State board to meet; academic content standards and SLOs on agenda

The Board of Education Standards will meet Monday, Jan. 22, in Pierre. As part of its agenda, the board will hold public hearings on proposed standards in Science and CTE Government and Public Administration Cluster. These hearings are designed to get input from educators and other interested South Dakotans on the proposed standards.

The proposed standards can be found on DOE’s Content Standards Under Review webpage. This is the third of four hearings; a final public hearing will be held in April in Rapid City. The webpage provides a link for submitting public comment. There is also an option to provide testimony during the hearing. Watch for an agenda and details about testifying to be posted on the board’s webpage soon.

In addition to content standards hearings, the board will hold a public hearing on proposed changes to ARSD 24:57 (Teacher Performance Standards and Evaluation), which would make Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) an optional part of the teacher evaluation process, as opposed to a requirement. The proposed rule changes are posted on the state’s https://rules.sd.gov website. Select Department of Education and then “ARSD 24:57 (Teacher Performance Standards and Evaluation)” at the bottom on the chart.

Public comment can be provided via the rules website, in writing (mail to: SD Department of Education, Attn: Hope Paulson, 800 Governors Drive, Pierre, SD 57501-2235), or by testifying during the hearing. Watch for an agenda and details about testifying to be posted on the board’s webpage soon.