PA School Closures Extended, New Legislation Reduces Standardized Test Score Impact on Teachers

From Education Voters of Pennsylvania (http://www.educationvoterspa.org/):

This week the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) announced that school closures have been extended another two weeks in order to help mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Unless closures are extended, students are expected to return to school on April 9th.

On Wednesday, March 25^th, the PA House and Senate passed emergency legislation that provides clarity and certainty for Pennsylvania’s educational system as school officials face unprecedented challenges during the COVID-19 school closures.

This legislation keeps schools funded, ensures school employees will be paid, guarantees that employees who clean school facilities will have protective clothing and gear, provides the PA secretary of education with the authority to waive specific requirements and to close schools until the threat to health and safety caused by the pandemic is over, and more (see bulleted list below).

This emergency amendment was added to Senate Bill 751, legislation that changes the educator evaluation system to reduce the impact of standardized test scores on educator evaluations. The bill and amendment received unanimous approval and now head to Governor Wolf, who has said he will sign this into law.

This legislation only applies to the current school year. The changes apply to school districts, intermediate units, career and technical schools, charter schools, and cyber charter schools.

The clarity offered by this legislation allows school leaders to focus on the immediate needs of ensuring the continuity of education for students while schools are closed. Superintendents, principals, teachers, and staff are putting in long hours working with each other and with the guidance of professionals in Pennsylvania’s intermediate units to develop these plans.

This is a monumental task, especially for under-resourced schools.

Thank you for your support of public education and many thanks to the dedicated educational professionals who are helping to keep our children healthy, fed, safe, and learning.

Senate Bill 751

• Waives the mandatory 180-day requirement for all schools.
• Provides authority to the secretary of education to close all schools until the pandemic has ended and to increase the number of allowable flexible instruction days (FIDs).
• The secretary of education may also waive the following requirements:
  • Career and technical education program hours
  • Using performance data in the teacher evaluation system
  • Pre-K counts hours
  • 12-week student teacher requirement
  • NIMS assessments (National Institute for Metalworking Skills) and NOCTI exams (National Occupational Competency Testing Institute)
• Ensures school employees will be paid and their retirement security is protected.
• Guarantees that school cleaning staff who are responsible for deep cleaning school facilities during the threat to health and safety because of COVID-19 will be provided cleaning materials and protective clothing and gear as recommended by the CDC.
• Requires schools to provide parents or guardians of special education students who receive services under an IEP with written notice of the school’s plan to ensure that student receives a free and appropriate public education as required under IDEA.
• Requires all schools to make a good faith effort to plan the continuity of education to students using alternative means during the period of closure. The schools will submit their plans to PDE and post them on their website.
• All school entities that were closed as a result of the pandemic may not receive less subsidy payments, reimbursements, allocations, tuition or other payments from PDE or another school entity than it would otherwise have been entitled to receive for the school year.  Tuition payments to charter and cyber charter schools will be based upon enrollment as of March 13, 2020.
• Allows the secretary of education to apply for a federal testing and accountability waiver with the U.S. Department of Education.  (PDE proactively applied for this waiver and it has been granted.)
• Because of staffing needs or impacts to their instructional programs due to COVID-19, school entities are able to apply for a waiver with the secretary of education under any of these new changes. The secretary of education will have 30 days to respond.
• Extends the current continuing education deadline for teachers and school leaders for one year.
• Allows school entities to renegotiate a contract for school bus transportation services to ensure personnel, equipment, and fixed costs are maintained during the period of school closure. The school bus contractor is required to submit weekly reports that their capabilities remain at or above the level on March 13, 2020 to continue receiving their payment. Schools are eligible for reimbursement from the Department of Education at a rate if the closures did not happen.
• Ensures any private residential rehabilitative institution that was closed because of the pandemic will not receive less payment from school entities or the Commonwealth for any student enrolled as of March 13, 2020.

The original language of Senate Bill 751 remained in the bill and contains changes to educator evaluations for the 2021-22 school year. The bill changes the measure on direct classroom observation and practice from 50% to 70% of most educators’ evaluations. The remaining 30% of the rating is based on building level and teacher specific student achievement data, which includes student performance on standardized testing.

Building level data also will be adjusted by a measure of poverty for each individual school building. The teacher specific student achievement data will include student performance measures that relate directly to an educator’s practice each academic year. The PA Department of Education would develop a new rating tool by June 30, 2020.