The Kentucky Department of Education’s Local Superintendents Advisory Council recently passed new amendments clarifying some regulations regarding Non-Traditional Instruction or NTI days.
Mathew Courtney is Policy Advisor for the Kentucky Department of Education. He said these changes were made to improve transparency of the NTI process.
“You have always had to collect evidence of student learning. The plan for how you collect that is a little opaque. So, we are asking districts to clarify that as well as the name and contact information for that district NTI point of contact, so the public knows who that is,” Courtney said.
The point of contact is someone in each district who can openly communicate with their communities and answer any questions guardians and teachers alike may have on the topic.
Under the new rules, teachers must provide one piece of evidence of their lesson plan for each different class they teach each NTI day.
“We've expanded the list of what counts as evidence of clear continuation of learning. So, in addition to examples of student work and lesson plans, which have always been allowable, we are now going to allow reports from online learning management systems, examples of teacher student communication or other documentation deemed appropriate,” Courtney said.
Courtney added each superintendent must submit an NTI plan and be approved annually. He said practice of these plans cannot be changed or amended without review and approval from the board.
Courtney said districts unable to comply with the regulations will lose their ability to have NTI days and must instead tally all cancelled school days onto the end of the school year. These districts are not without hope as there is a corrective process that will allow them to regain the use of NTI days.