Amend the bill, as and if amended, Section 59-62-10(B), as contained in SECTION 1, page 2, line 25, so as to delete / make / and insert / promote student achievement by making /.
Amend the bill further, Section 59-62-30(E), as contained in SECTION 1, page 5, lines 3-9, by deleting the subsection in its entirety and inserting:
/ (E) The State Board of Education shall promulgate regulations that list factors to be considered in determining school capacity. In developing these regulations, a task force must be established with membership to include, but not be limited to, school board members, superintendents, principals, parents, and business and community leaders. The membership of the task force must reflect urban and rural areas of the State. /
Amend the bill further, Section 59-62-70, as contained in SECTION 1, by deleting the SECTION in its entirety and inserting:
/ Section 59-62-70. (A) In implementing the provisions of this chapter, a student who currently resides in the attendance zone of a school or who qualifies to attend schools within the attendance zone pursuant to Section 59-63-30 must not be displaced by a student transferring from outside the attendance zone.
(B) A school district is not required to:
(1) accept students at a particular school residing outside the school's attendance area in excess of three percent of the school's highest average daily membership in any year from the preceding ten-year period. The acceptance of students residing outside of the attendance area for a particular school must be phased in at a yearly increase of one percent of the average daily membership of the school in the immediately preceding year. Enrolled students residing outside of the school's attendance zone must continue to be counted in the acceptance percentage of the receiving school until the student is no longer enrolled in a receiving school;
(2) make alterations in the structure of a requested school;
(3) establish and offer a particular program in a school if the program is not currently offered in the requested school; or
(4) alter or waive an established eligibility criteria for participation in a particular program, including age requirements, course prerequisites, or required levels of performance.
(C)(1) The school board of trustees shall adopt specific policies regarding capacity standards, standards of approval, and priorities of acceptance. Standards of approval may include consideration of the capacity of a program, class, or grade level. Standards must not be based on ethnicity, national origin, income level, or disabling conditions, English proficiency level, or previous disciplinary proceedings, except that an expulsion from another district, offenses committed that would result in expulsion, or suspensions from the previous school year that total ten days may be included. However, the school board may provide for provisional enrollment of students with prior behavior problems and may establish conditions under which enrollment of nonresident students would be permitted or continued. These standards may include an applicant's gender, previous academic achievement, and athletic, artistic, or other extracurricular ability, but only if enrollment in that program or school is based upon specific levels of performance uniformly applied to all applicants seeking enrollment to that program or school.
(2)(a) In the assignment of students, priority must be given as follows unless a district has a procedure in place and that procedure was implemented in the school year prior to implementation of this chapter:
(i) first, to returning students who continue to meet the requirements of the program or school;
(ii) second, to students residing within the district including students currently enrolled in private schools and home schools, but who desire to attend a school outside their attendance zone;
(iii) third, to students who meet the requirements of the program or school and who seek to attend the designated school in the district's feeder pattern;
(iv) fourth, to the siblings of students residing in the same household already enrolled in the school, provided that any siblings seeking priority under this section meet the requirements of the program or school; and
(v) fifth, to students whose parent or legal guardian is assigned to the school as his primary place of employment.
(b) The policies must not have the purpose or effect of causing racial segregation in a school or the school district.
(D)(1) A receiving school only may deny resident students living outside the attendance zone or nonresident students permission to enroll when:
(a) there is a lack of capacity in the school or program requested;
(b) the school requested does not offer the appropriate programs or is not structured or equipped with the necessary facilities to meet special needs of a student;
(c) the student does not meet established eligibility criteria for participation in a particular program, including age requirements, course prerequisites, or required levels of performance;
(d) a voluntary or court-ordered desegregation plan is in effect for the school district, and the denial is necessary in order to enable compliance with the desegregation plan; or
(e) the student was suspended for ten days or more the previous school year, was expelled, has committed offenses that would result in expulsion, or is in the process of being suspended or expelled.
(f) a student who qualifies to attend a school in a school district pursuant to Section 59-63-30, including the requirement that the student own real estate in the district that has an assessed value of three hundred dollars or more, may attend the schools within the attendance zone where the property is located without having to apply for enrollment to schools in that attendance zone pursuant to this chapter and the receiving school may not deny the student permission to enroll at the school.
(2) A nonresident student may appeal the decision of a district to deny enrollment to the superintendent of the receiving school district or his designee, and the district or the student may appeal an adverse decision to the board of trustees of the school district. The denial by the receiving district's board of an appeal of an enrollment request is final.
(E) A sending school district only may deny resident students a transfer to a receiving school when the transfer would violate a voluntary or court-ordered desegregation plan in effect for that district. However, if the percentage of students seeking to transfer to receiving schools exceeds twenty percent of the sending district's enrollment, the sending district must concur with any additional students transferring from the school to attend a receiving school. If a school within the sending district has transfer requests which exceed twenty percent of its enrollment resulting in the school being at least twenty percent below capacity, the State Board of Education shall appoint an external review team to study educational programs in the school, identify factors contributing to the transfer requests of students, and make recommendations to the district.
(F) A district may not take action to prohibit or prevent application by resident students to attend school in a nonresident school district or to attend another school within the resident district.
(G) Each school district annually shall submit capacity figures for each of its schools to the department. Each district is responsible for annually posting school capacities on the district and school websites. Additionally, information regarding the current enrollment of the school and its percentage of capacity must be included. This information must be provided to the department and posted on the district and school websites by February fifteenth of each school year as it relates to capacity capabilities for the following school year. /
Amend the bill further, Section 59-62-135, as contained in SECTION 1, page 13-14, by adding an appropriately lettered subsection at the end to read:
/ ( ) The State Board of Education shall promulgate a regulation to define the term 'good cause' as it is to be applied in this section. /
Renumber sections to conform.
Amend title to conform.