§ 16-53.1-2. Establishment of school improvement teams. [Effective January 1, 2020.] (a)(1) The school board or school committees of the cities and towns shall establish a school improvement team for each school in the district, and shall develop procedures for the election and appointment of school improvement team members. Each school improvement team shall be composed of the principal and an appropriately balanced number of teachers, education support employees, students, parents, and other business and community citizens who are representative of the ethnic, racial, and economic community served by the school, provided that vocational-technical center and high school school-improvement teams shall include students, and middle and junior high school school-improvement teams may include students. Members representing teachers, education support employees, students, and parents shall be selected by their peer groups at the school in a fair and equitable manner. At the middle and high school levels, where there are designated department heads, those department heads will also be included on the school improvement team. At a minimum, these school improvement teams at this middle and high school level shall include at least one department head from a humanities subject area and at least one department head from one of the science, technology, engineering, or mathematics subject areas.

(2) Business and other community members shall be selected by the school according to a procedure established by the school board. The school board shall review the membership composition of each school improvement team. Should the school board determine that the membership elected by the school is not representative of the ethnic, racial, and economic community served by the school, the board shall appoint additional members to achieve proper representation. For the purposes of school improvement teams, the term "teacher" includes classroom teachers, certified student services personnel, and media specialists. For purposes of this subsection, "education support employee" means any person employed by a school who is not defined as instructional or administrative personnel pursuant to law and whose duties require twenty (20) or more hours in each normal working week.

(b) The school board may establish a district school improvement team representative of the district and composed of teachers, students, parents, and other citizens or a district school improvement team which may be comprised of representatives of each school improvement team.

History of Section. (P.L. 2000, ch. 262, § 1; P.L. 2001, ch. 86, § 50; P.L. 2019, ch. 224, § 4; P.L. 2019, ch. 259, § 4.)