(a) Any local or regional board of education may enter into agreements with other such boards of education to establish a regional agricultural science and technology education center in conjunction with its regular public school system, provided such center shall have a regional agricultural science and technology education consulting committee which shall advise the operating board of education but shall have no legal authority with respect to such center. Such agreements may include matters pertaining to the admission of students, including the establishment of a reasonable number of available program acceptances and the criteria for program acceptance. Each board of education shall appoint to said committee two representatives, who have a competent knowledge of agriculture or aquaculture, as appropriate, and who need not be members of such board.

(b) No new agricultural science and technology education center shall be approved by the State Board of Education pursuant to section 10-65 during the three-year period from July 1, 1993, to June 30, 1996, except that the State Board of Education may approve such a center if it is to be operated by the board of education of a local or regional school district with fifteen thousand or more resident students, as defined in subdivision (19) of section 10-262f. If a new regional agricultural science and technology education center is established for a school district pursuant to this subsection, any resident student of such school district who, during the school year immediately preceding the initial operation of such center, was enrolled in grades 10 to 12, inclusive, in a regional agricultural science and technology education center operated by another local or regional board of education, may continue to be enrolled in such regional agricultural science and technology education center.

(c) For purposes of this section and sections 10-65 and 10-66, the term “agricultural science and technology education” includes vocational aquaculture and marine-related employment.

(d) Any local or regional board of education which does not furnish agricultural science and technology education approved by the State Board of Education shall designate a school or schools having such a course approved by the State Board of Education as the school which any person may attend who has completed an elementary school course through the eighth grade. The board of education shall pay the tuition and reasonable and necessary cost of transportation of any person under twenty-one years of age who is not a graduate of a high school or technical education and career school or an agricultural science and technology education center and who attends the designated school, provided transportation services may be suspended in accordance with the provisions of section 10-233c. Each such board’s reimbursement percentage pursuant to section 10-266m for expenditures in excess of eight hundred dollars per pupil incurred in the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2004, and in each fiscal year thereafter, shall be increased by an additional twenty percentage points.

(1955, S. 920d; 1967, P.A. 638, S. 1; P.A. 78-218, S. 47; P.A. 89-387, S. 36, 41; P.A. 93-410, S. 1, 6; P.A. 04-197, S. 2; P.A. 08-152, S. 1; 08-170, S. 19; P.A. 09-45, S. 1; P.A. 12-116, S. 87; P.A. 17-237, S. 49.)

History: 1967 act made provisions applicable to town and regional boards of education and allowed two representatives on committee for each board, rather than one representative for first fifty farms in district and one for each additional fifty farms; P.A. 78-218 referred to “local and regional” boards rather than “town and regional” boards; P.A. 89-387 amended prior provisions, redesignated as Subsec. (a), to include reference to aquaculture and added new Subsec. (b) defining “vocational agriculture”; P.A. 93-410 amended Subsec. (a) to specify that the agreements may include matters pertaining to the admission of students, relettered Subsec. (b) as Subsec. (c) and inserted new Subsec. (b) pertaining to a moratorium on the establishment of new centers, effective July 1, 1993; P.A. 04-197 added Subsec. (d) re provision, tuition and transportation for vocational agricultural training when not provided by district, effective July 1, 2004; P.A. 08-152 and 08-170 changed “vocational agriculture” to “agricultural science and technology education”, effective July 1, 2008; P.A. 09-45 made a technical change in Subsec. (d), effective May 20, 2009; pursuant to P.A. 12-116, “vocational school” was changed editorially by the Revisors to “technical high school” in Subsec. (d), effective July 1, 2012; P.A. 17-237 amended Subsec. (d) by replacing “technical high school” with “technical education and career school”, effective July 1, 2017.