Bill Summaries: all (2015-2016 Session)

Tracking:
  • Summary date: Apr 29 2015 - View summary

    House committee substitute makes the following changes to the 1st edition.

    Deletes previous changes to GS 115C-84.2(d), which provides parameters for local boards of education to apply in determining the opening and closing dates for public schools.

    Current law requires each local board of education to have 215 calendar days in its school calendar with a minimum of 185 days or 1,025 hours of instruction covering a period of at least nine calendar months. Amends GS 115C-84.2(a)(1) to make the minimum instruction period in a calendar year consist of 1,025 hours, deleting the 185 days requirement. Provides that local boards may approve school improvement plans that include a varying number of instructional hours in instructional days occurring in different semesters of the school year, and that they may vary the number of days per instructional semester if the hours of instruction remain equivalent between semesters. Also provides that if a school board adopts a school calendar with less than 185 days of instruction that teachers, who are 10-month employees, are deemed to have been employed the equivalent of 185 days of instruction and compensated as if they had worked those days. Provides that annual leave, sick leave, workdays, holidays, salary, and longevity for teachers employed at schools with instructional calendars less than 185 days must be equivalent to those of other teachers employed for the same number of months.

    Amends GS 115C-174.12(4) to authorize a local board of education that has implemented a school calendar that ends the fall semester before December 31 to administer fall exams prior to the conclusion of the semester.

    Directs the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee (Committee) to study local school administrative units that havesuccessfullyused calendar flexibility under GS 115C-84.2 to have semester exams prior to December 31. Requires the Committee to report its findings and recommendations to the 2016 Regular Session of the 2015 General Assembly.


  • Summary date: Mar 5 2015 - View summary

    Under current law, GS 115C-84.2(d) provides authority to local boards of education to determine the opening and closing dates for public schools under GS 115C-84.2(a)(1). However, the local boards must comply with specified parameters for the opening and closing dates of public schools as provided in GS 115C-84.2(d). Subsection (d) also provides criteria under which the State Board of Education may waive those requirements upon a showing of good cause by a local board of education. 

    Amends GS 115C-84.2(d) to require that except for year-round schools, local boards of education must set the school opening date for students to be no earlier than August 15 (was, no earlier than the Monday closest to August 26). Also requires that first-semester examinations be given before winter break. Retains provision authorizing local boards of education to determine the opening and closing dates for public schools. Adds new language that provides that regardless of the required opening date under subsection (d), a local school board may choose to schedule the opening and closing dates for any school in the local administrative unit to align with the opening and closing dates of a community college that serves the city or county in which the school unit is located.

    Deletes all other provisions of subsection (d), including the requirement that the school closing date for students be no later than the Friday closest to June 11. 

    Effective when act becomes law, applying a the beginning of the 2015-16 school year.