Programs to Support Student Development

1. Programs to Support Student Development N.J.A.C. 6A:16

2. Education Transformation Task Force: Problems with excessive regulation • Stifles innovation – Educators need autonomy to craft their own path to success, while being held accountable for results. • Redirects focus – State requirements that are not focused on student learning, fiscal integrity, or health and safety distract educators from the work that matters most: preparing students to graduate from high school ready for success in life. • Focus on compliance – Culture of overregulation can lead educators to expect that regulatory compliance, rather than student learning, defines success.

3. Task Force regulatory changes – benefit to educators • Ease reporting requirements to the State. • Reduce unnecessary or burdensome requirements. • Provide flexibility in operations. • Provide flexibility in programs. • Provide flexibility in staffing. • Enable high-quality, impactful professional development. • Clarify confusing code requirements.

4. Background • Purpose of the Chapter: Provides minimum standards for programs and practices to support the health, safety, and social emotional needs of students. • Original sunset date: September 15, 2011 • State Board first discussion level: March 7, 2011 • Some Task Force changes are consistent with first discussion amendments.

5. General Changes • Removal of duplicative or unnecessary language • Clarifications to existing rules • Consistency with Statutory language • Corrections to Statutory and regulatory citations • Grammar, stylistic and organizational revisions

6. Increase Flexibility/Reduce Administrative Burden • Task Force Recommendations • Allows districts to hire LPNs or RNs as supplemental noncertified nurses. • No longer requires districts to submit nursing services plans or child abuse policies to the ECS for approval. • Allows flexibility in the forms used for physical examinations and health history records. • Allows for online instruction to be used to provide home instruction, as defined in these regulations. • Department of Education Recommendations • Allows districts to determine the appropriate number of instructional hours and group sizes for home instruction without a prescriptive formula.

7. Implement New Statutes • Task Force Recommendations • Amends HIB definition, aligns reporting requirements, and modifies policies and practices to implement the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights. • Department of Education Recommendations • Includes rules on the management of food allergies, diabetes and other life threatening illness, and the administration of glucagon and epinephrine. • Includes rule requiring policies and procedures for reporting a student who has attempted or contemplated suicide.

8. Reduce Overly Prescriptive Rules • Task Force Recommendations • Removes rules detailing the nursing services that could be performed by the noncertified school nurse. • Removes prescriptive procedures for responding to individuals that knowingly falsify violence and vandalism reports. • Removes rules for alternative education that set a separate and unnecessary standard. • Department of Education Recommendations • Allows districts to determine when it is appropriate to make a court referral for unexcused absences/truancy. • Allows districts to develop home instruction plans without prescriptive requirements.

9. Changes Based on Interagency Collaborations • Task Force Recommendations • Attendance section modified to emphasize positive, graduated interventions for unexcused absences and flexibility to use court enforcement of compulsory education law, as appropriate. (Truancy Interagency Working Group). • Department of Education Recommendations • Law Enforcement Operations modified for consistency with the Uniform Memorandum of Agreement Between Education and Law Enforcement Officials (Attorney General’s and Commissioner of Education’s Law Enforcement Working Group). • Reporting Potentially Missing or Abused Children modified in consultation with Department of Education and Department of Children and Families Working Group.