Tuesday, June 22, 2021
The co-chairs of the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules have requested modifications to DPI’s proposed PI 17 language on virtual summer school options. As a result, DPI has recalled our original version and submitted an updated one. The updated version provides flexibility to offer non-credit virtual summer school classes to students in grades 9-12 and count the instructional minutes for FTE, but not for students in grades K-8.
Recalling and resubmitting the rule proposal also restarts the legislative review period, which means that it would not receive final approval until September at the earliest. If the proposal is formally enacted by early October then the SFS Team would be able to reopen the PI-1804 Summer School Report for 2021, so that districts could add non-credit virtual minutes for grades 9-12 in time for setting 2021-22 tax levies.
Current law does not allow districts to count non-credit virtual minutes. Districts may not include any such minutes of instruction for grades 9-12 in their PI-1804 submissions unless and until the proposal becomes law. We recommend that districts offering non-credit virtual summer school courses this summer for grades 9-12, including courses funded with ESSER or other sources, keep an additional copy of this year’s PI-1804 workbook to compile minutes for those courses so that the data are ready if the proposal is enacted in time for us to reopen the PI-1804 in October.
As a reminder, this rule proposal does not affect or modify current law that allows virtual courses completed for high school credit to be counted for students in grades 7-12 (note the difference in grade span) with 1 credit requiring 8,100 minutes of instruction. Current law remains in place regardless of what happens with the rule proposal.