A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT to give local school administrative units additional flexibility with regard to the use of funds for mentors and to provide funds for mentors for all teachers.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  The State Board of Education shall grant flexibility to a local board of education regarding the use of mentor funds to provide mentoring support provided the local board submits a detailed plan on the use of the funds to the State Board and the State Board approves that plan. The plan shall include information on how all mentors in the local school administrative unit have been or will be adequately trained to provide mentoring support.
Local boards of education shall use funds allocated for mentor teachers only to provide mentoring support to newly certified teachers, second‑year teachers who were assigned mentors during the prior school year, and entry‑level instructional support personnel who have not previously been teachers.
SECTION 2.  The State Board of Education, after consultation with the Professional Teaching Standards Commission, shall adopt standards for mentor training.
SECTION 3.  There is appropriated from the General Fund to State Aid to Local School Administrative Units the sum of three million four hundred thousand dollars ($3,400,000) for the 2003‑2004 fiscal year and the sum of three million four hundred thousand dollars ($3,400,000) for the 2004-2005 fiscal year to provide mentors for employees who are in locally funded positions and who are either (i) newly certified teachers in their first two years of employment as teachers or (ii) entry‑level instructional support personnel who have not previously been teachers and who are in their first year of employment as instructional support personnel.
SECTION 4.  This act becomes effective July 1, 2003.