to assess the student's knowledge, skills and competencies than the current assessment. The alternative assessment shall evaluate the student's independent living skills and how well the student meets standards for personal independence.

SECTION 160.720 - This section asserts that the Governor will recognize schools (as identified by DESE) that demonstrate high student achievement and designate such institutions as 'performance' schools. Said performance schools (or districts) will be eligible for waivers of certain administrative rules that result in a meaningful reduction in administrative burden.

DESE will identify as 'priority' those schools, or school districts, that are either: academically deficient; unaccredited; provisionally accredited; or not meeting any of the accreditation standards on student performance based upon the statewide assessment system. In order to address these areas of deficiency, the Board of Education of any priority school district will submit an accountability compliance statement to DESE on or before August 15 that: identifies and analyzes areas of deficiency in student performance by school, grade and academic content area; provides a comprehensive strategy for addressing these areas of deficiency; assures disclosure of deficiency areas in the school accountability report card; and annually reviews the sections of the safe schools act that pertain to school discipline and ensure that the school district's policies are consistent with those sections. This act allows the St. Louis city district, which has a desegregation settlement academic improvement plan, to submit that plan for review so that elements that occur in the accountability compliance plan and the desegregation academic improvement plan can be reviewed by DESE to prevent duplication of effort.

The comprehensive strategy for addressing the aforementioned areas of deficiency will include: aligning curriculums to address areas of deficiency; focusing professional development funds on the areas of greatest academic need; establishing school accountability councils; developing a resource reallocation plan for the district while considering the need to implement applicable strategies for the feeder schools of said priority districts; and creating programs to improve teacher and administrator effectiveness. Further, the comprehensive strategies will develop for any student who is not already receiving special education services (and is performing at the lowest level of proficiency in any subject area under the statewide assessment) an individual performance plan in that subject area which will: outline responsibilities for, and be developed by, teachers in consultation with the child's parents, guardian, or other adult responsible for the student's education; and require those students performing at the lowest levels of proficiency in any subject area be provided with additional instruction time and for students in grade 9 to 11 to retake the assessment.

School districts shall include in any program for improvement of teacher and administrator effectiveness policies that require participation in one of several professional development programs listed in the act. One additional year of intensive professional development assistance shall be offered to teachers and administrators who do not complete or make adequate progress in said professional development activities. The act exempts certain individuals from this process.

Any resource reallocation plan must include at least one of the following elements: reduction in class size for areas of academic concern; establishment of full-day kindergarten or preschool programs; establishment of after-school, tutoring and other programs offering extended time for learning; employment of national board-certified teachers or regional resource teachers, along with appropriate salary enhancements for such teachers; establishment of programs of teacher home visitation; or the creation of "school within a school" programs to achieve smaller learning communities within priority schools.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education will develop a program of administrator mentoring which focuses on the needs of priority schools and priority school districts.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education will withhold state funding to any district until that district submits an accountability compliance statement.

SECTION 163.011 - This section contains modifications to definitions affecting the state school funding formula. This section adds a definition of "district equalized assessed valuation" which averages a district's assessed valuation from the first and second preceding years. The act also modifies the definition of "guaranteed tax base" to include the average of the third and fourth preceding years, instead of basing the amount on only the third preceding year.

SECTION 163.036 - This section provides that a school district (with at least 10% of its assessed valuation owned by a single property owner that is delinquent in property tax payments) may request that the actual assessed valuation of the year for which the taxes are delinquent be adjusted in the calculation of state aid on line 2 of the basic formula calculation to compensate for the assessed valuation of property for which the current year's property tax is delinquent.

This provision is activated by the non-payment of property taxes by March 15 for taxes due the prior December 31 for a single property owner in a school district when commercial and/or personal property assessed valuation exceeds 10% of the total assessed valuation of the school district for the year in which the taxes were due.

SECTION 168.400 - This section states that DESE shall promulgate rules to allow all teacher education students who have been employed for at least two years as teacher assistants to utilize their teacher assistant experience to bypass the practice teaching evaluation and observation process. These rules shall allow the certified teacher working with the teacher assistant to observe and evaluate said teacher assistant's practice teaching.

SECTION 170.014 - This section prescribes that all public schools establish reading programs in kindergarten thru grade three based on scientific research. Such programs shall include the essential components of phonics awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. All new teachers who teach reading in kindergarten thru grade three shall receive adequate training in the aforementioned areas. Such reading programs may include explicit systematic phonics.

This act contains provisions similar to: SCS/HB 1817 (2002); SB 783 (2002); SS/SCS/SB 1059 (2002); SB 1136 (2002); SB 1183 (2002); SB 1246 (2002); SB 1250 (2002) & SB 1256 (2002).
DONALD THALHUBER