HB19-1276 Summary

• Establishes the Ninth Grade Success Grant Program to provide funding to school districts and charter schools for comprehensive ninth-grade student support programs aimed at improving high school graduation rates.

• Prioritizes grant awards to schools with four-year graduation rates ranking in the bottom 20% statewide, requiring recipients to provide matching funds of 15% (rural schools and charters) or 25% (other districts).

• Requires grant recipients to implement cross-disciplinary success teams of ninth-grade teachers and support staff meeting biweekly to identify at-risk students and implement data-driven interventions including tutoring, social-emotional learning, and summer orientations.

• Mandates evaluation and reporting of program outcomes including student attendance, behavior, course completion, grades, discipline rates, dropout rates, and graduation rates, with department reports due to the state board and legislature by March 15 annually beginning in 2022.

• Appropriates $800,000 from the general fund for the 2019-20 fiscal year to implement the program, with ongoing funding to be appropriated annually and available from the marijuana tax cash fund.