H155 - Omnibus Education Law Changes. (SL 2017-157)

OVERVIEW: S.L. 2017-157 makes the following changes to various education statutes:

• Beginning with the 2017-2018 school year, modifies the reporting date for a report on school organizational data, including class size.
• Makes conforming changes to career status employment statutes to align with a decision by the North Carolina Supreme Court.
• Beginning with the 2017-2018 school year, authorizes assistant principals at high schools with at least 1500 students to conduct evaluations for beginning teachers, as long as at least one evaluation in a teacher's first three years of employment is conducted by the principal.
• Directs the Superintendent of Public Instruction (Superintendent) to convene a Work Group to study student health and mental health issues. The Work Group's findings and recommendations must be reported to the State Board of Education (SBE) and the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee by April 1, 2018.
• Prohibits the SBE from adopting or implementing any policies or recommendations from the Interagency Advisory Committee until October 1, 2018, and directs the SBE to change the timelines for the development and implementation of plans and training required by its policy on School-Based Mental Health Initiatives by delaying all of the items by one year from the dates provided in the policy. The SBE must also provide notice to the local school administrative units (LEAs) who are participating in the "Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child" pilot program and allow those LEAs to withdraw from the pilot program at their discretion.
• Directs the Superintendent to study the expansion of teaching and student learning of computational thinking and computer science, in collaboration with the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. The recommendations must include certain curriculum guidelines, recommendations to increase the number of teachers prepared to teach computational thinking and computer science, and other policy recommendations, and must be aligned with the ongoing implementation of the North Carolina Digital Learning Plan. A report must be submitted to the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee on the recommendations, including any proposed legislation, by January 15, 2018.

This act has various effective dates. Please see the full summary for more detail.