H-0291.1

HOUSE BILL 1376

ByRepresentatives Santos and Reed

AN ACT Relating to aligning policies to reflect the updated standards of practice for preparation, continuing education, and other training of school district staff developed by the Washington professional educator standards board under RCW 28A.410.260; amending RCW 28A.190.080, 28A.310.515, 28A.405.106, 28A.410.277, and 28B.50.891; reenacting and amending RCW 28A.410.270; and creating a new section.

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

Sec. 2. RCW 28A.190.080 and 2021 c 164 s 8 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) Institutional education providers shall annually deliver to all staff providing an institutional education program one day of professional development that builds pedagogical strategies to navigate the intersectionality of factors impacting student learning, including trauma, and physical, mental, and behavioral health in order to achieve academic milestone progression. At a minimum, the professional development must include training on the following topics:

(a) The cognitive, psychosocial, and emotional development of adolescents;

(b) Mental and behavioral health literacy;

(c) The complex needs of students involved in the juvenile justice system, including the trauma associated with incarceration or voluntary or involuntary commitment in a long-term psychiatric inpatient program;

(d) Racial literacy and ((cultural competency, as defined in))the standards of practice developed by the Washington professional educator standards board under RCW 28A.410.260; and

(e) Working with adolescents with many adverse childhood experiences.

(2) In addition to the professional learning allocations provided in RCW 28A.150.415, the legislature shall provide and the superintendent of public instruction shall allocate to institutional education providers one professional learning day of funding to provide the professional development required under this section.

Sec. 3. RCW 28A.310.515 and 2021 c 38 s 4 are each amended to read as follows:

(1)(a) A safety and security staff training program is established. The program must be jointly developed by the educational service districts, but may be administered primarily by one or more educational service districts. The program must meet the requirements of this section.

(b) When developing the safety and security staff training program, the educational service districts should engage with the state school safety center established in RCW 28A.300.630 and the school safety and student well-being advisory committee established in RCW 28A.300.635.

(2) The educational service districts must identify or develop classroom training on the following subjects:

(a) Constitutional and civil rights of children in schools, including state law governing search and interrogation of youth in schools;

(b) Child and adolescent development;

(c) Trauma-informed approaches to working with youth;

(d) Recognizing and responding to youth mental health issues;

(e) Educational rights of students with disabilities, the relationship of disability to behavior, and best practices for interacting with students with disabilities;

(f) Bias free policing and ((cultural competency))the standards of practice developed by the Washington professional educator standards board under RCW 28A.410.260, including best practices for interacting with students from particular backgrounds, including English learner, LGBTQ, immigrant, female, and nonbinary students;

(g) Local and national disparities in the use of force and arrests of children;

(h) Collateral consequences of arrest, referral for prosecution, and court involvement;

(i) Resources available in the community that serve as alternatives to arrest and prosecution and pathways for youth to access services without court or criminal justice involvement;

(j) De-escalation techniques when working with youth or groups of youth;

(k) State law regarding restraint and isolation in schools, including RCW 28A.600.485;

(l) The federal family educational rights and privacy act (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1232g) requirements including limits on access to and dissemination of student records for noneducational purposes; and

(m) Restorative justice principles and practices.

(3) The educational service districts must provide, or arrange for the delivery of, classroom training on the subjects listed in subsection (2) of this section. At a minimum, classroom trainings on each subject must be provided annually, remotely, synchronously or asynchronously, and by at least one educational service district. Classroom training may be provided on a fee-for-service basis and should be self-supporting.

(4) The educational service districts must provide to safety and security staff, upon request, documentation that the safety and security staff training series described in RCW 28A.400.345(2) has been completed. Before providing this training series documentation, completion of each component of the training series must be verified or, in the case of safety and security staff with significant prior training and experience, waived.

(5) The educational service districts must develop and publish guidelines for on-the-job training and check-in training that include recommendations for identifying and recruiting experienced safety and security staff to provide the trainings, suggested activities during on-the-job trainings, and best practices for meaningful check-in trainings. The guidelines for check-in training must also include recommended frequency, possible topics of discussion, and options for connecting virtually.

(6) For purposes of this section, the term "safety and security staff" has the same meaning as in RCW 28A.320.124.

Sec. 4. RCW 28A.405.106 and 2021 c 197 s 10 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) Subject to funds appropriated for this purpose, the office of the superintendent of public instruction must develop and make available a professional development program to support the implementation of the evaluation systems required by RCW 28A.405.100. The program components may be organized into professional development modules for principals, administrators, and teachers. The professional development program shall include a comprehensive online training package.

(2) The training program must include, but not be limited to, the following topics:

(a) Introduction of the evaluation criteria for teachers and principals and the four-level rating system;

(b) Orientation to and use of instructional frameworks;

(c) Orientation to and use of the leadership frameworks;

(d) Best practices in developing and using data in the evaluation systems, including multiple measures, student growth data, classroom observations, and other measures and evidence;

(e) Strategies for achieving maximum rater agreement;

(f) Evaluator feedback protocols in the evaluation systems;

(g) Examples of high quality teaching and leadership; and

(h) Methods to link the evaluation process to ongoing educator professional development.

(3) The content of the training program must be aligned with the standards of practice developed by the Washington professional educator standards board under RCW 28A.410.260. The training program must also include the foundational elements of ((cultural competence))these practices, focusing on multicultural education and principles of English language acquisition, including information regarding best practices to implement the tribal history and culture curriculum. ((The content of the training must be aligned with the standards of practice developed by the Washington professional educator standards board under RCW 28A.410.260.)) The office of the superintendent of public instruction, in consultation with the Washington professional educator standards board, the steering committee established in RCW 28A.405.100, and the educational opportunity gap oversight and accountability committee, must integrate ((the content for cultural competence))this content into the overall training for principals, administrators, and teachers to support the revised evaluation systems.

(4) To the maximum extent feasible, the professional development program must incorporate or adapt existing online training or curriculum, including securing materials or curriculum under contract or purchase agreements within available funds. Multiple modes of instruction should be incorporated including videos of classroom teaching, participatory exercises, and other engaging combinations of online audio, video, and print presentation.

(5) The professional development program must be developed in modules that allow:

(a) Access to material over a reasonable number of training sessions;

(b) Delivery in person or online; and

(c) Use in a self-directed manner.

(6) The office of the superintendent of public instruction must maintain a website that includes the online professional development materials along with sample evaluation forms and templates, links to relevant research on evaluation and on high quality teaching and leadership, samples of contract and collective bargaining language on key topics, examples of multiple measures of teacher and principal performance, suggestions for data to measure student growth, and other tools that will assist school districts in implementing the revised evaluation systems.

(7) The office of the superintendent of public instruction must identify the number of in-service training hours associated with each professional development module and develop a way for users to document their completion of the training. ((Documented completion of the training under this section is considered approved in-service training for the purposes of RCW 28A.415.020.))

(8) The office of the superintendent of public instruction shall periodically update the modules to reflect new topics and research on performance evaluation so that the training serves as an ongoing source of continuing education and professional development.

(9) The office of the superintendent of public instruction shall work with the educational service districts to provide clearinghouse services for the identification and publication of professional development opportunities for teachers and principals that align with performance evaluation criteria.

Sec. 5. RCW 28A.410.270 and 2021 c 198 s 4 and 2021 c 197 s 11 are each reenacted and amended to read as follows:

(1)(a) The board shall adopt a set of articulated teacher knowledge, skill, and performance standards for effective teaching that are evidence-based, measurable, meaningful, and documented in high quality research as being associated with improved student learning. The standards shall be calibrated for each level along the entire career continuum. For candidates recommended for residency teacher certification by a board-approved preparation program, the standards adopted by the board must be the most recent teaching standards published by a consortium of state and national education organizations dedicated to the reform of the preparation, licensing, and ongoing professional development of teachers since 1987.

(b) The ((Washington professional educator standards)) board shall incorporate along the entire continuum the standards of practice developed under RCW 28A.410.260.

(c) By January 1, 2020, in order to ensure that teachers can recognize signs of emotional or behavioral distress in students and appropriately refer students for assistance and support, the board shall incorporate along the entire continuum the social-emotional learning standards and benchmarks recommended by the social-emotional learning benchmarks work group in its October 1, 2016, final report titled, "addressing social emotional learning in Washington's K-12 public schools." In incorporating the social-emotional learning standards and benchmarks, the board must include related competencies, such as trauma-informed practices, consideration of adverse childhood experiences, mental health literacy, antibullying strategies, and culturally sustaining practices.

(2) The board shall adopt a definition of master teacher, with a comparable level of increased competency between professional certification level and master level as between professional certification level and national board certification. Within the definition established by the board, teachers certified through the national board for professional teaching standards shall be considered master teachers.

(3) Award of a professional certificate shall be based on a minimum of two years of successful teaching experience as defined by the board, and may not require candidates to enroll in a professional certification program.

(4) Educator preparation programs approved to offer the residency teaching certificate shall be required to demonstrate how the program produces effective teachers as evidenced by multiple measures of the knowledge, skills, performance, and competencies described in subsection (1) of this section and other criteria established by the board.

(5) Each board-approved teacher preparation program must publish, and provide to candidates prior to admission, a list of program completion requirements.

(6) Before a board-approved teacher preparation program may recommend a candidate for residency teacher certification, the candidate must meet or exceed the knowledge, skill, performance, and competency standards described in subsection (1) of this section.

(7) For the purpose of this section, "board" means the Washington professional educator standards board.

Sec. 6. RCW 28A.410.277 and 2021 c 77 s 1 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) The Washington professional educator standards board must adopt rules for renewal of administrator certificates and teacher certificates that meet the continuing education requirements of this section.

(2) To renew an administrator certificate on or after July 1, 2023, continuing education must meet the following requirements: 10 percent must focus on equity-based school practices, 10 percent must focus on the national professional standards for education leaders, and five percent must focus on government-to-government relationships with federally recognized tribes.

(3) To renew a teacher certificate on or after July 1, 2023, 15 percent of continuing education must focus on equity-based school practices. This subsection (3) does not apply to a person renewing both a teacher certificate and an administrator certificate.

(4)(a) Except as provided under (b) of this subsection (4), continuing education must be provided by one or more of the following entities, if they are an approved clock hour provider:

(i) The office of the superintendent of public instruction;

(ii) A school district;

(iii) An educational service district;

(iv) A Washington professional educator standards board-approved administrator or teacher preparation program;

(v) The association of Washington school principals; or

(vi) The Washington education association.

(b) Continuing education related to government-to-government relationships with federally recognized tribes must be provided by one or more subject matter experts approved by the governor's office on Indian affairs in collaboration with the tribal leaders congress on education and the office of Native education in the office of the superintendent of public instruction.

(5) Continuing education focused on equity-based school practices must be aligned with the standards ((for cultural competency developed))of practice developed by the Washington professional educator standards board under RCW 28A.410.260.

Sec. 7. RCW 28B.50.891 and 2021 c 197 s 13 are each amended to read as follows:

Beginning with the 2015-16 academic year, any community or technical college that offers an apprenticeship program or certificate program for paraeducators must provide candidates the opportunity to earn transferable course credits within the program. The programs must also ((incorporate))include the standards of practice developed by the Washington professional educator standards board under RCW 28A.410.260 and include multicultural education and principles of language acquisition. Subject to the availability of amounts appropriated for this specific purpose, by September 1, 2018, the paraeducator apprenticeship and certificate programs must also incorporate the state paraeducator standards of practice adopted by the paraeducator board under RCW 28A.413.050.

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