Effective Date of Rule: December 1, 2010.

     Effective Date: In accordance with RCW 34.05.380(3), the effective date of the rule shall be December 1, 2010, which is the date in which the superintendent of public instruction is required to identify persistently lowest-achieving schools under RCW 28A.657.020.

     Purpose: E2SSB 6696 (2010 session) establishes a process for identifying "persistently lowest-achieving" schools and required action districts, which are to develop and implement required action plans. The rules: (1) Adopt federal criteria for identifying persistently lowest-achieving schools, (2) establish criteria for the superintendent of public instruction to recommend to the state board of education that a school district be designated as a required action district, and (3) establish the criteria for being released as a required action district.

     Statutory Authority for Adoption: RCW 28A.657.020, 28A.657.030, and 28A.657.100.

      Adopted under notice filed as WSR 10-20-126 on October 5, 2010.

     Number of Sections Adopted in Order to Comply with Federal Statute: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0; Federal Rules or Standards: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0; or Recently Enacted State Statutes: New 5, Amended 0, Repealed 0.

     Number of Sections Adopted at Request of a Nongovernmental Entity: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0.

     Number of Sections Adopted on the Agency's Own Initiative: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0.

     Number of Sections Adopted in Order to Clarify, Streamline, or Reform Agency Procedures: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0.

     Number of Sections Adopted Using Negotiated Rule Making: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0;      Pilot Rule Making: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0; or Other Alternative Rule Making: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0.

     Date Adopted: November 10, 2010.

Randy Dorn

Superintendent of

Public Instruction

OTS-3654.1

GENERAL
NEW SECTION
WAC 392-501-707   Authority.   The authority for these rules is RCW 28A.657.020, 28A.657.030, and 28A.657.100, which require the superintendent of public instruction to annually identify persistently lowest-achieving schools, to recommend school districts for designation as required action districts to the state board of education, and to make recommendations to the state board of education regarding the release of school districts from being designated as a required action district.

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     (1) Adopt criteria for identifying persistently lowest-achieving schools;

     (2) Establish criteria for recommending to the state board of education school districts for required action; and

     (3) Establish exit criteria for districts that receive a required action designation.

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     (1) A Title I school that has been identified as being in improvement, corrective action or restructuring in accordance with the 2001 reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act that:

     (a) Is among the lowest-achieving five percent in the all students group in reading and mathematics combined for the past three consecutive years; or

     (b) Is a high school that has a weighted-average graduation rate that is less than sixty percent based on the past three years of data.

     (2) A secondary school that is eligible for, but does not receive, Title I funds that:

     (a) Is among the lowest-achieving five percent of secondary schools in the all students group in reading and mathematics combined for the past three consecutive years; or

     (b) Is a high school that has a weighted-average graduation rate that is less than sixty percent based on the past three years of data.

     (3) However, the superintendent of public instruction may exclude specific schools from the list based on a case-by-case analysis. The case-by-case analysis shall consider the percentage of overage and under-credited students, whether including the school on the list would be invalid or unreliable due to the small number of students on whom the identification would be based, and on other reasonable contextual conditions that would make it inappropriate for the school to be included on the list.

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     (1) The criteria for recommending designation shall be as follows:

     (a) The school district has one or more schools on the persistently lowest-achieving list;

     (b) For recommendations in January 2011 only, the school district did not apply for a school improvement grant in the 2009-10 school year application period;

     (c) Student achievement in the school or schools on the persistently lowest-achieving list within the school district has improved at a rate less than the state average in reading and mathematics in the most recent past three years for which data are available as measured by state assessment scores;

     (d) Schools on the persistently lowest-achieving school list within school districts that are identified in (a) through (c) of this subsection shall be ranked in priority order based on:

     (i) The lowest levels of achievement in the all students group in reading and mathematics combined for the past three consecutive years; and

     (ii) The schools with the lowest rate of improvement in reading and mathematics combined for the past three years.

     (e) Using the priority ranking in (d) of this subsection, the superintendent shall recommend school districts that have a school or schools that have the lowest levels of achievement and lowest rates of improvement. The number of school districts that shall be recommended shall be based on the availability of federal funds and the amount of funding needed for each identified school. For the 2011 recommendations, no more than half of the federal fund appropriation for school improvement grants shall be utilized for required action districts. All other federal funds will be allocated consistent with the federal school improvement guidelines competitive process.

     (2) Notwithstanding subsection (1) of this section, school districts that applied for and received a school improvement grant in the 2009-10 school year application period shall not be eligible for being designated as a required action district until recommendations are made to the state board of education in January 2014, unless the school district does not implement a federal intervention model at each school that received a grant.

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     (1) The district no longer has a school on the persistently lowest-achieving list; and

     (2) The school or schools that were on the persistently lowest-achieving list have a positive improvement trend in reading and mathematics on state assessments in the "all students" category based on the most recent three-year average.

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