(1) (a) On or before December 15, 2011, each local education provider shall review its preschool through elementary and secondary education standards in comparison with the preschool through elementary and secondary education standards adopted by the state board pursuant to section 22-7-1005. Following review, each local education provider shall revise its standards, as necessary, to ensure that: (I) The standards meet or exceed the state preschool through elementary and secondary education standards; and (II) The standards are aligned to ensure that a student who demonstrates attainment of the standards while advancing through preschool and elementary and secondary education will be able to demonstrate postsecondary and workforce readiness prior to or upon attaining a high school diploma. (b) In revising its preschool through elementary and secondary education standards, each local education provider shall ensure that it adopts standards, at a minimum, in those subject matter areas that are included in the state preschool through elementary and secondary education standards, including but not limited to English language competency and visual arts and performing arts education. (c) In revising its preschool through elementary and secondary education standards, a local education provider may choose to adopt the state preschool through elementary and secondary education standards. (2) Following the review and revision of its preschool through elementary and secondary education standards, each local education provider shall adopt curricula that are aligned with the standards. The local education provider shall design the curricula to ensure that, beginning in preschool or kindergarten and continuing through elementary and secondary education, each student receives a program of study that will enable the student to demonstrate attainment of each of the preschool through elementary and secondary education standards. (2.5) (a) Each local education provider shall review its procedures concerning academic acceleration for students. Academic acceleration allows a student to progress through an education program at a rate faster or at ages younger than the student's peers. The local education provider shall consider procedures that may include, but need not be limited to, the following: (I) The process for referral for academic acceleration and procedures that ensure the fair, objective, and systematic evaluation of the students referred; (II) A decision-making process for accelerated placement that involves multiple persons, including a student's parents, rather than a sole decision-maker; (III) Guidelines for the practice of academic acceleration, including the categories, forms, and types of academic acceleration and the award of credit; (IV) Guidelines for preventing nonacademic barriers to the use of acceleration as an educational intervention; and (V) An appeals process for decisions related to academic acceleration, as well as a process for evaluating the academic acceleration procedures and its effectiveness in successfully accelerating students. (b) In designing and implementing the academic acceleration procedures, a school district may utilize any resources made available through the department of education and any national research containing recommendations for developing successful academic acceleration procedures. (3) Each local education provider shall adopt assessments that are aligned with the local education provider's standards and curricula and that will adequately measure each student's progress toward and attainment of the local education provider's standards for the subject areas that are not assessed by the state through the system of assessments adopted by the state board pursuant to section 22-7-1006. (4) A local education provider may allow a student who is receiving special education services to demonstrate attainment of the preschool through elementary and secondary education standards and postsecondary and workforce readiness through a differentiated plan if required in the student's individualized education program. (5) (a) On or before July 1, 2017, and on or before July 1 every six years thereafter, each local education provider shall review its preschool through elementary and secondary education standards and, taking into account any revisions to the state preschool through elementary and secondary education standards, shall revise and readopt its standards, if necessary, to ensure that the local education provider's standards continue to meet or exceed the state preschool through elementary and secondary education standards. The local education provider shall revise its curricula accordingly to ensure that the curricula continue to align with the local education provider's preschool through elementary and secondary education standards. (b) As part of each local education provider's review, regardless of time frame, each local education provider shall select two youth representatives from nominations received from schools in the local education provider's range to participate in the review. When possible, one youth representative must be from an urban school district and one youth representative must be from a rural or small rural school district, as those districts are designated by the department of education. The department of education shall promote the opportunities for youth involvement to schools within the local education provider's range and request schools within the local education provider's range nominate youth to participate in the review of local education standards. Youth representatives serve without compensation but may be reimbursed for actual and reasonable expenses incurred in the performance of their duties. For the purposes of this subsection (5)(b), "youth" means the age of eligibility for membership in the Colorado youth advisory council, as set forth in section 2-2-1303 (1)(b)(I). (6) Each local education provider shall adopt and implement a written policy by which the local education provider will decide whether the students enrolled by the local education provider will use pencil and paper to complete any portion of a state assessment administered pursuant to section 22-7-1006.3 (1)(a) that the students would otherwise complete using a computer. The policy must ensure that the local education provider makes the decision in consultation with parents and, if the local education provider is a school district or board of cooperative services, the public schools that the local education provider operates. The local education provider may decide that the students in one or more of the public schools, or in one or more of the classrooms of the public schools, operated by the local education provider will use pencil and paper to complete the computerized portions of a state assessment. Each year before the start of fall semester classes, the local education provider shall distribute copies of the policy to the parents of students enrolled in the local education provider and post a copy of the policy on the local education provider's website. (7) (a) Each local education provider shall adopt and implement procedures by which the local education provider, or the public schools that the local education provider operates, shall annually distribute to the parents of students enrolled by the local education provider an assessment calendar. At a minimum, the assessment calendar must specify the estimated hours each testing day that specific classes or grades will take each assessment and identify whether the assessment is required by federal law or state law or selected by the local education provider. The procedures shall specify the timing for distribution of the calendar and require that the calendar is distributed to parents and posted on the local education provider's website. (b) (I) In addition to the calendar described in paragraph (a) of this subsection (7), each local education provider shall provide written information to the parents of students enrolled by the local education provider that describes: (A) The state and local assessments that the local education provider will administer during the school year, identifying the assessments that the local education provider is required by federal law to administer, any additional state assessments that the local education provider is required by section 22-7-1006.3 to administer, the assessments that the local education provider is required by other state law to administer, and the additional assessments that the local education provider chooses to administer; (B) The anticipated calendar for administering the state and local assessments during the school year; and (C) The purposes of the state assessments administered pursuant to section 22-7-1006.3 and any additional local assessments that the local education provider administers and the manner in which the department of education and the local education provider uses the assessment results. (II) Each local education provider shall annually distribute the written information to parents as early in the school year as possible and shall post the written information on the local education provider's website. (c) The provisions of this subsection (7) do not apply to course-specific assessments that are not adopted by the state board pursuant to section 22-7-1006 or to nonstandardized, classroom-based assessments that individual educators choose to administer to students. (8) (a) Each local education provider shall adopt and implement a written policy and procedure by which a student's parent may excuse the student from participating in one or more of the state assessments administered pursuant to section 22-7-1006.3. The local education provider shall determine whether the process for excusing a student requires a student's parent to submit written notice to the local education provider. (b) If a parent excuses his or her student from participating in a state assessment, a local education provider shall not impose negative consequences, including prohibiting school attendance, imposing an unexcused absence, or prohibiting participation in extracurricular activities, on the student or on the parent. If a parent excuses his or her student from participating in a state assessment, the local education provider shall not prohibit the student from participating in an activity, or receiving any other form of reward, that the local education provider provides to students for participating in the state assessment. (c) A local education provider shall not impose an unreasonable burden or requirement on a student that would discourage the student from taking a state assessment or encourage the student's parent to excuse the student from taking the state assessment. (d) If the department of education or the state board receives a complaint from a parent concerning a local education provider's implementation of this subsection (8), the department shall notify the local education provider of the nature of the complaint.
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