NAP- Neighborhood Alliance of Pawtucket

Pawtucket & IDEA Regs and Fact Sheets- Special Education Advisor

Highly Qualified Teachers

key page references for the highly qualified teacher
issue. Please go to the link above, scroll down to Regulations/Final
Regulations/Individual Sections. There you can find page numbers that
will match the references below. Happy reading!

Two sections are key to the HQT issue:
300.18 - Highly qualified special education teachers
300.156 - Personnel qualifications

Preamble - highlights changes to the regulation
300.18 - pp. 4-5 (I've pasted this language below)
300.156 - p. 18

Public Comments and Responses - interesting reading
300.18 - pp. 81-136
300.156 - pp. 407-431

Regulation language
300.18 - pp. 1270-1276
300.156 - pp. 1359-1362


Preamble for 300.18

* The definition of highly qualified special education teacher in
§300.18 has been revised, as follows:

(1) Section 300.18(b), regarding requirements for highly qualified
special education teachers in general, has been modified to clarify that,
when used with respect to any special education teacher teaching in a
charter school, highly qualified means that the teacher meets the
certification or licensing requirements, if any, set forth in the State's
public charter school law.

(2) A new §300.18(e), regarding separate "high objective uniform State
standards of evaluation" (HOUSSE), has been added to provide that a
State may develop a separate HOUSSE for special education teachers,
provided that any adaptations of the State's HOUSSE would not establish a
lower standard for the content knowledge requirements for special
education teachers and meets all the requirements for a HOUSSE for regular
education teachers. This provision also clarifies that a State may develop
a separate HOUSSE for special education teachers, which may include
single HOUSSE evaluations that cover multiple subjects.

(3) Section 300.18(g) (proposed §300.18(f)) ("Applicability of
definition to ESEA requirements; and clarification of new special
education teacher") has been revised as follows: (1) the heading has been
revised, and (2) the language changed to clarify when a special
education teacher is considered "new" for some purposes.

(4) Section 300.18(h) (proposed §300.18(g)) has been modified to
clarify that the highly qualified special education teacher requirements
also do not apply to private school teachers hired or contracted by LEAs
to provide equitable services to parentally-placed private school
children with disabilities under §300.138.

Preamble for 300.156

* Section 300.156(e), regarding personnel qualifications, has been
revised (1) to add "or a class of students," to clarify that a judicial
action on behalf of a class of students may not be filed for failure of a
particular SEA or LEA employee to be highly qualified, and (2) to
substitute the word "employee" for "staff person," to be more precise in the
rule of construction in new §300.18(f) (proposed §300.18(e)).

2nd Wed of every other Month meeting in Pawtucket

http:/www.psdri.net/WEBS/special_educagtion/SEAC.html

IDEA Fact Sheets and web resources

IDEA website
IDEA Fact Sheet
Pawtucket Special Ed Advisory