(A) When a school receives a rating of below average or school/district at-risk, the following actions must be undertaken by the school, the district, and the board of trustees:

(1) The faculty of the school with the leadership of the principal must review its renewal plan and revise it with the assistance of the school improvement council established in Section 59-20-60. The revised plan should look at every aspect of schooling, and must outline activities that, when implemented, can reasonably be expected to improve student performance and increase the rate of student progress. The plan must include actions consistent with each of the alternative researched-based technical assistance criteria as approved by the Education Oversight Committee and the State Department of Education and consistent with the external review team report. The plan should provide a clear, coherent plan for professional development, which has been designed by the faculty, that is ongoing, job related, and keyed to improving teaching and learning. A school renewal plan must address professional development activities that are directly related to instruction in the core subject areas and may include the use of funds appropriated for technical assistance to provide compensation incentives in the form of salary supplements to classroom teachers who are certified by the State Board of Education. The purpose of the compensation packages is to improve student achievement and to improve the recruitment and retention of teachers with advanced degrees in schools designated as below average or school/district at-risk. If the school renewal plan is approved, the school shall be permitted to use technical assistance funds to provide the salary supplements. A time line for implementation of the activities and the goals to be achieved must be included.

(2) Once the revised plan is developed, the district superintendent and the local board of trustees shall review the school's strategic plan to determine if the plan focuses on strategies to increase student academic performance. Once the district board has approved the plan, it must delineate the strategies and support the district will give the plan.

(3) After the approval of the revised plan, the principals' and teachers' professional growth plans, as required by Section 59-26-40 and Section 59-24-40, should be reviewed and amended to reflect the professional development needs identified in the revised plan and must establish individual improvement criteria on the performance dimensions for the next evaluation.

(4) The school, in conjunction with the district board, must inform the parents of children attending the school of the ratings received and must outline the steps in the revised plan to improve performance, including the support which the board of trustees has agreed to give the plan. This information must go to the parents no later than February first. This information also must be advertised in at least one South Carolina daily newspaper of general circulation in the area. This notice must be published within ninety days of receipt of the report cards issued by the State Department of Education and must be a minimum of two columns by ten inches (four and one-half by ten inches) with at least a twenty-four point bold headline. The notice must include the following information: name of school district, name of superintendent, district office telephone number, name of school, name of principal, telephone number of school, school's absolute performance rating and growth performance rating on student academic performance, and strategies which must be taken by the district and school to improve student performance.

(5) Upon a review of the revised plan to ensure it contains sufficiently high standards and expectations for improvement, the Department of Education is to delineate the activities, support, services, and technical assistance it will make available to support the school's plan and sustain improvement over time. Schools meeting the criteria established pursuant to Section 59-18-1550 will be eligible for the grant programs created by that section.

(B) The Department of Education shall provide regional workshops to assist schools in formulating school renewal plans based on best practices that positively improve student achievement. The chairman of the local board of education or a board member designee, the superintendent or district instructional leader, and the principal of any school receiving technical assistance funds must attend at least one of the workshops in order to receive any state aid for technical assistance.

HISTORY: 1998 Act No. 400, Section 2; 2008 Act No. 282, Section 1, eff June 5, 2008.

Effect of Amendment

The 2008 amendment, in subsection (A), in the introductory paragraph substituted "school/district at-risk" for "unsatisfactory", in paragraph (1), in the first sentence substituted "renewal plan" for "improvement plan" and added the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh sentences relating to the contents of the plan and development of compensation packages, in paragraph (4), in the first sentence deleted "from the State Board of Education" following "ratings received" and in the fifth sentence substituted "rating and growth performance rating" for "rating and improvement performance rating", and, in paragraph (5), substituted "59-18-1550" for '59-18-1560"; and added subsection (B) relating to regional workshops.