Proposed Bills Pertaining to the Indiana DOE, School Boards, and Superintendents - Part 1

This is the first part of a list of bills scheduled to go in front of the General Assembly that are categorized as pertaining to school boards, superintendents, and the Indiana Department of Education.  This list is quite extensive, so I will probably post it in two or three separate segments.  As was the case with the general education bills, some of these have the potential to greatly impact teachers' careers, while others have very little relevance to education at all.  The .pdf versions of the proposed bills can be found on the General Assembly's Website.

SB 0496/HB 1250: Parental Incentives for School Reorganization: Requires that State Department of Education create a school performance scale off which schools are rated in order to determine their effectiveness.  Schools performing in the lowest category for three or more consecutive years may be subject to reorganization if the parents of at least 51% of that school's children petition accordingly.  Once a school has been reorganized, another petition for reorganization may not be passed for at least five years.  If a school building is sold as a result of reorganization, it must be sold to another educational institution, provided they are the highest bidder.  Reorganization can occur in one of three ways:

1. Close the school and transfer the students to a higher-performing school within the same district
2. Reorganize the school as a charter school
3. Provide tuition payments for students wishing to transfer to another school district or non-public school (i.e. vouchers)

This bill is an attempt at providing the parents of students in failing schools with alternatives to  the failing school, and theoretically gives failing schools incentive to improve student performance rates.  Because failing schools would have competition with neighboring school districts and private schools, basic economics would dictate that this plan should prove quite successful.  However, critics also feel that this would not work, as it forces districts to place more emphasis on "teaching to the test" in order to improve ISTEP scores and would take funds out of already-failing schools and place them into voucher programs.  It will be interesting to see what happens with this bill.

HB 1331: School Counselors: Requires the DOE and other appropriate organizations to set a target student/counselor ratio that should be considered when public schools hire counselors, social workers, and psychologists.  Also provides for a set job description for all counselors in the state and requires counselors seeking initial licensure with the state to proof of performance and experience in associated fields.

HB 1249: Higher Education Scholarship: Provides a scholarship to any student graduating from high school prior to 12th grade that can be used to attend any post-secondary institution.  Further, the Department of Education would be required to amend its current policies to make it possible to graduate from high school in less than seven semesters.  I think this would provide a good deal of opportunities to high-achieving students in schools that are not large enough to facilitate college-preparatory courses for high school seniors.  I am not convinced that this bill would be effective for all students, since college-prep courses taught in high school are often of a higher caliber than those taught at some colleges and universities.  Also, from my experience, there are a lot of valuable growing-up experiences that occur in students' senior years, and I wonder if there could be developmental repercussions that come as a result of incentivizing students' early graduations?  Governor Daniels highly promoted this in his State of the State Address, and it will be interesting to see how far this bill makes it.

HB 1296: College Credit for High School Classes: Requires that state educational institutions accept dual credit courses for college credit, provided that the courses are a part of a state library of dual credit courses and that the student successfully passes the course.  This is the policy for almost all public universities in the state, and I honestly thought this was already the law.  But since it apparently is not, it would not be a bad idea to see this pass.  It provides high school seniors with the opportunity to take college-level classes while still in high school.  From personal experience, I can tell you that the 10 hours of IVY Tech dual credit classes that I had transferred to IU provided me with a great deal of college prep.

SB 0538: Bullying Prevention: This bill provides for a number of different mandates with the goal of preventing bullying in public schools:

• Requires the DOE to publish a number of anti-bullying models and plans for use by school districts
• Requires the DOE to incentivize school districts that encourage students to participate in extracurricular activities that promote anti-bullying measures
• Requires school districts to report the number of bullying incidents in their annual district reports
• School board safety plans must be drafted with parental collaboration in order to address bullying prevention
• The Advisory Board of the Division of Professional Standards has the right to set standards for professional development for teachers and administrators in the realm of bullying prevention
• Extends the definition to include electronic or digital harassment
• The DOE would hold the right to audit bullying records from school districts at any time