HB 1076 (Open States or Washington Legislature) expands participation in innovation academy cooperatives by allowing students whose home district does not offer the innovation academy to transfer into a district that offers those cooperative schools. The bill discriminates against online-only classes and stipulates that a student must enroll in classes other than just online.
Legislative Analysis
An innovation academy cooperative is a high school program that either is focused and organized around themes or academies (STEM), a mixture of instructional service delivery models, accelerated learning, creative scheduling or a program which works with higher education to expand learning options.
This bill allows a student, who resides in a district not offering an innovation academy, to transfer into a district that offers these cooperatives. Outside of standard restrictions on enrollment, any student wishing to enroll in one of these cooperatives must ensure that they are taking more than just online courses. This limits enrollment to students who live in geographical proximity to the district and prevents students from across the state from enrolling in these cooperatives.
This bill does increase participation in innovation academies and increase options for students, however rather than promoting any time, any place learning, this bill takes the concept of innovation academies and restricts them to a specific set of geographically-limited students. A bill which could have been transformative is instead left as a tweak to existing policy.
Legislative History
Detailed Vote History: Legiscan | Open States
Approved by Governor Rick Scott on 5/20/2013
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