EDUCATION REGULATIONS COMMENT PERIOD

Dear Neighbors,

The Department of Education has released nine draft regulation changes resulting from HB 278 (the education omnibus bill), HB 210 (dealing with regulating the use of restraints or seclusion), HB 154 (designating natural and cultural history repositories) and a move to have consistency in math credit requirements. In particular, the regulations:

• Provide standards for a waiver from the career-ready or college-ready assessment students are required to have as a condition of receiving a high school diploma. The regulations also update the participation guidelines for state assessments.

• Implement changes in individual learning plans and student allotments for correspondence study programs.

• Give school districts an annual opportunity to apply for approval to operate a residential school, and to allow flexibility in the date a district uses within the count period for its student count for a variable-term statewide residential school.

• Update the criteria for exempting teachers from jury duty, require reporting of aggregate data about students from families on active military, and adjust the scoring in the school accountability system to reflect that the WorkKeys assessment is no longer required for all students.

• Prohibit the department from spending money to implement the Common Core Standards Initiative.

• Propose new regulations for applications, application appeal procedures, grants, and pupil transportation for charter schools.

• Require school districts to report to the department incidents involving the restraint or seclusion of a student and to set criteria for department approval of crisis intervention training programs for schools.

• Propose a process by which the Alaska State Museum will designate other Alaska museums or cultural centers as repositories of natural and cultural history materials.

• Increase the units of credit in mathematics required for graduation from high school on or after July 1, 2017.

Please click on this link for more details on the regulations. The comment period closes at 4:00 p.m. on November 4.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Sincerely,

Sam Kito III