Restoring Teacher Authority and Classroom Order ACT

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The purpose of this act is to promote safe and orderly classrooms where teacher authority is respected by students and school administrators, to ensure that parents have access to reliable insight into school safety, and to biannual review of school discipline policies. This act requires that the State Education Agency administer an annual survey to teachers to ascertain safety conditions within public schools. This act also requires Local Education Agencies to revisit their school discipline codes of conduct to increase teacher discretion in the school discipline system.

Section 1

The legislative code annotated is amended by adding the following language as a new part.

01. Short Title

This part shall be known and may be cited as the “Restoring Teacher Authority and Classroom Order Act.”

02. Definitions

As used in this part, unless context requires otherwise:

1. “Public School” means any primary or secondary school in this State operated by the State or subdivision of the State, including public charter schools.
2. “Location Education Agency” or “LEA” means a public board of education or other public authority legally constituted within a State to exercise administrative control or direction over a public school or schools.
3. “State Education Agency” or “SEA” means the agency primarily responsible for supervising public schools within a State.
4. “Teacher” means all professional educators as defined in state code, including the driver of a school bus or other mode of transportation.
5. “Principal” means principal, assistant principal, vice principal, or a professional personnel designee of the principal or administrative head of school.
6. “Likert Scale” means a psychometric survey tool that provides a numerical and substantive range of answers regarding agreement or disagreement with the surveyed proposition.

03. Safety Transparency for Teachers and Parents

1. At the end of an academic year, the SEA shall contact every teacher in the state via electronic mail address provided by the LEAs to administer a survey regarding school safety that features:
   1. Questions on a Likert Scale including, but not limited to:
      1. Student behavior has improved over the past academic year.
      2. I feel safe in my classroom.
      3. My school’s code of conduct is effective at promoting an orderly learning environment.
      4. I feel supported by my principal when I face a disciplinary issue with a student.
   2. Open-ended, free-response questions including, but not limited to:
      1. Describe the discipline and safety problems that you or your colleagues have experienced over the past academic year.
      2. What recommendations do you have to improve the school discipline system and the school climate.
2. The survey shall be designed to provide complete anonymity to teacher respondents.
3. Within 30 days of the end of the administration of the survey, the SEA shall make available school-level survey data by posting the results to its website, wherein a parent shall be able to find their school information within three levels of the main page.
4. The SEA shall provide the LEA with school-level information, which the LEA shall post on its website, accessible within two levels of the main page.

04. School Discipline Policy Review

At the end of this academic year, and at the end of every other academic year thereafter, LEAs shall review and revise their student codes of conduct and school discipline policies through a school board-appointed committee consisting of five teachers and four parents, representing elementary, middle, and high schools, within the following parameters:

1. The committee shall aim to simplify the disciplinary referral system and minimize the number of alternative interventions required before a teacher may submit a disciplinary referral to a principal
2. The discipline code shall permit a teacher to send a student to the principal’s office for disruptive behavior after one warning has been issued regarding disruptive behavior within a 5-school-day time period.
3. Provided the teacher’s referral is consistent with the school’s disciplinary code, the principal shall proceed with the presumption that the teacher’s decision is warranted and shall not reprimand a teacher for making a disciplinary referral.
4. Assault or battery committed by a student against a teacher shall be grounds for automatic law enforcement referral, and for a hearing regarding whether to expel the student.

Section 2

This act takes effect upon becoming a law, the public welfare requiring it.