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SB 2 - Technical Correction to Local Tax Caps Passes House
SB 2 addresses the calculation of a local tax cap. The bill provides that for districts adopting a local tax cap under RSA 32:5-b, determination of the amount of local taxes to be assessed and raised for the next year shall not include any fund balance brought forward from the previous year. This bill represents the "permanent fix" to the problem faced earlier this year by the only school district to adopt a tax cap: the Newfound Regional School District. NHSBA worked with legislative leaders to address specific legislation that was adopted for Newfound and offered testimony to support the permanent fix in SB 2, which will ensure any district adopting a local tax cap will not meet with the same problem in the future. The bill has passed both the Senate and House, and now goes to Governor Hassan for her signature.
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HB 142 - Teacher Evaluation Procedures
HB 142 originally sought to affirm that the school board is responsible for the development and adoption of a teacher evaluation system. However, as amended by the House, it requires local boards to adopt a "teacher evaluation and support system to be used in the school district or school for the continual improvement of instruction." Current statutes do not require a "support system", and the term is vague, leaving it open to different interpretation and challenges. At the public hearing before the Senate Health, Education and Human Services Committee, NHSBA provided the only testimony in opposition to this new statutory requirement. Most committee members agreed, and working with NHSBA and the Dept. of Education, adopted revised language for a committee amendment, stating that, "A school board shall adopt, with the involvement of teachers and principals, a teacher evaluation system for use in the school district, consistent with [current statute]." In such local adoption, boards may consider any resources they deem reasonable, including any resources provided by the Department of Education. This language, which NHSBA supports, is scheduled for consideration when the Senate meets next week. Unfortunately, NHSBA has learned there may be an effort to adopt a floor amendment, seeking to add the following language: "Nothing in this paragraph shall supersede collective bargaining rights under RSA 273-A."
ACTION ITEM
Please contact your senator, expressing your support for only the proposed committee amendment, without the possible floor amendment. Current statutes simply require boards to adopt a teacher evaluation policy; there is no requirement relative to a "support system". Furthermore, adding the phrase relative to collective bargaining could lead to some interpretations that districts would need to bargain their evaluation policy, a clear intrusion into management rights.
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HB 305 - Cooperative School Districts with Electric Generation Facilities
HB 305 establishes a committee to study the apportionment formulas for operating and capital costs in cooperative school districts with towns that have electric generation facilities. The committee will study tax obligations and state aid for towns and districts that have electric generation facilities, and how such facilities affect the tax bases of surrounding municipalities. The Senate Education Committee this week unanimously supported the intent/goal of the bill, but voted to recommend amending the bill to make the study committee comprised of only House members. The proposed study committee shall report its findings and any recommendations for proposed legislation on or before November 1, 2013. The bill will go to the full senate for a vote next week.
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Senate Continues Work on State Budget
The Senate continues to review details of the budget as passed by the House, as well as updated revenue estimates. State agencies continue to make presentations on department budget requests, and provide explanations on any updated changes to their needs. The Department of Education is scheduled to make its presentation today, Friday afternoon.
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Senate Bills Get Hearings in House Education
This week, the House Education Committee held public hearings on several bills that have already passed the Senate:
SB 27: monitoring of special education programs. This bill adds a new requirement to the Department of Education to contract with an independent organization to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiencies of the program approval and monitoring systems of programs for children with disabilities. Current law required such monitoring in 2010 and decennially thereafter. This bill adds an evaluation in 2015 and requires a written response to the report that was submitted based on the last evaluation. The Department of Education noted that the bill will increase general fund expenditures, and that two additional employees would be needed to meet the requirements of the proposed bill.
SB 82: develop strategies for competency-based education. This bill establishes a commission for the purpose of identifying strategies needed for developing and implementing a competency-based public education. The 34-member commission is also charged with identifying multiple models and strategies of financing such a system in school districts of various sizes and financial capabilities.
SB 48: school performance and accountability. This bill makes various changes to the statute on school performance and accountability. It repeals local education improvement and assessment plans, and provides definitions for "priority" and "focus" schools (identified in NH's current waiver application), replacing the designation of "in need of improvement". Focus schools have the largest within-school gaps between high and low achieving groups, and priority schools are among the lowest 5% of schools in the state based on the achievement of all students on the statewide assessment. In addition to current performance targets/requirements, the bill specifically includes reference to rules, adopted by the state board, for a) performance on the statewide improvement and assessment program, b) attendance rates, and c) the percentage of pupils who graduate with a diploma.
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HB 260 - Children in Need of Services (CHINS)
HB 260 expands the definition of a child in need of services under RSA 169-D and revises the circumstances under which the court may order various services or placements. The bill also directs the Department of Health and Human Services to collect certain data regarding the CHINS program and provides for the suspension of voluntary services if appropriated funds will be insufficient to support voluntary services for the remainder of the biennium. Unfortunately, the bill also includes overly prescriptive provisions relative to local board truancy policies. NHSBA provided the Senate Health, Education & Human Services Committee with testimony regarding the unnecessary inclusion of additions to the current statutory requirements for school board policies on truancy in RSA 189:34. The bill would require local policies relative to a process for truancy intervention to "consider and document" the effect on a child's attendance of several vague issues, including "poor school climate, poor relations with teachers, and the adequacy of the identification of the child's special education needs."
ACTION ITEM
Please contact your local senator and members of the Senate Health, Education & Human Services Committee to convey your general support for this bill, but opposition to the inclusion of changes to the requirements on school board policy. Documenting the effect could create unintended barriers to provision of needed services, and the additional language on required policy is unnecessarily prescriptive. NHSBA sample policy calls on building administrators to investigate the causes of a student's truant behavior, consider, when appropriate, modification of an educational program, and involvement of the parents. The sample policy also has the following provisions: coordination of truancy prevention strategies, assisting staff to develop site attendance plans, and encouraging adoption of attendance-incentive programs at school sites and individual classrooms. These measures are working. The law was changed in 2010, at which time NHSBA amended its sample policy to reflect the new intervention requirements. Since then, Commissioner Barry has recently reported that there is "... clear evidence that our dropout prevention programs, put in place to complement the increase in the state's compulsory attendance age, are in fact working."
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