A. A school board or, for charter schools, a governing body of a charter school may prepare and submit to the department a bilingual multicultural education program plan in accordance with rules issued by the department.

B. At regular intervals, the school board or governing body of a charter school and a parent advisory committee from the district or charter school shall review the goals and priorities of the plan and make appropriate recommendations to the department.

C. Bilingual multicultural education programs shall be delivered as part of the regular academic program. Involvement of students in a bilingual multicultural education program shall not have the effect of segregating students by ethnic group, color or national origin.

D. Each district or charter school shall maintain academic achievement and language proficiency data and update the data annually to evaluate bilingual multicultural education program effectiveness and use of funds. The department shall annually compile and report these data to the appropriate interim legislative committee.

E. Districts and charter schools shall provide professional development to employees, including teachers, teacher assistants, principals, bilingual directors or coordinators, associate superintendents, superintendents and financial officers in the areas of:

(1) research-based bilingual multicultural education programs and implications for instruction;

(2) best practices of English as a second language, English language development and bilingual multicultural education programs; and

(3) classroom assessments that support academic and language development.

F. Bilingual multicultural education programs shall be part of the district's or charter school's professional development plan. Bilingual educators, including teachers, teacher assistants, instructional support personnel, principals and program administrators, shall participate in professional development and training.

History: 1953 Comp., § 77-23-5, enacted by Laws 1973, ch. 285, § 5; 1988, ch. 64, § 42; 2004, ch. 32, § 5; 2015, ch. 108, § 15.

The 2015 amendment, effective July 1, 2015, authorized the governing body of a charter school to prepare a bilingual multicultural education program and provided for the process by which the governing body should implement the bilingual multicultural education program; in Subsection A, deleted "The" and added "A", after "school board", added "or, for charter schools, a governing body of a charter school"; in Subsection B, after "school board", added "or governing body of a charter school", and after "district", added "or charter school"; in Subsection C, "after programs shall be", deleted "located in the district and"; in Subsection D, after "Each district", added "or charter school", and after "compile and report", deleted "this" and added "these"; in the introductory sentence of Subsection E, after "Districts", added "and charter schools", and after "development to", deleted "district"; and in Subsection F, after "district's", added "or charter school's".

The 2004 amendment, effective May 19, 2004, inserted "bilingual multicultural education" in Subsections A and C, changed "state board" to "department" and added new Subsections D through F.

The 1988 amendment, effective May 18, 1988, deleted "the state superintendent of public instruction or his representative and the chief" following "to the department" in Subsection A.