SPENCER FANE NEWS

Client Alert - Gov. Nixon Signs Into Law Several Pieces of Education-Related Legislation

Within the last week, Governor Nixon signed into law several pieces of education-related legislation. Among other things, the legislation does the following:

• Requires every school district to adopt a detailed policy on allergy prevention and response by July 1, 2011, with priority given to addressing potentially deadly food-borne allergies.
  
  
• Requires school district discipline policies to prohibit confining a student in an unattended, locked space except for an emergency situation while awaiting the arrival of law enforcement personnel.
  
  
• Requires school districts to adopt a written policy addressing the use of restrictive behavioral interventions as a form of discipline or behavior management technique by July 1, 2011.
  
  
• Creates the Missouri Senior Cadets Program, which provides opportunities for twelfth graders who maintain a 3.0 GPA and plan to attend college to mentor kindergarten through eighth grade students for academic credit.
  
  
• Establishes the School Flex Program, which allows eligible eleventh and twelfth grade students to attend school as few as two instructional hours per school day but still be considered full-time students of the district and be counted in the school’s average daily attendance for state aid purposes.
  
  
• Changes the compulsory attendance age for school district from sixteen to seventeen years of age (or age of successful completion of sixteen credits toward high school graduation).
  
  
• Creates the Persistence to Graduation Fund, under which school districts that have at least sixty percent of students eligible for a free and reduced lunch to apply for grants to implement drop-out prevention strategies.
  
  
• Requires that every public school, including charter schools operated by the board of a school district, to develop standards for teaching by June 30, 2010. The teaching standards must include: having students actively participate and be successful in the learning process; forms of assessment to monitor and manage student learning; having the teacher be prepared and knowledgeable of content and maintain students’ on-task behavior; having the teacher be current on instructional knowledge and explore changes in teaching behavior; and having the teacher act as a responsible professional in the mission of the school.
  
  
• Creates the Volunteer and Parents Incentive Program, under which DESE will reimburse parents or volunteers who donate time at a school in a district that is unaccredited or provisionally accredited, or has a population of at least 50% at risk students as described in the act.
  
  
• Requires DESE to develop and publish “The Parents’ Bill of Rights,” which each school district must provide to a parent upon determining that a student qualifies for an individualized education program and at any such time as the school district is required under state or federal law to provide the parent with notice of procedural safeguards.
  
  
• Allows school districts to maintain permanent records in a digital or electronic format.
  
  
• Creates the Missouri Preschool Plus Grant Program, under which unaccredited school districts and non-sectarian community-based organizations located within unaccredited districts may receive grants to provide preschool services to children who are one to two years away from kindergarten entry, with children of active duty military personnel receiving admission preference.
  
  
• Provides that school districts and charter schools may offer virtual courses to resident or enrolled students and still receive state school funding. For the purposes of calculation and distribution of the funding, attendance of a student enrolled in a district virtual class will equal, upon course completion, 94% of the hours of attendance for the same class delivered in the non-virtual program.
  
  
• Modifies various elementary and secondary education funding formulae, such as changing the definition of “special education pupil count” to include the number of public school students with service plans and eliminating the penalty on a school district that experiences a decrease in summer school average daily attendance of more than 35% from the 2005-06 summer school average daily attendance.
  
  
• Establishes the “Foster Care Education Bill of Rights,” which requires each school district to designate a staff person to be an education liaison for foster care children. The liaison will assist with proper education placements, transferring between schools, ensuring transfer of grades and credits, requesting school records, and submitting school records that have been requested.
  
  
• Requires school districts, beginning with the 2010-11 school year, to ensure that students in elementary schools participate in moderate physical activity, for an average of 150 minutes per week, or 30 minutes per day, for the entire school year and that they are provided a minimum of one recess period of 20 minutes per day, which may be incorporated into the lunch period. Middle school students may, at the school’s discretion, participate in at least 225 minutes of physical activity per week. Students with disabilities must participate to the extent appropriate.
  
  
• Allows school boards to establish a four-day school week so long as each term provides for at least 142 days and 1044 hours of pupil attendance.
  
  
• Allows school boards to make up a total of only ten school days lost or cancelled due to inclement weather.