House Bill No. 6384
Public Act No. 13-193
AN ACT CONCERNING THE DISPROPORTIONATE OR INAPPROPRIATE IDENTIFICATION OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS AS REQUIRING SPECIAL EDUCATION.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:
Section 1. Section 10-76kk of the general statutes is repealed and the following is substituted in lieu thereof (Effective July 1, 2013):
(a) Any local or regional board of education identified by the Department of Education that disproportionately and inappropriately identifies (1) minority students, or (2) English language learners as requiring special education services because such students have a reading deficiency in contravention of the provisions of subparagraph (A) of subdivision (4) of subsection (a) of section 10-76ff shall annually submit a report to the department on the plan adopted by such board that reduces the misidentification of such minority students or English language learners by improving reading assessments and interventions for students in kindergarten to grade three, inclusive.
(b) The Department of Education shall study the plans and strategies used by a local or regional board of education that demonstrate improvement in the reduction of the misidentification of minority students or English language learners requiring special education under this section. Such study shall examine the correlation between improvements in teacher training in the science of reading and the reduction in misidentification of students requiring special education services.
(c) For purposes of this section, "minority students" means those whose race is defined as other than white, or whose ethnicity is defined as Hispanic or Latino by the federal Office of Management and Budget for use by the Bureau of Census of the United States Department of Commerce; and "English language learners" means those students reported as English language learners by the local or regional board of education for such students to the Department of Education.