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Legislative Bulletin February 26, 2010
A Brief
Summary of Education Issues at the State House
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Legislature on Break
The Legislature took a break this week, and no
hearings or work was scheduled. Activity resumes next week with many hearings,
and both the House and Senate are scheduled to meet Wednesday for votes on
committee recommendations.
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Bill
Requiring "Notice" to Education Support Staff to be voted on by House
HB
1411, requiring notice of the decision against
rehiring to be provided to educational support personnel, will be voted on by
the full House when it meets on Wednesday. Proposed language requires written
notice to education support personnel and non-certified employees of the intent
to continue, or not, that employment into the next school year. Such
notification may also contain "special circumstances as defined by the
employer". There is NO COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION since the committee vote was
tied at 10-10.
Without a committee recommendation, the House will be provided two
statements, one in support of the bill and one in opposition. NHSBA opposes
this bill since it interferes with local policy and bargaining matters by mandating
written notice to education support personnel and non-certified employees, a
significant change in local employee/employer labor relations and an intrusion
into local control issues. It also provides a vague reference to "special
circumstances" that may be included in the notice, leaving this subject to
possible different interpretations.
Please make sure your local legislators are aware of your position on this important bill. ______________________________________________________________________________
Mandatory School Board
Training Bill to be voted on by Senate
SB
372, requiring school board members to receive a
minimum of 6 hours of annual training, will be considered by the full Senate
when it meets in session on Wednesday. The recommendation for the bill is
interim study. Refer for Interim Study is a committee report used in the
second year of a session. A report may be submitted with findings and
recommendations, but any legislative recommendation/proposal would have to be
submitted as new legislation next year.
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Public Hearing on Proposed Suspension of Building Aid - March 2,
2010
SB
486, prohibiting the Department of Education from
making any building aid grants for projects approved on or after June 30, 2010
until June 30, 2012, will have a public hearing before the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday, March 2nd at 10:15 in room 103 of the
Legislative Office Building (LOB). This bill is in direct conflict with the
NHSBA resolution that was adopted unanimously at the January 2010 Delegate
Assembly: "The NHSBA supports the full and traditional funding, by the NH
Legislature and the Governor, of State Building Aid, a program that has
effectively created local and state partnerships in financing school building
improvements that benefit all students of New Hampshire, and which should be
considered a significant part of fulfilling the State's Constitutional duty to
provide an adequate education to all children."
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School Accountability System
The Task Force to Develop a Performance-Based Accountability System met last week to
review components of the new NH Accountability System, considering proposals
for the design of the performance based accountability system, as well as
hearing about progress on implementing School Accountability Site Visits as
required under the Adequate Education statute. (By FY 2013, annual site visits
to 10% of NH's schools will be required, with the purpose of auditing the
input-based reports of how each school meets the requirements of providing the
opportunity for an adequate education.)
There are two approaches for demonstrating
that a school is providing the opportunity for an adequate education: an "Input
System" based on school approval standards, and a "Performance System", which
the Task Force is currently considering and scheduled to make recommendations
on. Their discussion of a performance system focused on a possible two-level
approach: one level consisting of a limited set of common indicators and a second
level that would be locally determined indicators. Level one indicators could
include state data such as test participation rates, NECAP scores,
attendance/truancy data and graduation/dropout rates. The second level of data
could be a limited set of locally determined goals, or targets, as indicators.
These would be identified locally and incorporated into the performance
measurement system for that school/district.
These discussions are still preliminary and
the Task Force is continuing its review. There are on-going discussions as to
whether the second level of locally determined indicators should be optional or
required. If required, schools would have to provide a rationale for selecting
the goal, how it leads to improving student achievement, and how it can be
measured. The Task Force is scheduled to meet again on April 2. An interim
report is due in April, and a final report in November 2010.
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Pupil Safety and Violence Prevention
Act - HB 1523
HB
1523 revises the statute on pupil safety and
violence prevention to include harassment, intimidation, bullying, and
cyberbullying. The House Education Committee has voted 19-1 to recommend an
amended version of the bill that will be considered by the House sometime in
March.
The proposed revision broadly defines
bullying: "Bullying, harassment, or intimidation in schools has historically
included actions shown to be motivated by a pupil's actual or perceived race,
color, religion, national origin, ancestry or ethnicity, sexual orientation,
socioeconomic status, age, physical, mental, emotional, or learning disability,
gender, gender identity and expression, obesity, or other distinguishing
personal characteristics, or based on association with any person identified in
any of the above categories." This is then related to a further statement
that, "Bullying, harassment, or intimidation shall also include actions shown
to be motivated by an imbalance of power, based on a pupil's actual or
perceived characteristics, behaviors, or beliefs, or motivated by the pupil's
association with another person and based on the other person's
characteristics, behaviors, or beliefs." Cyberbullying is incorporated into
the bill, defined as, "...conduct ... undertaken through the use of electronic
devices."
School boards will be required to adopt
written policies prohibiting bullying, harassment, intimidation, and
cyberbullying, involving pupils, parents, and the community in the development
of the policy. Furthermore, the bill lists fourteen components that are
required of the policy, including procedures for reporting cases and providing
notification to the parents/guardians of victims and perpetrators, written
procedures for subsequent investigations, and requirements for principals to
develop a response to remediate any incident, impose discipline, reduce the
risk of future incidents, and recommend strategies for protecting pupils from
retaliation. School districts are also required to annually report
substantiated incidents of bullying, harassment, intimidation, or cyberbullying
to the department of education, which will prepare annual summary reports.
Finally, districts must provide educational training programs in support of
their efforts to reduce and prevent bullying. Such training will be required
within six months of the adoption of the bill, and annually thereafter, for
school employees, regular school volunteers, parents, legal guardians, relative
caretakers, or employees of a company under contract to a school who have significant
contact with pupils.
NHSBA
supports this bill with reservations. Though NHSBA supports efforts to curb
bullying in schools, the definition contained in the bill is very broad and
potentially vague, and the bill includes many mandatory components of policy,
which has been traditionally under the purview of local school boards.
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Senate Public & Municipal Affairs
Committee to hear bills on budget limits and spending caps
SB 487,
relative to charter limitations on the growth of budgets and taxes and to the
validity of certain city and town charter provisions, and SB 488, relative to the adoption of local spending caps, are
scheduled for public hearings before the Senate Public and Municipal Affairs Committee on Thursday, March 4, at 9:30 and 9:45 am
respectively.
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For the complete text of any bill,
go to the general court web site and enter the bill number, e.g. HB1523, SB405 or CACR27, and
make sure the Session Year is 2010.
For more information on specific legislation, please call
Dean Michener, NHSBA Director of Governmental Affairs at 603-228-2061, or email: [email protected].
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Dean Michener
NHSBA Director of Governmental Affairs
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