BILL REQ. #:  S-1195.2 

READ FIRST TIME 02/07/13.   

     AN ACT Relating to school suspensions and expulsions; amending RCW 28A.600.015, 28A.600.020, 28A.600.410, 28A.300.046, 28A.300.042, and 28A.300.507; adding a new section to chapter 28A.600 RCW; and creating a new section.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 1   RCW 28A.600.015 and 2006 c 263 s 701 are each amended to read as follows:
     (1) The superintendent of public instruction shall adopt and distribute to all school districts lawful and reasonable rules prescribing the substantive and procedural due process guarantees of pupils in the common schools. Such rules shall authorize a school district to use informal due process procedures in connection with the short-term suspension of students to the extent constitutionally permissible: PROVIDED, That the superintendent of public instruction deems the interest of students to be adequately protected. When a student suspension or expulsion is appealed, the rules shall authorize a school district to impose the suspension or expulsion temporarily after an initial hearing for no more than ten consecutive school days or until the appeal is decided, whichever is earlier. Any days that the student is temporarily suspended or expelled before the appeal is decided shall be applied to the term of the student suspension or expulsion and shall not limit or extend the term of the student suspension or expulsion. An expulsion or suspension of a student may not be for an indefinite period of time.
     (2) Short-term suspension procedures may be used for suspensions of students up to and including, ten consecutive school days.
     (3) Emergency expulsions must end or be converted to another form of corrective action within ten school days from the date of the emergency removal from school. Notice and due process rights must be provided when an emergency expulsion is converted to another form of corrective action.

Sec. 2   RCW 28A.600.020 and 2006 c 263 s 706 are each amended to read as follows:
     (1) The rules adopted pursuant to RCW 28A.600.010 shall be interpreted to ensure that the optimum learning atmosphere of the classroom is maintained, and that the highest consideration is given to the judgment of qualified certificated educators regarding conditions necessary to maintain the optimum learning atmosphere.
     (2) Any student who creates a disruption of the educational process in violation of the building disciplinary standards while under a teacher's immediate supervision may be excluded by the teacher from his or her individual classroom and instructional or activity area for all or any portion of the balance of the school day, or up to the following two days, or until the principal or designee and teacher have conferred, whichever occurs first. Except in emergency circumstances, the teacher first must attempt one or more alternative forms of corrective action. In no event without the consent of the teacher may an excluded student return to the class during the balance of that class or activity period or up to the following two days, or until the principal or his or her designee and the teacher have conferred.
     (3) In order to preserve a beneficial learning environment for all students and to maintain good order and discipline in each classroom, every school district board of directors shall provide that written procedures are developed for administering discipline at each school within the district. Such procedures shall be developed with the participation of parents and the community, and shall provide that the teacher, principal or designee, and other authorities designated by the board of directors, make every reasonable attempt to involve the parent or guardian and the student in the resolution of student discipline problems. Such procedures shall provide that students may be excluded from their individual classes or activities for periods of time in excess of that provided in subsection (2) of this section if such students have repeatedly disrupted the learning of other students. The procedures must be consistent with the rules of the superintendent of public instruction and must provide for early involvement of parents in attempts to improve the student's behavior.
     (4) The procedures shall assure, pursuant to RCW 28A.400.110, that all staff work cooperatively toward consistent enforcement of proper student behavior throughout each school as well as within each classroom.
     (5)(a) A principal shall consider imposing long-term suspension or expulsion as a sanction when deciding the appropriate disciplinary action for a student who, after July 27, 1997:
     (((a))) (i) Engages in two or more violations within a three-year period of RCW 9A.46.120, 28A.320.135, 28A.600.455, 28A.600.460, 28A.635.020, 28A.600.020, 28A.635.060, 9.41.280, or 28A.320.140; or
     (((b))) (ii) Engages in one or more of the offenses listed in RCW 13.04.155.
     (b) The principal shall communicate the disciplinary action taken by the principal to the school personnel who referred the student to the principal for disciplinary action.
     (6) Any corrective action involving a suspension or expulsion from school for more than ten days must have an end date of not more than one calendar year from the time of corrective action. Districts shall make reasonable efforts to assist students and parents in returning to an educational setting prior to and no later than the end date of the corrective action.
     (7) Nothing in this section prevents a public school district, educational service district, the Washington state center for childhood deafness and hearing loss, or the state school for the blind if it has suspended or expelled a student from the student's regular school setting from providing educational services to the student in an alternative setting or modifying the suspension or expulsion on a case-by-case basis.

Sec. 3   RCW 28A.600.410 and 1992 c 155 s 1 are each amended to read as follows:
     The state of Washington excludes tens of thousands of students from school each year due to out-of-school suspensions and expulsions. Out-of-school suspensions and expulsions contribute to poor academic achievement, lower graduation rates, and higher dropout rates. It is the intent of the legislature to minimize the use of out-of-school suspension and expulsion and its impact on student achievement by reducing the number of days that students are excluded from school due to disciplinary action. Student behavior should not result in the permanent loss of educational opportunity in the public school system.
     School districts are encouraged to find alternatives to suspension including reducing the length of a student's suspension conditioned by the commencement of counseling or other treatment services. Consistent with current law, the conditioning of a student's suspension does not obligate the school district to pay for the counseling or other treatment services except for those stipulated and agreed to by the district at the inception of the suspension.

Sec. 4   RCW 28A.300.046 and 2011 c 288 s 10 are each amended to read as follows:
     (1)(a) The superintendent of public instruction shall adopt rules establishing a standard definition of student absence from school. In adopting the definition, the superintendent shall review current practices in Washington school districts, definitions used in other states, and any national standards or definitions used by the national center for education statistics or other national groups. The superintendent shall also consult with the building bridges work group established under RCW 28A.175.075.
     (b) Using the definition of student absence adopted under this section, the superintendent shall establish an indicator for measuring student attendance in high schools for purposes of the PASS program under RCW 28A.175.130.
     (2)(a) The K-12 data governance group under RCW 28A.300.507 shall establish the parameters and an implementation schedule for statewide collection through the comprehensive education and data research system of: (i) Student attendance data using the definitions of student absence adopted under this section; and (ii) student discipline data with a focus on suspensions and expulsions from school.
     (b) ((At a minimum,)) Student suspension and expulsion data collected for the purposes of this subsection (2) must be:
     (i) Made publicly available and easily accessible on the superintendent of public instruction's web site; and
     (ii) Disaggregated and crosstabulated as established under RCW 28A.300.042.
     (c) School districts must collect and submit student attendance data and student discipline data for high school students through the comprehensive education and data research system for purposes of the PASS program under RCW 28A.175.130 beginning in the 2012-13 school year.

Sec. 5   RCW 28A.300.042 and 2009 c 468 s 4 are each amended to read as follows:
     (1) All student data-related reports required of the superintendent of public instruction in this title must be disaggregated by at least the following subgroups of students: White, Black, Hispanic, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian, Pacific Islander/Hawaiian Native, low income, transitional bilingual, migrant, special education, and students covered by section 504 of the federal rehabilitation act of 1973, as amended (29 U.S.C. Sec. 794).
     (2) All student data-related reports required of the superintendent of public instruction regarding student suspensions and expulsions as required in RCW 28A.300.046 are subject to disaggregation by subgroups including:
     (a) Gender;
     (b) Foster care;
     (c) Homeless;
     (d) School district;
     (e) School;
     (f) Grade level;
     (g) Behavior infraction code, including:
     (i) Bullying;
     (ii) Tobacco;
     (iii) Alcohol;
     (iv) Illicit drug;
     (v) Fighting without major injury;
     (vi) Violence without major injury;
     (vii) Violence with major injury;
     (viii) Possession of a weapon; and
     (ix) Other behavior resulting from a short-term or long-term suspension, expulsion, or interim alternative education setting intervention;
     (h) Intervention applied, including:
     (i) Short-term suspension;
     (ii) Long-term suspension;
     (iii) Emergency expulsion;
     (iv) Expulsion;
     (v) Interim alternative education settings;
     (vi) No intervention applied; and
     (vii) Other intervention applied that is not described in this subsection (2)(h);
     (i) Number of days a student is suspended or expelled, to be
     counted in half or full days; and
     (j) Any other categories added at a future date by the data governance group.
     (3) All student data-related reports required of the superintendent of public instruction regarding student suspensions and expulsions as required in RCW 28A.300.046 are subject to cross-tabulation at a minimum by the following:     
     (a) School and district;
     (b) Race, low income, special education, transitional bilingual, migrant, foster care, homeless, students covered by section 504 of the federal rehabilitation act of 1973, as amended (29 U.S.C. Sec. 794), and categories to be added in the future;
     (c) Behavior infraction code; and
     (d) Intervention applied.

Sec. 6   RCW 28A.300.507 and 2009 c 548 s 203 are each amended to read as follows:
     (1) A K-12 data governance group shall be established within the office of the superintendent of public instruction to assist in the design and implementation of a K-12 education data improvement system for financial, student, and educator data. It is the intent that the data system reporting specifically serve requirements for teachers, parents, superintendents, school boards, the office of the superintendent of public instruction, the legislature, and the public.
     (2) The K-12 data governance group shall include representatives of the education data center, the office of the superintendent of public instruction, the legislative evaluation and accountability program committee, the professional educator standards board, the state board of education, and school district staff, including information technology staff. Additional entities with expertise in education data may be included in the K-12 data governance group.
     (3) The K-12 data governance group shall:
     (a) Identify the critical research and policy questions that need to be addressed by the K-12 education data improvement system;
     (b) Identify reports and other information that should be made available on the internet in addition to the reports identified in subsection (5) of this section;
     (c) Create a comprehensive needs requirement document detailing the specific information and technical capacity needed by school districts and the state to meet the legislature's expectations for a comprehensive K-12 education data improvement system as described under RCW 28A.655.210;
     (d) Conduct a gap analysis of current and planned information compared to the needs requirement document, including an analysis of the strengths and limitations of an education data system and programs currently used by school districts and the state, and specifically the gap analysis must look at the extent to which the existing data can be transformed into canonical form and where existing software can be used to meet the needs requirement document;
     (e) Focus on financial and cost data necessary to support the new K-12 financial models and funding formulas, including any necessary changes to school district budgeting and accounting, and on assuring the capacity to link data across financial, student, and educator systems; and
     (f) Define the operating rules and governance structure for K-12 data collections, ensuring that data systems are flexible and able to adapt to evolving needs for information, within an objective and orderly data governance process for determining when changes are needed and how to implement them. Strong consideration must be made to the current practice and cost of migration to new requirements. The operating rules should delineate the coordination, delegation, and escalation authority for data collection issues, business rules, and performance goals for each K-12 data collection system, including:
     (i) Defining and maintaining standards for privacy and confidentiality;
     (ii) Setting data collection priorities;
     (iii) Defining and updating a standard data dictionary;
     (iv) Ensuring data compliance with the data dictionary;
     (v) Ensuring data accuracy; and
     (vi) Establishing minimum standards for school, student, financial, and teacher data systems. Data elements may be specified "to the extent feasible" or "to the extent available" to collect more and better data sets from districts with more flexible software. Nothing in RCW 43.41.400, this section, or RCW 28A.655.210 should be construed to require that a data dictionary or reporting should be hobbled to the lowest common set. The work of the K-12 data governance group must specify which data are desirable. Districts that can meet these requirements shall report the desirable data. Funding from the legislature must establish which subset data are absolutely required.
     (4)(a) The K-12 data governance group shall provide updates on its work as requested by the education data center and the legislative evaluation and accountability program committee.
     (b) The work of the K-12 data governance group shall be periodically reviewed and monitored by the educational data center and the legislative evaluation and accountability program committee.
     (5) To the extent data is available, the office of the superintendent of public instruction shall make the following minimum reports available on the internet. The reports must either be run on demand against current data, or, if a static report, must have been run against the most recent data:
     (a) The percentage of data compliance and data accuracy by school district;
     (b) The magnitude of spending per student, by student estimated by the following algorithm and reported as the detailed summation of the following components:
     (i) An approximate, prorated fraction of each teacher or human resource element that directly serves the student. Each human resource element must be listed or accessible through online tunneling in the report;
     (ii) An approximate, prorated fraction of classroom or building costs used by the student;
     (iii) An approximate, prorated fraction of transportation costs used by the student; and
     (iv) An approximate, prorated fraction of all other resources within the district. District-wide components should be disaggregated to the extent that it is sensible and economical;
     (c) The cost of K-12 basic education, per student, by student, by school district, estimated by the algorithm in (b) of this subsection, and reported in the same manner as required in (b) of this subsection;
     (d) The cost of K-12 special education services per student, by student receiving those services, by school district, estimated by the algorithm in (b) of this subsection, and reported in the same manner as required in (b) of this subsection;
     (e) Improvement on the statewide assessments computed as both a percentage change and absolute change on a scale score metric by district, by school, and by teacher that can also be filtered by a student's length of full-time enrollment within the school district;
     (f) Number of K-12 students per classroom teacher on a per teacher basis;
     (g) Number of K-12 classroom teachers per student on a per student basis;
     (h) Percentage of a classroom teacher per student on a per student basis; and
     (i) The cost of K-12 education per student by school district sorted by federal, state, and local dollars.
     (6) ((The superintendent of public instruction shall submit a preliminary report to the legislature by November 15, 2009, including the analyses by the K-12 data governance group under subsection (3) of this section and preliminary options for addressing identified gaps. A final report, including a proposed phase-in plan and preliminary cost estimates for implementation of a comprehensive data improvement system for financial, student, and educator data shall be submitted to the legislature by September 1, 2010.
     (7))) All reports and data referenced in this section and RCW 43.41.400 and 28A.655.210 shall be made available in a manner consistent with the technical requirements of the legislative evaluation and accountability program committee and the education data center so that selected data can be provided to the legislature, governor, school districts, and the public.
     (((8))) (7) Reports shall contain data to the extent it is available. All reports must include documentation of which data are not available or are estimated. Reports must not be suppressed because of poor data accuracy or completeness. Reports may be accompanied with documentation to inform the reader of why some data are missing or inaccurate or estimated.
     (8) The K-12 data governance group shall examine the data collected under the behavior infraction subgroup in RCW 28A.300.042(2)(g)(ix) and create at least four additional behavior infraction codes including the four most common behaviors reported under the behavior infraction subgroup in RCW 28A.300.042(2)(g)(ix), and may create other categories as needed, by December 1, 2013.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 7   A new section is added to chapter 28A.600 RCW to read as follows:
     (1) School districts are expected to continue to serve, support, and reengage students who are excluded from the regular school setting as a result of a long-term suspension or expulsion. These students should not be unenrolled from the school they were suspended or expelled from unless they are enrolled in another school program. School districts should make efforts to have suspended or expelled students return to the educational setting they were suspended or expelled from as soon as possible. School districts should convene a school reentry meeting with the student and the student's parents or guardians within twenty days of the student's long-term suspension or expulsion to discuss a plan to reenter and reengage the student in a school program.
     (2) In developing a reentry and reengagement plan, school districts should consider shortening the length of time that the student is suspended or expelled, other forms of corrective action, and supportive interventions that aid in the student's academic success and keep students engaged and on track to graduate. School districts must create a reentry and reengagement plan tailored to the student's individual circumstances, including consideration of the incident that led to the student's long-term suspension or expulsion. The plan should aid the student in taking the necessary steps to remedy the situation that led to the student's suspension or expulsion.
     (3) Any reentry meetings conducted by the school district involving the suspended or expelled student and his or her parents or guardians are not intended to replace a petition for readmission.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 8   (1) The Washington state school directors' association shall develop a model policy for school districts to implement changes to suspension and expulsion policies.
     (2) The model policy must include at a minimum: Appropriate discipline actions for unwanted student behavior, training in cultural sensitivity regarding school discipline policies and procedures; prevention and intervention guidance including best practices; and parental engagement.
     (3) The model policy must be made available on the Washington state school directors' association web site by March 1, 2014.