HB0279

HOUSE BILL 279

53rd legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2017

INTRODUCED BY

James E. Smith and Daniel A. Ivey-Soto

FOR THE LEGISLATIVE EDUCATION STUDY COMMITTEE

AN ACT

RELATING TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS; AMENDING THE PUBLIC SCHOOL CODE TO REQUIRE SCHOOL DISTRICTS AND STATE-CHARTERED CHARTER SCHOOLS TO PUBLISH THEIR RESPECTIVE ANNUAL REPORT CARDS ON THE WEBSITES OF THE PUBLIC EDUCATION DEPARTMENT AND THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OR STATE-CHARTERED CHARTER SCHOOL.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:

SECTION 1. Section 22-2C-11 NMSA 1978 (being Laws 2003, Chapter 153, Section 20, as amended by Laws 2015, Chapter 58, Section 11 and by Laws 2015, Chapter 122, Section 10) is amended to read:

"22-2C-11. ASSESSMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM REPORTING--PARENT SURVEY--DATA SYSTEM--FISCAL INFORMATION.--

A. The department shall:

(1) issue a state identification number for each public school student for use in the accountability data system;

(2) adopt the format for reporting individual student assessments to parents. The student assessments shall report each student's progress and academic needs as measured against state standards;

(3) adopt the format for reporting annual progress of public schools, school districts, state-chartered charter schools and the department. A school district's report shall include reports of all locally chartered charter schools in the school district. If the department has adopted a state improving schools program, the annual accountability report shall include the results of that program for each public school. The annual accountability report format shall be clear, concise and understandable to parents and the general public. All annual accountability reports shall ensure that the privacy of individual students is protected;

(4) require that when public schools, school districts, state-chartered charter schools and the state disaggregate and report school data for demographic subgroups, they include data disaggregated by ethnicity, race, limited English proficiency, students with disabilities, poverty and gender; provided that ethnicity and race shall be reported using the following categories:

(a) Caucasian, non-Hispanic;

(b) Hispanic;

(d) American Indian or Alaska Native;

(e) Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander;

(f) Asian;

(g) two or more races; and

(h) other; provided that if the sample of students in any category enumerated in Subparagraphs

(a) through (g) of this paragraph is so small that a student in the sample may be personally identifiable in violation of the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, the report may combine that sample into the "other" category;

(5) report cohort graduation data annually for the state, for each school district and for each

state-chartered charter school and each public high school, based on information provided by all school districts and state-chartered charter schools according to procedures established by the department; provided that the report shall include the number and percentage of students in a cohort who:

(a) have graduated by August 1 of the fourth year after entering the ninth grade;

(b) have graduated in more than four years, but by August 1 of the fifth year after entering ninth grade;

(c) have received a state certificate by exiting the school system at the end of grade twelve without having satisfied the requirements for a high school diploma as provided in Section 22-13-1.1 NMSA 1978 or completed all course requirements but have not passed the graduation assessment or portfolio of standards-based indicators pursuant to Section 22-13-1.1 NMSA 1978;

(d) have dropped out or whose status is unknown;

(e) have exited public school and indicated an intent to pursue a high school equivalency credential; or

(f) are still enrolled in public school;

(6) report annually, based on data provided by school districts and state-chartered charter schools, the number and percentage of public school students in each cohort in the state in grades nine through twelve who have advanced to the next grade or graduated on schedule, who remain enrolled but have not advanced to the next grade on schedule, who have dropped out or whose other educational outcomes are known to the department; and

(7) establish technical criteria and procedures to define which students are included or excluded from a cohort.

B. Local school boards and governing boards of charter schools may establish additional indicators through which to measure the school district's or charter school's performance.

C. The school district's or state-chartered charter school's annual accountability report shall include a report of four- and five-year graduation rates for each public high school in the school district or state-chartered charter school. All annual accountability reports shall ensure that the privacy of individual students is protected. As part of the graduation rate data, the school district or state-chartered charter school shall include data showing the number and percentage of students in the cohort:

(1) who have received a state certificate by exiting the school system at the end of grade twelve without having satisfied the requirements for a high school diploma as provided in Section 22-13-1.1 NMSA 1978 or completed all course requirements but have not passed the graduation assessment or portfolio of standards-based indicators pursuant to Section 22-13-1.1 NMSA 1978;

(2) who have dropped out or whose status is unknown;

(3) who have exited public school and indicated an intent to pursue a high school equivalency credential;

(4) who are still enrolled; and

(5) whose other educational outcomes are known to the school district.

D. The school district's or state-chartered charter school's annual accountability report shall include the results of a survey of parents' views of the quality of their children's school. The survey shall be conducted each year in time to include the results in the annual accountability report. The survey shall compile the results of a written questionnaire that shall be sent home with the students to be given to their parents. The survey may be completed anonymously. The survey shall be no more than one page, shall be clearly and concisely written and shall include not more than twenty questions that shall be answered with options of a simple sliding scale ranging from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree" and shall include the optional response "don't know". The survey shall also include a request for optional written comments, which may be written on the back of the questionnaire form. The questionnaire shall include questions in the following areas:

(1) parent-teacher-school relationship and communication;

(2) quality of educational and extracurricular programs;

(3) instructional practices and techniques;

(4) resources;

(5) school employees, including the school principal; and

(6) parents' views of teaching staff expectations for the students.

E. The department shall develop no more than ten of the survey questions, which shall be reviewed by the legislative education study committee prior to implementation. No more than five survey questions shall be developed by the local school board or governing body of a state-chartered charter school, and no more than five survey questions shall be developed by the staff of each public school; provided that at least one-half of those questions shall be developed by teachers rather than school administrators, in order to gather information that is specific to the particular community surveyed. The questionnaires shall indicate the public school site and shall be tabulated by the department within thirty days of receipt and shall be returned to the respective schools to be disseminated to all parents.

F. The school district's or state-chartered charter school's annual accountability report shall be adopted by the local school board or governing body of the state-chartered charter school, shall be published no later than November 15 of each year and shall be published at least once each school year [in a newspaper of general circulation in the county where the school district or state-chartered charter school is located] online on the department's website and on the website of the school district or state-chartered charter school. In publication, the report shall be titled "The School District Report Card" or "The Charter School Report Card" and disseminated in accordance with guidelines established by the department to ensure effective communication with parents, students, educators, local policymakers and business and community organizations.

G. The annual accountability report shall include the names of those members of the local school board or the governing body of the charter school who failed to attend annual mandatory training.

H. The annual accountability report shall include data on expenditures for central office administration and expenditures for the public schools of the school district or charter school.

I. The department shall create an accountability data system through which data from each public school and each school district or state-chartered charter school may be compiled and reviewed. The department shall provide the resources to train school district and charter school personnel in the use of the accountability data system.

J. The department shall verify data submitted by the school districts and state-chartered charter schools.

K. At the end of fiscal year 2005, after the budget approval cycle, the department shall produce a report to the legislature that shows for all school districts using performance-based program budgeting the relationship between that portion of a school district's program cost generated by each public school in the school district and the budgeted expenditures for each public school in the school district as reported in the district's performance-based program budget. At the end of fiscal year 2006 and subsequent fiscal years, after the budget approval cycle, the department shall report on this relationship in all public schools in all school districts in the state.

L. When all public schools are participating in performance-based budgeting, the department shall recommend annually to the legislature for inclusion in the general appropriation act the maximum percentage of appropriations that may be expended in each school district for central office administration.

M. The department shall disseminate its statewide accountability report to school districts and charter schools; the governor, legislators and other policymakers; and business and economic development organizations.

N. As used in this section, "cohort" means a group of students who enter grade nine for the first time at the same time, plus those students who transfer into the group in later years and minus those students who leave the cohort for documented excusable reasons."

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