Senate Bill 2673

AN ACT TO CREATE NEW SECTIONS 37-183-1, 37-183-3, 37-183-5, 37-183-7, 37-183-9 AND 37-183-11 MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO CREATE THE DISTRICT SYSTEM DESIGN PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM, TO REQUIRE THE DESIGNATED SCHOOL DISTRICTS TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PROGRAM, TO REQUIRE EACH DESIGNATED SCHOOL DISTRICT TO DEVELOP A REDESIGN PLAN; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:

SECTION 1. The following shall be codified as Section 37-183-1, Mississippi Code of 1972:

37-183-1. This act shall be known and may be cited as the "District System Design Partnership Program Act."

SECTION 2. The following shall be codified as Section 37-183-3, Mississippi Code of 1972:

37-183-3. The Mississippi Legislature finds that:

(a) The average student in the United States leaves high school two (2) to three (3) years behind the average student in a growing number of countries. Many of those countries produce better results while spending less per student than in the United States.

(b) In order for Mississippi students to remain competitive in the national and world economies, the state must support efforts to assist Mississippi school district leadership teams to learn how to improve their district performance up to national and international education benchmarks.

(c) To dramatically improve student achievement for all students, superintendents must redesign their districts to operate differently than the models that have defined public education for the past century. A school district cannot dramatically improve student achievement for all students until it fundamentally changes the way it operates as a system. To do so, a district must be carefully and thoughtfully redesigned from the ground up. This is especially true in lower-performing and newly consolidated school districts in Mississippi.

(d) Mississippi superintendents must ensure that all the members of their district's leadership team and the community understand what makes a top-performing school system successful, develop a vision for their district that has their students competing with the nation's and the world's best, and possess the leadership skills to redesign their district to achieve that vision.

(e) In order to encourage Mississippi school districts to redesign their education systems consistent with evidence-based best practices drawn from top-performing jurisdictions across the United States and the economy into which our students will graduate and compete for jobs, the Mississippi Legislature shall fund this chapter.

SECTION 3. The following shall be codified as Section 37-183-5, Mississippi Code of 1972:

37-183-5. The purpose of the District System Design Partnership Program is to lead to the development of redesign plans by each participating school district consistent with the design of top-performing education systems in order to improve student achievement, close achievement gaps, prepare students to succeed in flexible college enrollment programs accessible to high school students and enhance workforce development and economic growth in each participating school district.

SECTION 4. The following shall be codified as Section 37-183-7, Mississippi Code of 1972:

37-183-7. For the purposes of this chapter, "leadership team" means a group of administrators, faculty or staff selected by superintendents of the school districts designated in Section 37-183-11 to participate in the District System Design Partnership Program.

SECTION 5. The following shall be codified as Section 37-183-9, Mississippi Code of 1972:

37-183-9. (1) The Mississippi Development Authority shall: (a) Establish a District System Design Partnership Program to improve student achievement, prepare the workforce to compete in the 21st Century economy and increase economic growth in selected Mississippi school districts;

(b) Serve as the fiscal agency for the work; and

(2) The nationally recognized education leadership organization shall deliver the following services to the selected school districts in a three-phase program:

(a) Phase One - Compilation and analysis of the relevant context of the school districts. In phase one, the nationally recognized education leadership organization will work with the leadership teams of the participating school districts to compile and analyze relevant contextual information about the participating districts, including a gap analysis between the participating districts and other top-performing education systems.

(b) Phase Two - Executive development focused on a systematic approach to redesign the school district. In phase two, the nationally recognized education leadership organization will present four (4) facilitated executive-development sessions that:

(i) First, explore the urgency for redesigning a system to educate all students to world-class standards, benchmark the highest performing United States and international jurisdictions and introduce systems design and strategic thinking frameworks;

(ii) Second, describe and analyze aligned instructional systems built within a qualification framework that enable all students to reach world-class standards;

(iii) Third, analyze high-quality instruction, including high-quality teacher recruitment, preparation, induction, and ongoing professional learning and explore systems that provide incentives for the best teachers to work in classes that serve students with the greatest needs and develop professional growth models that develop the skills of the current teacher workforce, allowing the most effective teachers to take on progressively more demanding roles in the school as they increase their expertise and leadership capacity;

(iv) Fourth, focus on high-performance organization and management, analyzing the design of high-performing professional organizations across industries and exploring the redesign of schools as workplaces featuring continuous improvement in professional practice.

(i) Use the relevant context, the shared learning from the executive development sessions and the strategic thinking framework to develop each school district's vision as well as the strategies and tactics that will be used to reach that vision; and

(ii) Develop a redesign plan for each school district.

The redesign plan shall include an in-depth analysis of the relevant context of the participating school districts drawn from the insights gained during phase one and phase two of the program.

SECTION 6. The following shall be codified as Section 37-183-11, Mississippi Code of 1972:

37-183-11. (1) The Mississippi Development Authority shall award funds to a nationally recognized education leadership organization to partner with the leadership teams.

(2) One-half (1/2) of the funds awarded under subsection (1) of this section shall support program work with the following collaborative of consolidated and lower-performing school districts:

(a) Cleveland School District;

(b) Sunflower County School District;

(d) West Bolivar Consolidated School District.

(3) One-half (1/2) of the funds awarded under subsection (1) of this section shall support program work with the following collaborative of consolidated and lower-performing school districts:

(a) Greenwood-Leflore Consolidated School District;

(b) Holmes County Consolidated School District;

(d) Vicksburg-Warren School District.

(4) This funding will support the delivery of intensive executive development and district-specific collaboration and support during an approximate twelve-month period of time.

(5) By the end of the period of time in subsection (4) of this section, members of the leadership teams shall develop a redesign plan for each school district.

SECTION 7. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 2021.