Superintendent Elsie Arntzen Gives Updates to the Chapter 55 Process after Three Months of Negotiated Rulemaking Committee Work

• Brian O'Leary
• June 02 2022

HELENA – Superintendent Elsie Arntzen continues to recommend improvements to the established school quality standards that are housed in Chapter 55 of Montana’s Administrative Rules. On June 1, 2022, the Negotiated Rulemaking Committee (NRC) reached a consensus on 10 rule changes. The next NRC meeting will be on June 6, 2022. The committee will negotiate eight more recommended improvements to school quality from the Superintendent.

The following are the changes that the NRC reached consensus on:

1. ARM 10.55.721 - required community and family input for safety and emergency plans.
2. ARM 10.55.801 and ARM 10.55.802 – added quality of educational opportunity for all students to these rules.
3. ARM 10.55.804 – recommendation reflects national standards for gifted and talented programming.
4. ARM 10.55.908 – added the word “state” to the federal accessibility standards for facilities.
5. ARM 10.55.909 – reached a consensus to have no changes to this rule.
6. ARM 10.55.1801 – This rule change will ensure that the title of the program delivery standard includes “library media and information literacy program delivery standards” matching the title of the library media content standards that were adopted in 2019.
7. ARM 10.55.901 – reached a consensus to add Indian Education for All and literacy requirements to the elementary education rule.
8. ARM 10.55.904 and ARM 10.55.905 – updated high school program offerings and graduation requirements to include half a unit of civics or government within social studies. Also added economics and financial literacy within social studies, CTE, or mathematics in high school.

“I commend the negotiated rulemaking committee for the deliberate progress made that supports the local control of our school districts,” said Superintendent Elsie Arntzen. “I appreciate the hard work and discussions from the committee. There is much agreement that flexibilities are needed in changing an archaic system to focus on student success.”

The eight recommendations from the Superintendent to the NRC for the June 6 meeting focus on the general provisions for accreditation as follows:

1. ARM 10.55.601 – Streamlining continuous improvement plans into one integrated plan.
2. ARM 10.55.602 – This section has been an ongoing work that the NRC has been building consensus on as rules are adopted.
3. ARM 10.55.603 – Updated to reflect a proficiency-based learning model.
4. ARM 10.55.604 – Clarified what a variance to a standard is. The Superintendent also took the task force recommendation to remove the existing Charter School application language to make it its own rule and updated the language to focus on student performance outcomes.
5. ARM 10.55.605 – Reduced the number of categories for accreditation from five to three and included a status for distinction for schools that significantly exceed student performance standards: Accredited with Distinction, Accredited, and Accredited with Probation.
6. ARM 10.55.606 – Updated the accreditation process to align with the 3 new categories in 605.
7. ARM 10.55.607 – Recommends transferring internships to the Chapter 57 licensure rule where qualifications for employees reside.
8. ARM 10.55.608 - The Superintendent took the task force recommendation to remove this section from Variance to Standard 10.55.604 and make it its own rule and updated the language to focus on student performance outcomes.

There are currently five more scheduled meetings of the NRC. For more information, please contact Dr. Julie Murgel at julie.murgel@mt.gov.

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