SB 656 Summary

• Expands early warning systems and school improvement requirements to kindergarten through grade 8 (previously grades 6-8 only), requiring schools to monitor attendance, suspensions, course failures, and reading deficiencies as early warning indicators.

• Establishes new requirements for identifying and intervening with students with substantial reading deficiencies in kindergarten through grade 3, including intensive, explicit, systematic, and multisensory reading instruction, with mandatory monthly parent updates on student progress.

• Requires teacher preparation programs and educator preparation institutes to include evidence-based reading instruction strategies with explicit, systematic, and multisensory approaches in their core curricula and clinical training by July 1, 2020.

• Mandates district school boards allocate resources to students with substantial reading deficiencies as top priority and requires schools provide intensive reading intervention, summer reading camps, and 90 minutes of daily uninterrupted reading instruction for retained third-grade students.

• Requires the Department of Education to develop a handbook for parents of students with reading deficiencies that includes information on learning disorders, dyslexia, and dyscalculia, and establishes professional development requirements for teachers in reading instruction methods effective July 1, 2021.