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SD DOE awaits more
info on “highly qualified” flexibility provisions
The SD Department of
Education has received word that the US Department of Education will be
allowing additional flexibility for teachers in “small, rural and isolated”
schools who need to meet the No Child Left Behind requirements for
“highly qualified” teachers. As soon as complete information is received,
SDDOE will make whatever changes are necessary to implement the provisions and
will inform schools.
The information received
to date is as follows:
1) Teachers in small, rural, and isolated
districts will be given an extra year (end of the 2006-2007 school year)
to attain highly qualified status in all of the core academic subjects that
they teach, as long as they are highly qualified in at least one of the
subjects. (New teachers in these districts will have three years from the
time that they are hired to meet the requirements in all subjects that they
teach.) However, teachers must still be reported as non-highly qualified in
any subject in which they have not yet met the federal definition. In
addition, districts are still required to send letters home to inform parents
that their child’s teacher has not yet met the highly qualified teacher
requirements for that particular subject.
2) Science teachers in states that
certify teachers in the general field of science, rather than in specific
science subjects such as biology and chemistry, will be allowed to demonstrate
subject matter competence through a “broad field test or major.”
3) Veteran teachers of multiple subjects
will be allowed to demonstrate subject matter competence in all of the
subjects they teach through one, rather than multiple, HOUSE procedures.
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