This bill makes various changes and additions to present law concerning education, as follows: (1) Present law requires LEAs to maintain a school term that includes 180 days for classroom instruction. This bill requires the state board of education to promulgate rules to allow LEAs and public charter schools to meet such requirement by providing a minimum number of instructional hours per school year; (2) Present law establishes a 16-member teacher evaluation advisory committee to develop and recommend to the state board of education guidelines and criteria for the annual evaluation of all teachers and principals employed by LEAs, including a local level evaluation grievance procedure. This bill abolishes the advisory committee and transfers its responsibilities to the board; (3) Present law concerning teacher evaluations requires the department of education to work to develop valid and reliable alternative student growth models for the grade levels and subjects that do not have models as of March 14, 2018. This bill changes such date to March 14, 2026; (4) This bill deletes obsolete provisions of law that applied only in limited, past school years; (5) This bill adds a requirement that the board's rules and policies outlining the guidelines and criteria for evaluations must require annual evaluations of all teachers and principals, unless the teacher or principal has achieved a final evaluation score on an annual evaluation that allows the teacher or principal to be evaluated in accordance with the following evaluation schedule: If a teacher or principal receives a final evaluation score on an annual evaluation that reflects the teacher's or principal's attainment of an achievement level of: (A) "Significantly above expectations," then the teacher or principal must not be evaluated for the three school years immediately succeeding the year for which the teacher or principal received such score; (B) "Above expectations," then the teacher or principal must not be evaluated for the two school years immediately succeeding the year for which the teacher or principal received such score; (C) "At expectations," then the teacher or principal must not be evaluated for the one school year immediately succeeding the year for which the teacher or principal received such score; or (D) "Below expectations" or "significantly below expectations," then the teacher or principal must continue to be evaluated annually; (6) One of the requirements for teacher tenure under present law is receiving evaluations demonstrating a level of overall effectiveness of "above expectations" or "significantly above expectations" during the last two years of the probationary period. Present law specifies numerous circumstances under which a teacher who has met all other requirements for tenure eligibility but has not acquired an official evaluation score during the last one or two years of the probationary period may utilize the most recent two years of available evaluation scores achieved during the probationary period. This bill adds that a teacher who has met all other requirements for tenure eligibility but has not acquired an official evaluation score during the last one or two years of the probationary period because the teacher was exempted from evaluation pursuant to the schedule in (5) may utilize the most recent evaluation score achieved during the probationary period; (7) Present law authorizes the department of education to pay, from annual appropriations, on behalf of each eligible instructional employee of a LEA, and the employee's dependents, part of the cost of the person's participation in the basic health plan. This bill adds a statement of intent that appropriations made in the general appropriations act to the department for such purposes be sufficient to cover 60% of the total cost of the person's participation in the basic health plan; (8) This bill requires the department to revise Tennessee's RTI framework manual to only require LEAs and public charter schools to: (A) Screen a student three times per school year if the student is enrolled in any of the grades kindergarten through three; and (B) Screen a student in grades four through eight if the student is "at risk," as defined in Tennessee's RTI framework manual. LEAs and public charter schools must be permitted to meet the intervention requirements in Tennessee's RTI framework manual by providing high-dosage, low-ratio tutoring services to students identified for intervention. The tutoring services provided must meet the tutoring requirements established by the department; (9) This bill clarifies that the state does not require students in any of the grades K-2 to be administered a statewide standardized assessment, including, but not limited to, a TCAP test or a successor test other than benchmark assessments and universal screeners related to reading. The full text of this bill, in SECTION 6, lists the only statewide standardized assessments that are required by the state for students in grades three-12. This bill specifies that the listed assessments are the only assessments that the board may require for high school graduation. This bill also specifies that a student with an IEP or section 504 plan that allows for testing accommodations must be permitted those accommodations for all listed assessments; (10) Present law authorizes the commissioner of education to grant an individual a temporary teaching permit authorizing the individual to teach a course requiring an end-of-course examination to satisfy the graduation requirements established by the state board if the individual demonstrates sufficient content knowledge in the course material by taking and passing, at the teacher's own expense, a standardized or criterion-referenced test for the content area. This bill specifies that such authorization applies to a temporary permit to teach any course requiring an end-of-course examination. This bill makes a similar change with regard to teachers who take a test in order to teach a course for which the teacher's license does not carry a subject specific endorsement; (11) This bill requires the department, no later than January 1, 2026, to submit a request to the U.S. department of education to amend this state's Every Student Succeeds Act plan for purposes of implementing the provisions described in (8) - (11) and such provisions will take effect on the thirtieth day immediately following the date on which the U.S. department of education approves the amendment.

Statutes affected:
Introduced: 49-6-3004, 49-1-302, 49-5-503, 8-27-303(a)(1), 8-27-303, 49-6-6002, 49-6-6001, 49-6-6011, 49-1-617, 49-5-114(c), 49-5-114, 49-6-6006