Current NCLB Business Rules

Revised 2/15/2011

 

 

License Areas

 

In order to be NCLB HQ, an educator must have a valid license. Student and Paraprofessional licenses are not considered valid for the purposes of NCLB calculation. In addition, the educator must have at least a bachelor’s degree and a passing score on whichever test is associated with that license area.  Restricted license areas (such as those resulting from district licenses) will only be considered HQ while the educator abides by those restrictions.

Once a license area is marked as HQ, it will not be disqualified unless the mark was a consequence of a bug or misunderstanding of documented policy.

 

Added 7/14/09 – Early Childhood will be considered HQ if the educator possesses an HQ Elementary Education license area and a level 2 or 3 active license.

 

Added 1/7/09 – International Guest Teachers will be considered HQ for the duration of their license

 

Added 5/6/09 - Individuals with the license area “Middle Education 5-9” can be deemed HQ for Elementary inclusion courses (defined as courses with state requirements that include the Middle Education license area with no endorsements required) if the individual has passed the 0014 PRAXIS test.

 

Endorsements

 

In order for an endorsement to be considered HQ the educator must have a valid license. As with license areas, Student and Paraprofessional licenses are not considered valid for the purposes of NCLB calculation. The educator must abide by the school or district restrictions (if any) placed on the endorsement. The endorsement must be valid. In addition, in order for an endorsement to be HQ the educator must have at least a bachelor’s degree and a passing score on whichever test is associated with that endorsement.  There are only two exceptions to the test requirement:

1)     Special Education endorsements may be HQ for K-3 if the educator possesses an Early Childhood license area that is HQ. Special Education endorsements may be K-8 HQ if the educator possesses an Elementary Education license area that is HQ.

2)     Since the Reading endorsement has no test associated with it, Reading will be considered HQ if the educator possesses an English endorsement that is HQ. (2/15/2011 – the Reading endorsement now has a test associated with it)

 

Once an endorsement is marked as HQ, it will not be disqualified unless the mark was a consequence of a bug or misunderstanding of documented policy.

 

Added 9/12/09 - Endorsements granted to a Utah Teaching License holder prior to 3/1/2007 can be deemed HQ if the educator submits evidence of a Major Equivalent, or 30 semester hours of university coursework, in the subject. We are not planning to implement this programmatically, but will deal with this manually on a case by case basis due to the uncommon nature of this occurrence.

 

Added 1/7/09 – International Guest Teachers will be considered HQ for the duration of their license

 

Added 5/5/09 - An English endorsement attached to an Elementary Education (1-8) license area may be deemed HQ with a passing score on the PRAXIS 0049 test.  This occurrence is rare and will therefore be handled manually on an individual basis.

 

Added 12/20/10 - An individual teaching a Secondary NCLB course in an Necessarily Existant Small School (NESS) can be designated as Highly Qualified if the individual is already state qualified for the course and has demonstrated content knowledge (100 points) on the NESS HQ Framework. See http://www.schools.utah.gov/cert/No-Child-Left-Behind.aspx

 

 

Assignments

 

An assignment will be considered HQ only if it is also USOE qualified, in an NCLB subject (Fine Arts, Foreign Language, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Elementary/ Early Childhood). Only valid, unexpired, HQ qualifications will be considered for HQ status of assignments. The assignment must be a core subject as determined by the HQ flag. The assignment must be active.

 

Special Education assignments are considered HQ depending on whether the content is specific or elementary. This is determined based on the first two characters of the core code. 22 is considered Elementary Education, all others are not. Elementary assignments with a grade_high between 4 and 8 require a K-8 HQ. Assignments with a grade_high of K-3 require either the K-3 or K-8 designation on the appropriate endorsement. Any assignment marked as grade_high of 9 or higher within Elementary Education will not be considered a core assignment and will be marked as “Not Applicable”. Content-specific assignments (those with a core code other than 22) with a grade_high of 8 or less require the appropriate K-8 HQ endorsement or they require the educator to have a subject-specific Special Education endorsement specified in the assignment requirements (for example, Algebra Spec Ed might require Special Ed NCLB Mathematics endorsement). If the grade_high is 9 or higher the educator must have the appropriate Special Education NCLB endorsement.

 

Secondary Education license areas will not be considered HQ. In order to be HQ, Grade 7 and Grade 8 must be taught at an Elementary school. Finally, college institutions are automatically HQ.

 

Assignments may be marked as HQ and unmarked as HQ so long as the assignment is active. During rollover, assignments are marked as inactive and the status will no longer be recalculated.  This means that past assignments are not calculated and the HQ flag is NULL.

 

Clarification (6/23/09): Universities are, by definition, considered HQ for all NCLB assignments. Universities are defined using their CACTUS IDs. The following CACTUS IDs are marked as universities: 155727,155728,155729,155730,155731,155732,452383,452384,523141,155733,155734

 

Added 12/18/09 – Bi-lingual elementary courses (defined as courses starting with ‘22’ and with either 24,25,26, or 27 in the 7th and 8th positions of the core code) base their HQ status solely on the license area, disregarding any endorsement requirements. However, the educator must also be state qualified.

 

Added 1/10/10 – Gifted/Talented (1-6) (defined as core code 22-01-00-00-050) bases its HQ status solely on the license area, disregarding any endorsement requirements. However, the educator must also be state qualified.