Posted: | April 21, 2015 12:51 PM |
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From: | Senator Andrew E. Dinniman |
To: | All Senate members |
Subject: | Enrollment and Admissions Information Updates |
I plan to introduce this session legislation that will provide a simple addition to existing law to address an omission that is occurring in our schools that can have unintended devastating consequences. In my district, there was a serious case of child abuse that sadly ended in the death of a young boy that was left undiscovered for multiple days. During those days when the child wasn’t seen or heard from, he also wasn’t in school. Unfortunately, the school wasn’t able to reach a parent or find the whereabouts of the child because of outdated contact information that the school had on record. This bill will help assure that multiple opportunities will exist for the school to obtain more current contact information to update its records so that it will have the information before the time when a child or their parent or guardian needs to be reached. The bill will add to the existing enrollment and admission law that each board of school directors shall develop a written policy that provides the student’s parent an opportunity to update such information in conjunction with the issuance of the child’s quarterly report card or every 60 days if a report card isn’t issued in quarters or trimesters. This bill will add a requirement for the school district system leader to recalculate enrollment totals, using information that is currently being obtained under the law, to be done in intervals that correlate with the issuance of the child’s quarterly report card or every 60 days if a report card isn’t issued in quarters or trimesters. If the number calculated is different from the enrollment number last reported to the Department, the number calculated and recorded is to be submitted to the Department. This information is critical because any proposed change in the Basic Education Funding Formula needs to have current enrollment information. |
Introduced as SB827