SB 19-059 Summary

• Creates the John W. Buckner Automatic Enrollment in Advanced Courses Grant Program in the Department of Education to increase enrollment of proficient students in advanced courses (AP, IB, honors, gifted, and accelerated courses).

• Requires eligible local education providers to automatically enroll students entering 9th grade or higher in advanced courses based on state assessment proficiency scores or other locally-determined measures indicating student ability.

• Permits parents to remove students from automatically assigned advanced courses and allows local education providers to exempt students from automatic enrollment at parent request.

• Grant funds may be used for expanding advanced course offerings, teacher training and professional development, curriculum development, and parent/student engagement; funds cannot be used for hiring new teachers.

• Appropriates $250,000 from the general fund for the 2019-20 fiscal year (0.3 FTE) and requires annual reporting to the legislature on grants awarded and demographic data of automatically enrolled students.