2006 Utah Code - 53A-1-603 — Duties of State Board of Education.

     53A-1-603.   Duties of State Board of Education.
     (1) The State Board of Education shall:
     (a) require each school district to implement the Utah Performance Assessment System for Students, hereafter referred to as U-PASS;
     (b) require the state superintendent of public instruction to submit and recommend criterion-referenced and norm-referenced achievement tests, a tenth grade basic skills competency test, and a direct writing assessment for grades 6 and 9 to the board for approval and adoption and distribution to each school district by the state superintendent;
     (c) develop an assessment method to uniformly measure statewide performance, school district performance, and school performance of students in grades 1 through 12 in mastering basic skills courses; and
     (d) provide for the state to participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress state-by-state comparison testing program.
     (2) Under U-PASS, the state office shall annually require that each district administer:
     (a) a statewide norm-referenced test to all students in grades 3, 5, 8, and 11;
     (b) statewide criterion-referenced tests in all grade levels and courses in basic skill areas of the core curriculum;
     (c) a direct writing assessment to all students in grades 6 and 9, with the first assessment to be administered during the 2001-02 school year; and
     (d) a tenth grade basic skills competency test as detailed in Section 53A-1-611, with the first test to be administered during the 2003-04 school year.
     (3) The board shall adopt rules for the conduct and administration of U-PASS to include the following:
     (a) the computation of student performance based on information that is disaggregated with respect to race, ethnicity, gender, limited English proficiency, and those students who qualify for free or reduced price school lunch;
     (b) security features to maintain the integrity of the system, which could include statewide uniform testing dates, multiple test forms, and test administration protocols;
     (c) the exemption of student test scores, by exemption category, such as limited English proficiency, mobility, and students with disabilities, with the percent or number of student test scores exempted being publically reported at a district level;
     (d) compiling of criterion-referenced and direct writing test scores and test score averages at the classroom level to allow for:
     (i) an annual review of those scores by parents of students and professional and other appropriate staff at the classroom level at the earliest point in time and consistent with the timeline of the phase-in referred to in Section 53A-1-602 and this section, but no later than by the end of the school year beginning with the 2003-04 school year;
     (ii) the assessment of year-to-year student progress in specific classes, courses, and subjects;
     (iii) a teacher to review, prior to the beginning of a new school year for the 2003-04 school year and for each school year thereafter, test scores from the previous school year of students who have been assigned to the teacher's class for the new school year; and
     (iv) allowing a school district to have its tests administered and scored electronically to accelerate the review of test scores and their usefulness to parents and educators under Subsections (3)(d)(i), (ii), and (iii), without violating the integrity of U-PASS; and

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     (e) providing that:
     (i) scores on the tests and assessments required under Subsection (2)(b) shall be considered in determining a student's academic grade for the appropriate course and whether a student shall advance to the next grade level; and
     (ii) the student's score on the tenth grade basic skills competency test shall be recorded on the student's transcript of credits.

Amended by Chapter 7, 2002 Special Session 5