Bill Text: CT HB06834 | 2015 | General Assembly | Chaptered
Bill Title: An Act Concerning Collaboration Between Boards Of Education And School Resource Officers And The Collection And Reporting Of Data On School-based Arrests.
Spectrum: Committee Bill
Status: (Passed) 2015-06-30 - Signed by the Governor [HB06834 Detail]
Download: Connecticut-2015-HB06834-Chaptered.html
Substitute House Bill No. 6834
AN ACT CONCERNING COLLABORATION BETWEEN BOARDS OF EDUCATION AND SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS AND THE COLLECTION AND REPORTING OF DATA ON SCHOOL-BASED ARRESTS.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:
Section 1. (NEW) (Effective July 1, 2015) Each local or regional board of education that assigns a school resource officer to any school under the jurisdiction of such board shall enter into a memorandum of understanding with a local law enforcement agency or the Division of State Police within the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection regarding the role and responsibility of such school resource officer. Such memorandum of understanding shall include provisions addressing daily interactions between students and school personnel with school resource officers and may include a graduated response model for student discipline. For the purposes of this section, "school resource officer" means a sworn police officer of a local law enforcement agency or a sworn officer of the Division of State Police within the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection who has been assigned to a school pursuant to an agreement between the local or regional board of education and the chief of police of a local law enforcement agency or the commanding officer of the Division of State Police.
Sec. 2. (NEW) (Effective July 1, 2015) (a) As used in this section:
(1) "Student" means a person who is enrolled in a school under the jurisdiction of a local or regional board of education;
(2) "School property" means the real property comprising a public elementary or secondary school under the jurisdiction of a local or regional board of education;
(3) "School day" means the hours in which a school is open to students for regular classroom instruction, intramural or interscholastic athletics, or extracurricular activities;
(4) "School-sponsored event" means any school activity conducted on or off school property regardless of when such school activity is conducted; and
(5) "School-based arrest" means an arrest of a student for conduct of such student on school property or at a school-sponsored event.
(b) The Department of Education shall annually examine data relating to in-school suspensions, out-of-school suspensions, expulsions and school-based arrests that has been submitted as part of the strategic school profile report pursuant to section 10-220 of the general statutes, as amended by this act, and shall disaggregate such data by school, race, ethnicity, gender, age, students with disabilities, English language learners, as defined in section 10-76kk of the general statutes, students who are eligible for free or reduced priced lunch pursuant to federal law and regulations, and type of offense for which the school-based arrests were made and the number of arrests made annually at each school within the school district. The department shall annually submit a report to the State Board of Education regarding the examination and disaggregation of such data and make the report available on the department's Internet web site.
Sec. 3. Subsection (c) of section 10-220 of the general statutes is repealed and the following is substituted in lieu thereof (Effective July 1, 2015):
(c) Annually, each local and regional board of education shall submit to the Commissioner of Education a strategic school profile report for each school under its jurisdiction and for the school district as a whole. The superintendent of each local and regional school district shall present the profile report at the next regularly scheduled public meeting of the board of education after each November first. The profile report shall provide information on measures of (1) student needs, (2) school resources, including technological resources and utilization of such resources and infrastructure, (3) student and school performance, including truancy, in-school suspensions, out-of-school suspensions and expulsions, (4) the number of students enrolled in an adult high school credit diploma program, pursuant to section 10-69, operated by a local or regional board of education or a regional educational service center, (5) equitable allocation of resources among its schools, (6) reduction of racial, ethnic and economic isolation, [and] (7) special education, and (8) school-based arrests, as defined in section 2 of this act. For purposes of this subsection, measures of special education include (A) special education identification rates by disability, (B) rates at which special education students are exempted from mastery testing pursuant to section 10-14q, (C) expenditures for special education, including such expenditures as a percentage of total expenditures, (D) achievement data for special education students, (E) rates at which students identified as requiring special education are no longer identified as requiring special education, (F) the availability of supplemental educational services for students lacking basic educational skills, (G) the amount of special education student instructional time with nondisabled peers, (H) the number of students placed out-of-district, and (I) the actions taken by the school district to improve special education programs, as indicated by analyses of the local data provided in subparagraphs (A) to (H), inclusive, of this subdivision. The superintendent shall include in the narrative portion of the report information about parental involvement and [if] any measures the district has taken [measures] to improve parental involvement, including, but not limited to, employment of methods to engage parents in the planning and improvement of school programs and methods to increase support to parents working at home with their children on learning activities. For purposes of this subsection, measures of truancy include the type of data that is required to be collected by the Department of Education regarding attendance and unexcused absences in order for the department to comply with federal reporting requirements and the actions taken by the local or regional board of education to reduce truancy in the school district. Such truancy data shall be considered a public record, [for purposes of chapter 14] as defined in section 1-200.
Sec. 4. Subsection (c) of section 10-10a of the general statutes is repealed and the following is substituted in lieu thereof (Effective July 1, 2015):
(c) The state-wide public school information system shall:
(1) Track and report data relating to student, teacher and school and district performance growth and make such information available to local and regional boards of education for use in evaluating educational performance and growth of teachers and students enrolled in public schools in the state. Such information shall be collected or calculated based on information received from local and regional boards of education and other relevant sources. Such information shall include, but not be limited to:
(A) In addition to performance on state-wide mastery examinations pursuant to subsection (b) of this section, data relating to students shall include, but not be limited to, (i) the primary language spoken at the home of a student, (ii) student transcripts, (iii) student attendance and student mobility, (iv) reliable, valid assessments of a student's readiness to enter public school at the kindergarten level, and (v) data collected, if any, from the preschool experience survey, described in section 10-515;
(B) Data relating to teachers shall include, but not be limited to, (i) teacher credentials, such as master's degrees, teacher preparation programs completed and certification levels and endorsement areas, (ii) teacher assessments, such as whether a teacher is deemed highly qualified pursuant to the No Child Left Behind Act, P. L. 107-110, or deemed to meet such other designations as may be established by federal law or regulations for the purposes of tracking the equitable distribution of instructional staff, (iii) the presence of substitute teachers in a teacher's classroom, (iv) class size, (v) numbers relating to absenteeism in a teacher's classroom, and (vi) the presence of a teacher's aide. The department shall assign a unique teacher identifier to each teacher prior to collecting such data in the public school information system;
(C) Data relating to schools and districts shall include, but not be limited to, (i) school population, (ii) annual student graduation rates, (iii) annual teacher retention rates, (iv) school disciplinary records, such as data relating to suspensions, expulsions and other disciplinary actions, (v) the percentage of students whose primary language is not English, (vi) the number of and professional credentials of support personnel, [and] (vii) information relating to instructional technology, such as access to computers, and (viii) disaggregated measures of school-based arrests pursuant to section 2 of this act.
(2) Collect data relating to student enrollment in and graduation from institutions of higher education for any student who had been assigned a unique student identifier pursuant to subsection (b) of this section, provided such data is available.
(3) Develop means for access to and data sharing with the data systems of public institutions of higher education in the state.