Session Year 2011, Special Session 1

Bill Name: SF0011

Relating to education; providing for policy and funding for family, adult,
and
prekindergarten through grade 12 education

ARTICLE 1 - GENERAL
EDUCATION

Exempting proceeds from mineral leases received by the state that
are generated from school trust lands from a requirement that 20 percent of
those payments be deposited into the minerals management account; removing the
permanent school fund from the list of funds that receive a distribution from
the minerals management account; establishing a minimum number of hours for
student instruction; redirecting early graduation savings from a school district
to the early graduation achievement scholarship program for participating
students; creating the early graduation achievement scholarship program;
creating the early graduation military service award program; allowing a school
district that is participating in the Q Comp program to use up to 2 percent of
its general revenue for staff development purposes; clarifying that a school
board may continue to carry on specific staff development activities if it
chooses to implement a staff development plan; eliminating an exception for
staff development revenue uses; clarifying a school board that voluntarily
continues to implement a staff development plan must continue to report the
results of its staff development activities; requiring the commissioner of
education to include charter schools as a type of school district for purposes
of defining school districts; including small school revenue as a category of
general education revenue; increasing the basic formula allowance; increasing
the extended time revenue; creating a new component of general education revenue
called small schools revenue for school districts and charter schools with fewer
than 1,000 pupil units; delinking compensatory revenue from the basic formula
allowance; delinking secondary sparsity revenue from the formula allowance;
delinking elementary sparsity revenue from the formula allowance; expanding the
sparsity revenue grandfather so that it covers sparsity revenue decreases caused
by neighboring school districts decisions to close or relocate school
facilities; lowering the operating capital levy by increasing the equalizing
factor; expanding the uses of operating capital revenue to include the costs
associated with leasing vehicles and the costs directly associated with closing
a school facility; reallocating general education revenue for all-day
kindergarten and prekindergarten; including the early graduation payments in the
general education aid open and standing appropriation; eliminating the
maintenance of effort provision that requires districts to set aside a portion
of the safe school levy proceeds to pay for school counselors and other school
professionals and to maintain amounts expended on employer services or
equivalent numbers of full-time employees; modifying the distribution of
permanent school fund revenue from the resident pupils in each school district
to the pupils served by each school district; eliminating provisions
transferring the aid offset portion of the taconite production money to cities
and towns located within the taconite relief area; removing the redirection of
taconite production revenue from school districts to cities and towns located
within the taconite relief area; qualifying independent school district #356,
Lancaster for additional sparsity revenue under to reflect independent school
district #2171, Kittson Central school district closure of the Kennedy
elementary school; qualifying independent school district #118 Northland
Community Schools for additional sparsity revenue to reflect the closing of the
Longville elementary school; adjusting school district equalizing factors and
statutory tax rates to adjust for any changes in tax capacity; appropriating
money to the commissioner of education for general education aid programs,
enrollment options transportation, abatement revenue, consolidation transition,
nonpublic pupil education aid, nonpublic pupil transportation, independent
school district #690 Warroad to operate the Angle Inlet school, the compensatory
revenue pilot project, the compensatory formula pilot project aid; appropriating
money to the department of natural resources (DNR) for minerals management
activities on school trust fund lands; repealing the repeal of the taconite
production tax offset against general education revenue and reinstates the
general education aid subtraction; repealing the staff development set-aside,
the January 15 late contract deadline penalty and training and experience
revenue

ARTICLE 2 - ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

Allowing a school board to conduct
meetings using interactive technology with an audio and visual link if the board
complies with other requirements governing meetings of local units of
government; requiring the education commissioner to revise and align the state
academic standards and graduation requirements consistent with the statutorily
established review cycle and rulemaking requirements; reducing by one school
year the period during which an alternative to passing the math GRAD test is in
effect so that the math GRAD exception applies for students graduating in any
school year from the 2009-2010 through the 2012-2013 school year; requiring the
education commissioner to establish high school assessments for students
entering grade 8 and to provide information on college and career readiness and
meet federal accountability requirements; requiring the commissioner to
establish and administer a high school reading and writing exam at the end of
grade 10; requiring all general education students to demonstrate proficiency in
both reading and writing to graduate from high school; requiring the
commissioner to establish statewide end-of-course exams in high school algebra
and biology; requiring the commissioner to expand the assessment advisory
committee to include assessment experts and practitioners from secondary and
postsecondary education systems and other stakeholders to monitor the
implementation of and student outcomes and state support available to school
districts under this subdivision, requiring the committee to report annually by
a certain date to the commissioner and the legislature; providing for a district
and charter school and school district grading system and school recognition
program; preventing teachers from striking or pursuing interest arbitration on
an issue related to their total compensation when a school board offers its
teachers a biennial employment contract that includes a percentage increase in
their total compensation that at least equals the percentage increase in basic
revenue; defining total compensation for teachers when the school board and the
exclusive representative of the teachers fail to agree to a total compensation
amount by September 1 of an even-numbered year; defining teachers to include
classroom teachers; eliminating requirements for the transitional planning year
applicable to school districts, charter schools, and intermediate districts
interested in participating in Q-Comp; requiring participating districts,
charter schools, and intermediate districts to have a pay system agreement that
awards compensation increases based on district-wide measures of student
achievement that use longitudinal data and locally selected measures of student
learning aligned with the curriculum, data from parent surveys, an annual
evaluation by a trained school administrator and other highly reliable
research-based performance measures and objective evaluations that include
multiple criteria and are conducted by a trained local evaluation team;
eliminating provisions requiring that a charter school application to
participate in Q-Comp include a record indicating that at least 70 percent of
the charter school teachers agree to implement Q-Comp unless the charter school
submits another alternative professional pay system agreement before the first
year of the school operation; eliminating provisions to school sites in
describing a standard Q-Comp application process; giving local school boards the
ability to determine the identity and number of vendors of federal 403(b)
service-based retirement plans for school employees instead of having the
determination made as part of the collective bargaining agreement between the
school board and the exclusive representative of the teachers; including an
annual evaluation of school principals in the list of duties a school
superintendent is required to perform; making a student attending a persistently
low-performing school located in a city of the first class for one school year
and whose family income does not exceed 175 percent of poverty eligible to
enroll in a nonpublic school under this section or in a nonresident school
district or program under the open enrollment law; defining persistently
low-performing school to mean a school located in a city of the first class
where, for at least the past three school years, more than 40 percent of the
students scored at the does not meet standards level on the reading or math MCA,
more than 50 percent of students demonstrate growth in reading or math that is
either not proficient with either low or medium growth or proficient with low
growth, or 50 percent or more of secondary school students do not receive a
passing score on the first administration of the reading, math, or writing GRAD
test; requiring an eligible nonpublic school under this section to comply with
gender equity requirements in athletic programs and the state human rights act,
accommodate students under the American with Disabilities Act, adopt an
antidiscrimination and harassment and violence prevention policy and an
anti-intimidation and bullying policy, submit data to the commissioner for the
school report card, accept students on a random basis except for sibling
preference, notify the commissioner of its intent to participate and administer
statewide reading and math tests to students enrolled under this section;
requiring the commissioner to ensure that participating nonpublic schools
comply; requiring the commissioner to make quarterly payments to the parent or
guardian of a student enrolled in a nonpublic school; making the resident school
district responsible for transportation within the district borders for a
student enrolled in a nonpublic school; requiring the state to pay the nonpublic
school for the costs of administering statewide tests; requiring a participating
nonpublic school to provide a procedure for parents and adult students to review
instructional materials and to exempt students from instructional materials that
are objectionable; requiring a participating nonpublic school annually by
November 15 to submit a financial audit of the preceding school year to the
commissioner, requiring the commissioner to publish a list of participating
nonpublic schools; replacing integration revenue with innovation levy revenue;
precluding teachers from requesting interest arbitration; allowing a school
board and the exclusive representative of the teachers to meet and negotiate and
enter into an employment contract between March 15 and October 15 in an
odd-numbered year; prohibiting teachers from striking; implementing a
performance-based evaluation system for principals; requiring the education
commissioner and the associations of elementary and secondary school principals
to submit a written report and all the group papers to the legislature by a
certain date; requiring the education commissioner to convene a stakeholder
group to advise the commissioner on developing a plan to implement the school
and district grading system; requiring the education commissioner to recommend
to the legislature fiscal mandates that could be waived to give greater
financial flexibility to schools receiving an "A" grade, schools that improved
at least one letter grade in the school year, and schools improving two or more
letter grades in two school years; requiring the assessment advisory committee
to develop recommendations for alternative methods by for students to meet the
reading and writing exam requirement, to develop recommendations for alternative
methods by which students satisfy the high school algebra and biology
requirements and demonstrate college and career readiness and to consider CLEP,
the ACT, the SAT, or Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams
and to develop recommendations for the administrative structure, criteria, and
processes for implementing a state-level appeals process, requiring the
assessment advisory committee to submit its recommendations to the education
commissioner and the legislature; requiring a district, intermediate district,
or charter school with an approved Q-Comp plan to submit a new application to
the education commissioner by a certain date to comply with a statewide teacher
appraisal and evaluation structure; repealing provisions establishing a January
15 teacher contract deadline and state aid penalty for failing to meet that
deadline and the provision establishing the conditions under which teachers may
strike and provisions
governing integration revenue

ARTICLE 3 - SPECIAL
EDUCATION

Prohibiting the education commissioner from adopting new special
education rules or amending existing special education rules without specific
legislative authority; modifying third-party reimbursement for children enrolled
in medical assistance or MinnesotaCare, directing a school district to provide
an initial and then annual notice to the parent of a child with disabilities of
the district intent to seek reimbursement from medical assistance or
MinnesotaCare for the individualized education program health-related services
that the district provides to the child; requiring annual written notice to
inform the parent of the right to withdraw consent for the district to disclose
information in the record of the child about the health-related services the
district provided to the child, including consent that the parent gave as part
of an application process for any public assistance program that may result in
the parent being eligible for medical assistance or MinnesotaCare; allowing a
school district receiving third-party reimbursements to use the payments for
individualized education program health-related services the district provides
or to help enrolled students with individualized education programs or
individual family service plans; allowing a school district to disclose
information contained in individualized education program, consistent with state
and federal data practices requirements and the consent the parent gave as part
of the application for medical assistance or MinnesotaCare; declaring a school
district is not required to provide educational services to a nonresident
student without an individualized education program and without a tuition
arrangement or agreement from the placing authority to pay the education costs;
allowing a parent to submit an application for an eligible child with
disabilities to the Minnesota Academy for the Deaf or the Minnesota Academy for
the Blind for a trial placement, establishing a process for approving the trial
placement, allocating responsibilities between the State Academies and the
serving school district during the trial placement, directs the academy staff to
meet with the child's parent before the trial placement concludes to determine
if the academy is an appropriate placement; eliminating the regular special
education growth factor effective for revenue for fiscal year 2012 and later;
eliminating the special education excess cost growth factor effective for
revenue for fiscal year 2012 and later; requiring the commissioner of human
services to include on all Minnesota health care program application forms an
authorization for consent from the parent of a child receiving health-related
services through an individualized education program or individual family
service plan to allow the district or other provider of covered services to be
reimbursed by medical assistance or MinnesotaCare; requiring the human services
commissioner to summarize and document district efforts to secure the
reimbursement and request initial and continuing federal waivers of the
requirement to seek payment from a private health plan based on a determination
by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that this requirement is not
cost effective; appropriating money to the commissioner of education for special
education, aid for children with disabilities, travel for home-based services,
special education excess costs, court-placed special education revenue and
special education out-of-state tuition; specifying instructions to the revisor
of statutes

ARTICLE 4 - FACILITIES AND TECHNOLOGIES

Modifying the fixed
standing appropriation for debt service equalization aid to match forecast
amounts and to adjust for changes in the school district aid payment shift;
eliminates alternative facilities aid for fiscal years 2013 and later;
authorizing the school districts that are members of TIES to levy their
proportionate shares to finance improvements at the TIES facility; authorizing a
school district that received a capital loan prior to a certain date to repay
the full outstanding original principal on its capital loan; appropriating money
to the commissioner of education for health and safety revenue, debt service
equalization, alternative facilities bonding aid equity in telecommunications
access and deferred maintenance aid; repealing alternative facilities aid
effective for fiscal year 2013 and later

ARTICLE 5 - NUTRITION AND
ACCOUNTING

Clarifying the reference to the property tax recognition shift for
purposes of repaying school shifts in the event of a state general fund surplus;
modifying the calculation for the property tax recognition shift from net school
levies to gross school levies; requiring the commissioner to schedule the timing
of certain property tax shift reductions as close to the end of the fiscal year
as possible; keeping the school aid payment percentage at 70 for fiscal years
2012 and 2013, restoring the aid payment percentage to 90 for fiscal years 2014
and later; requiring the commissioner of education to schedule the aid
adjustment for fiscal year 2011 attributable to the certain exclusions for the
October 30, 2011 payment; authorizing a school district to transfer any money
from one fund or account to another in fiscal years 2012 and 2013 as long as the
transfer does not increase state aid obligations or increase local property
taxes, excluding transfers from the community service fund or the food service
fund, allowing a school board to approve a fund transfer only after the board
adopts a resolution stating that the transfer will not diminish instructional
opportunities for students; appropriating money to the commissioner of education
for school lunch aid, school breakfast, kindergarten milk and summer food
service replacement aid; repealing the ability of the state to delay school aid
payments in lieu of state short-term borrowing

ARTICLE 6 -
LIBRARIES

Appropriating money to the commissioner of education for the basic
system support, multicounty, multitype library systems, the electronic library
for Minnesota and regional library telecommunication aid

ARTICLE 7 - EARLY
CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Appropriating money to the commissioner of education for
school readiness, early childhood family education (ECFE) aid, health and
developmental screening aid, the head start program, the educate parents
partnership, the kindergarten entrance assessment initiative and intervention
program and early childhood education scholarships

ARTICLE 8 -
PREVENTION

Allowing a school board of a school district with fewer than
10,000 residents to identify a person with a valid Minnesota principal or
superintendent license to serve as the community education director;
appropriating money to the commissioner of education for community education
aid, adults with disabilities program aid, hearing-impaired adults and
school-age care revenue

ARTICLE 9 - SELF-SUFFICIENCY AND LIFELONG
LEARNING

Eliminating the adult basic education aid program growth factor
beginning in fiscal year 2012; appropriating money to the commissioner of
education for adult basic education aid and GED tests

ARTICLE 10 - STATE
AGENCIES

Requiring the commissioner of education to annually report on
student growth and progress toward grade-level proficiency as that proficiency
relates to applicable state standards and the statewide assessments aligned with
those standards; including the number of teachers in each performance
effectiveness rating category, by school site, in the data reported on the
school performance report card; directing a school board to issue a three-year
employment contract and adopt a plan for a written evaluation of probationary
teachers that complies with the teacher evaluation structure; directing a school
board and the exclusive representative of the teachers to collaborate in
establishing a professional development model for probationary teachers that
uses the professional development resources of the district and plans to improve
teaching and learning; declaring that a teacher who satisfactorily completes a
probationary period has a renewable five-year contract, requiring a teacher
termination for cause to comply with statutory parameters; requiring school
districts to use a teacher appraisal framework to make informed decisions about
teacher development and performance, requiring teachers to participate in
ongoing professional development to improve teaching and learning throughout the
employment term, giving a teacher who successfully completes a three-year
probationary period a renewable five-year contract; providing for professional
development and peer coaching for continuing contract teachers; adding teacher
ineffectiveness to the grounds for which a school board may terminate a teacher,
prohibiting a school board from terminating a teacher for ineffectiveness unless
the teacher fails to correct the deficiency within 180 days of receiving notice
of the deficiency; removing provisions prohibiting a negotiated unrequested
leave of absence plan for teachers generally from including provisions that
result in teachers with a provisional license, except a vocational license,
exercising seniority or being reinstated; allowing a superintendent to exempt
from the effects of statutory unrequested leave of absence provisions, those
teachers who are able to provide instruction that similarly licensed teachers
who cannot provide or whose subject area license meets unmet district needs for
student instruction, eliminating provisions allowing a school board to place
probationary teachers on unrequested leave first in the inverse order of their
employment and removing provisions prohibiting a board from placing continuing
contract teachers on unrequested leave while probationary teachers are retained
in positions for which the continuing contract teacher is licensed; directing a
school board to issue a three-year employment contract and adopt a plan for a
written evaluation of probationary teachers that complies with the teacher
evaluation structure;
directing a school board and the exclusive representative
of the teachers to collaborate in establishing a professional development model
for probationary teachers that uses the professional development resources of
the district and plans to improve teaching and learning; requiring school
districts to use a teacher appraisal framework to make informed decisions about
teacher development and performance, requiring teachers to participate in
ongoing professional development to improve teaching and learning throughout the
employment term; establishing an order for discontinuing teachers in a first
class city school district if the school board and the exclusive representative
of the teachers fail to agree to a plan for discontinuing teachers; establishing
a teacher evaluation structure to provide information about teacher
effectiveness for teachers, school districts, and charter schools to use in
developing and improving teacher performance and student learning; requiring
districts and charter schools to use a five-point scale to indicate teacher
performance effectiveness and determine a teacher effectiveness designation for
each teacher who teaches a subject for which statewide assessment results exist;
requiring districts and charter schools to use a five-point scale to indicate a
teacher's performance effectiveness and determine a teacher's effectiveness
designation for each teacher who teaches a subject for which no statewide
assessment results exist; directing districts and charter schools to establish a
four-tier status designation for identifying teachers' effectiveness using
measures of teacher performance and student learning as they relate to meeting
state and local education standards; gives a standard designation to a
probationary teacher who, during the three-year probationary period, receives at
least one average, effective or highly effective rating from the employing
district or charter school and meets professional development requirements; give
an advanced designation to a licensed teacher who receives an average, effective
or highly effective rating in four out of each five-year employment period and
meets professional development requirements; gives a distinguished rating to a
teacher who receives a highly effective rating in three years out of a five-year
employment period and meets professional development requirements; gives an
exemplary rating to a teacher who receives a highly effective rating in seven
years during two consecutive five-year employment periods and meets professional
development requirements; allowing a teacher with a distinguished or exemplary
rating to retain that designation during the remainder of the five-year period
in which the teacher received the designation; declares that a teacher who does
not meet the requirements for a particular status designation receives the next
lower status designation and a teacher who does not meet the requirements for a
standard designation has no status designation; directs the education
department, in consultation with the board of teaching, to assist districts and
charter schools in collecting and aggregating student data needed to implement
this section; allows the department and a district or charter school to enter
into a data sharing agreement where needed, declares that any data on individual
students or teachers that are used to generate summary data under this section
are nonpublic data; directs districts and charter schools to annually report by
August 31 information about their teachers' performance effectiveness ratings
and status designations, their teachers' professional preparation program, their
appraisal framework, and their graduation rate; the education department to
submit a report annually to the legislature analyzing and evaluating summary
data reported under this subdivision to determine the effectiveness of teacher
appraisal systems in improving teaching and learning; directs the department
annually by June 30 to submit summary data on teachers' effectiveness to the
board of teaching and the Minnesota teacher preparation program or institution
responsible for preparing the teachers; removes references to the Perpich Center
for Arts Education from the alternative teacher compensation program; gives a
teacher rated as distinguished an annual 10 percent salary bonus as long as a
teacher retains that rating, gives a teacher rated as exemplary an annual 20
percent salary bonus as long as the teacher retains that rating; allows school
boards to use staff development revenue for teacher training; requires a
district to reserve two percent of its basic revenue for education programs with
the primary purpose of creating and implementing staff development plans and
also allows funds to be used to support challenging instructional activities and
experiences; directs a school board and district administrators to
collaboratively establish a professional development model that uses the
district's available professional development resources and plans to improve
teaching and learning by supporting administrators in shaping the school's
professional environment and developing teacher quality, performance, and
effectiveness; prohibits a school board from entering into an agreement that
limits a superintendent's ability to assign and reassign teachers or
administrators to schools within the district to best meet student and school
needs as determined by the superintendent; allows a school superintendent to
assign teachers rated as highly effective, exemplary, and distinguished to
schools to best meet student and school needs as determined by the
superintendent; creates statutory authority for the Perpich Center to be
re-established as a charter school; dissolves the Perpich Center for Arts
Education; directs districts and charter schools to implement the teacher
appraisal framework; directs the education commissioner to report on the impact
that a culturally, racially, and ethnically diverse teaching faculty has on the
educational outcomes of minority students, requires the study to control for the
level of teachers effectiveness; directs the education commissioner to convene
an advisory task force to make recommendations on implementing the state's
teacher evaluation structure, directs the commissioner to report the task force
recommendations to the legislature by a certain date; appropriating money to the
department of education, board of teaching, Minnesota state academies and
Perpich Center for Arts Education; repealing provisions establishing and
governing the Perpich Center for Arts Education

ARTICLE 11 - FORECAST
ADJUSTMENTS

Adjusting appropriations for fiscal year 2011 to reflect the
February 2011 forecast changes
(je)