Education Bills Explained

Teton County’s Representative Keith Gingery last night presented information to the Teton County District 1 School Board regarding the state’s new education bills passed out of the just-concluded legislature.  Gingery explained that the Teacher Accountability Act clarifies the reasons why a teacher can be terminated and shifts the termination hearing from the school board to the Office of Administrative Hearings.  He says the new law also clarifies when a superintendent can suspend a teacher and the time limits for the superintendent to make a decision regarding a suspended teacher.  In conjunction with the law, the State Board of Education will have to come up with a teacher performance evaluation system.   Along those same lines, Gingery told the board the Education Accountability Act creates a baseline of data for each school and then each school shall be evaluated based on their performance.  The Select Committee on Accountability has been created and will create the structure by which the schools shall be evaluated.  The third act passed by the legislature was the Recalibration Bill which provides for the funding model for our schools for the next 5 years.  As part of that bill, the class sizes in K-3 will have to remain at 16 or below.