First Substitute H.B. 215

Representative Karen W. Morgan proposes the following substitute bill:

1 SCHOOL REPORTING AMENDMENTS
2 2007 GENERAL SESSION
3 STATE OF UTAH
4 Chief Sponsor: Karen W. Morgan
5 Senate Sponsor: Patricia W. Jones
6
7 LONG TITLE
8 General Description:
9 This bill modifies requirements for the reporting of certain data on public schools.
10 Highlighted Provisions:
11 This bill:
12 . specifies how average class size shall be calculated for the purpose of reporting
13 class size by grade and subject on annual school performance reports; and
14 . modifies the contents of the state superintendent's annual report.
15 Monies Appropriated in this Bill:
16 None
17 Other Special Clauses:
18 None
19 Utah Code Sections Affected:
20 AMENDS:
21 53A-1-301, as last amended by Chapter 2, Laws of Utah 2005, First Special Session
22 53A-3-602.5, as last amended by Chapters 210 and 244, Laws of Utah 2002
23
24 Be it enacted by the Legislature of the state of Utah:
25 Section 1. Section 53A-1-301 is amended to read:

26 53A-1-301. Appointment -- Qualifications -- Duties.
27 (1) (a) The State Board of Education shall appoint a superintendent of public
28 instruction, hereinafter called the state superintendent, who is the executive officer of the board
29 and serves at the pleasure of the board.
30 (b) The board shall appoint the state superintendent on the basis of outstanding
31 professional qualifications.
32 (c) The state superintendent shall administer all programs assigned to the State Board
33 of Education in accordance with the policies and the standards established by the board.
34 (2) The superintendent shall develop a statewide education strategy focusing on core
35 academics, including the development of:
36 (a) core curriculum and graduation requirements;
37 (b) a process to select instructional materials that best correlate to the core curriculum
38 and graduation requirements that are supported by generally accepted scientific standards of
39 evidence;
40 (c) professional development programs for teachers, superintendents, and principals;
41 (d) remediation programs;
42 (e) a method for creating individual student learning targets, and a method of
43 measuring an individual student's performance toward those targets;
44 (f) progress-based assessments for ongoing performance evaluations of districts and
45 schools;
46 (g) incentives to achieve the desired outcome of individual student progress in core
47 academics, and which do not create disincentives for setting high goals for the students;
48 (h) an annual report card for school and district performance, measuring learning and
49 reporting progress-based assessments;
50 (i) a systematic method to encourage innovation in schools and school districts as they
51 strive to achieve improvement in their performance; and
52 (j) a method for identifying and sharing best demonstrated practices across districts and
53 schools.
54 (3) The superintendent shall perform duties assigned by the board, including the
55 following:
56 (a) investigating all matters pertaining to the public schools;

57 (b) adopting and keeping an official seal to authenticate the superintendent's official
58 acts;
59 (c) holding and conducting meetings, seminars, and conferences on educational topics;
60 (d) presenting to the governor and the Legislature each December a report of the public
61 school system for the preceding year to include:
62 (i) data on the general condition of the schools with recommendations considered
63 desirable for specific programs;
64 (ii) a complete statement of fund balances;
65 (iii) a complete statement of revenues by fund and source;
66 (iv) a complete statement of adjusted expenditures by fund, the status of bonded
67 indebtedness, the cost of new school plants, and school levies;
68 (v) a complete statement of state funds allocated to each of the state's 40 school
69 districts by source, including supplemental appropriations, and a complete statement of
70 expenditures by each district, including supplemental appropriations, by function and object as
71 outlined in the U.S. Department of Education publication "Financial Accounting for Local and
72 State School Systems";
73 (vi) a complete statement, by school district and charter school, of the amount of and
74 percentage increase or decrease in expenditures from the previous year attributed to:
75 (A) wage increases, with expenditure data for base salary adjustments identified
76 separately from step and lane expenditures;
77 (B) medical and dental premium cost adjustments; and
78 (C) adjustments in the number of teachers and other staff;
79 (vii) a statement that includes [such items as] fall enrollments, average membership,
80 high school graduates, licensed and classified employees, pupil-teacher ratios, class sizes by
81 grade, average salaries, applicable private school data, and data from standardized
82 norm-referenced tests in grades 5, 8, and 11 on each school and district;
83 (viii) statistical information regarding incidents of delinquent activity in the schools or
84 at school-related activities with separate categories for:
85 (A) alcohol and drug abuse;
86 (B) weapon possession;
87 (C) assaults; and

88 (D) arson;
89 (ix) information about:
90 (A) the development and implementation of the strategy of focusing on core
91 academics;
92 (B) the development and implementation of competency-based education and
93 progress-based assessments; and
94 (C) the results being achieved under Subsections (3)(d)(ix)(A) and (B), as measured by
95 individual progress-based assessments and the comparison of Utah Students' progress with the
96 progress of students in other states using standardized norm-referenced tests as benchmarks;
97 and
98 (x) other statistical and financial information about the school system which the
99 superintendent considers pertinent;
100 (e) collecting and organizing education data into an automated decision support system
101 to facilitate school district and school improvement planning, accountability reporting and
102 performance recognition, and the evaluation of educational policy and program effectiveness to
103 include:
104 (i) data that are:
105 (A) comparable across schools and school districts;
106 (B) appropriate for use in longitudinal studies; and
107 (C) comprehensive with regard to the data elements required under applicable state or
108 federal law or state board rule;
109 (ii) features that enable users, most particularly school administrators, teachers, and
110 parents, to:
111 (A) retrieve school and school district level data electronically;
112 (B) interpret the data visually; and
113 (C) draw conclusions that are statistically valid; and
114 (iii) procedures for the collection and management of education data that:
115 (A) require the state superintendent of public instruction to:
116 (I) collaborate with school districts in designing and implementing uniform data
117 standards and definitions;
118 (II) undertake or sponsor research to implement improved methods for analyzing

119 education data;
120 (III) provide for data security to prevent unauthorized access to or contamination of the
121 data; and
122 (IV) protect the confidentiality of data under state and federal privacy laws; and
123 (B) require all school districts to comply with the data collection and management
124 procedures established under Subsection (3)(e);
125 (f) administering and implementing federal educational programs in accordance with
126 Title 53A, Chapter 1, Part 9, Implementing Federal Programs Act; and
127 (g) with the approval of the board, preparing and submitting to the governor a budget
128 for the board to be included in the budget that the governor submits to the Legislature.
129 (4) Upon leaving office, the state superintendent shall deliver to his successor all
130 books, records, documents, maps, reports, papers, and other articles pertaining to his office.
131 Section 2. Section 53A-3-602.5 is amended to read:
132 53A-3-602.5. School performance report -- Components -- Annual filing.
133 (1) The State Board of Education in collaboration with the state's 40 school districts
134 shall develop a school performance report to inform the state's residents of the quality of
135 schools and the educational achievement of students in the state's public education system.
136 (2) The report shall be written and include the following statistical data for each school
137 in each school district, as applicable, and shall also aggregate the data at the district and state
138 level:
139 (a) except as provided in Subsection (2)(a)(ii), test scores over the previous year on:
140 (i) norm-referenced achievement tests;
141 (ii) criterion-referenced tests beginning with the 2001-02 school year, to include the
142 scores aggregated for all students by grade level or course for the previous two years and an
143 indication of whether there was a sufficient magnitude of gain in the scores between the two
144 years;
145 (iii) writing assessments required under Section 53A-1-603 ; and
146 (iv) tenth grade basic skills competency tests required under Section 53A-1-603 ;
147 (b) college entrance examinations data, including the number and percentage of each
148 graduating class taking the examinations for the previous four years;
149 (c) advanced placement and concurrent enrollment data, including:

150 (i) the number of students taking advanced placement and concurrent enrollment
151 courses;
152 (ii) the number and percent of students taking a specific advanced placement course
153 who take advanced placement tests to receive college credit for the course;
154 (iii) of those students taking the test referred to in Subsection (2)(c)(ii), the number and
155 percent who pass the test; and
156 (iv) of those students taking a concurrent enrollment course, the number and percent of
157 those who receive college credit for the course;
158 (d) the number and percent of students through grade ten reading at or above grade
159 level;
160 (e) the number and percent of students who were absent from school ten days or more
161 during the school year;
162 (f) achievement gaps that reflect the differences in achievement of various student
163 groups as defined by State Board of Education rule;
164 (g) the number and percent of "student dropouts" within the district as defined by State
165 Board of Education rule;
166 (h) course-taking patterns and trends in secondary schools;
167 (i) student mobility;
168 (j) staff qualifications, to include years of professional service and the number and
169 percent of staff who have a degree or endorsement in their assigned teaching area and the
170 number and percent of staff who have a graduate degree;
171 (k) the number and percent of parents who participate in SEP, SEOP, and
172 parent-teacher conferences;
173 (l) average class size by grade level and subject;
174 (m) average daily attendance as defined by State Board of Education rule, including
175 every period in secondary schools; and
176 (n) enrollment totals disaggregated with respect to race, ethnicity, gender, limited
177 English proficiency, and those students who qualify for free or reduced price school lunch.
178 (3) The State Board of Education, in collaboration with the state's school districts, shall
179 provide for the collection and electronic reporting of the following data for each school in each
180 school district:

181 (a) test scores and trends over the previous four years on the tests referred to in
182 Subsection (2)(a);
183 (b) the average grade given in each math, science, and English course in grades 9
184 through 12 for which criteria-referenced tests are required under Section 53A-1-603 ;
185 (c) incidents of student discipline as defined by State Board of Education rule,
186 including suspensions, expulsions, and court referrals; and
187 (d) the number and percent of students receiving fee waivers and the total dollar
188 amount of fees waived.
189 (4) (a) (i) The State Board of Education shall adopt common definitions and data
190 collection procedures for local school boards to use in collecting and forwarding the data
191 required under Subsections (2) and (3) to the state superintendent of public instruction.
192 (ii) Average class size by grade and subject shall be calculated for the purposes of
193 Subsection (2)(l) in accordance with the following:
194 (A) for kindergarten through grade six, average class size by grade shall be calculated
195 by dividing grade membership on October 1 by the number of classes in the corresponding
196 grade; and
197 (B) for grades seven through twelve, average class size shall be calculated for core
198 language arts, mathematics, and science courses by dividing membership on October 1 in core
199 language arts, mathematics, or science course classes by the number of classes for the
200 corresponding course.
201 (b) The state board, through the state superintendent of public instruction, shall adopt
202 standard reporting forms and provide a common template for collecting and reporting the data,
203 which shall be used by all school districts.
204 (c) The state superintendent shall use the automated decision support system referred to
205 in Section 53A-1-301 to collect and report the data required under Subsections (2) and (3).
206 (5) (a) For the school year ending June 30, 2003, and for each year thereafter, the state
207 board, through the state superintendent of public instruction, shall issue its report annually by
208 October 1 to include the required data from the previous school year or years as indicated in
209 Subsections (2) and (3).
210 (b) The state board shall determine the nature and extent of longitudinal data to be
211 reported under Subsections (2)(b), (c), and (d) and (3)(a) during the first three years of the

212 reporting program, with the baseline reporting year beginning July 1, 2002 and ending June 30,
213 2003.
214 (6) (a) Each local school board shall receive a written or an electronic copy of the
215 report from the state superintendent of public instruction containing the data for that school
216 district in a clear summary format and have it distributed, on a one per household basis, to the
217 residence of students enrolled in the school district before November 30th of each year.
218 (b) Each local school board and the state board shall have a complete report of the
219 statewide data available for copying or in an electronic format at their respective offices.