(1) No later than December 30, 2000, the Kentucky Department of Education shall establish and implement a comprehensive statewide strategy to provide assistance to local districts and schools to address the student dropout problem in Kentucky public schools. In the development of the statewide strategy, the department shall engage private and public representatives who have an interest in the discussion. The statewide strategy shall build upon the existing programs and initiatives that have proven successful. The department shall also take into consideration the following:

• (a) Analyses of annual district and school dropout data as submitted under KRS 158.148 and 158.6453;
• (b) State and federal resources and programs, including, but not limited to, extended school services; early learning centers; family resource and youth service centers; alternative education services; preschool; service learning; drug and alcohol prevention programs; School-to-Careers; High Schools that Work; school safety grants; and other relevant programs and services that could be used in a multidimensional strategy;
• (c) Comprehensive student programs and services that include, but are not limited to, identification, counseling, mentoring, and other educational strategies for elementary, middle, and high school students who are demonstrating little or no success in school, who have poor school attendance, or who possess other risk factors that contribute to the likelihood of their dropping out of school; and
• (d) Evaluation procedures to measure progress within school districts, schools, and statewide.

(2) In cooperation with the Kentucky Education Association, the Kentucky School Boards Association, the Kentucky Association of School Administrators, the Kentucky Association of Professional Educators, the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents, the Parent-Teachers Association, the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, the Farm Bureau, members of the Interim Joint Committee on Education, and other interested groups, and in collaboration with the Center for School Safety, the Department of Education shall develop or update as needed and distribute to all districts by August 31 of each even-numbered year, beginning August 31, 2008:

• (a) Statewide student discipline guidelines to ensure safe schools, including the definition of serious incident for the reporting purposes as identified in KRS 158.444;

• (b) Recommendations designed to improve the learning environment and school climate, parental and community involvement in the schools, and student achievement; and

• (c) A model policy to implement the provisions of this section and KRS 158.156, 158.444, 525.070, and 525.080.

(3) The department shall obtain statewide data on major discipline problems and reasons why students drop out of school. In addition, the department, in collaboration with the Center for School Safety, shall identify successful strategies currently being used in programs in Kentucky and in other states and shall incorporate those strategies into the statewide guidelines and the recommendations under subsection (2) of this section.

(4) Copies of the discipline guidelines shall be distributed to all school districts. The statewide guidelines shall contain broad principles and legal requirements to guide local districts in developing their own discipline code and school councils in the selection of discipline and classroom management techniques under KRS 158.154; and in the development of the district-wide safety plan.

(3) The Department of Education shall provide technical assistance and training, if requested by a local district, to assist in the implementation of the district-wide, response-to-intervention system as a means to identify and assist any student experiencing difficulty in reading, writing, mathematics, or behavior and to determine appropriate instructional modifications needed by advanced learners to make continuous progress. (4) The technical assistance and training shall be designed to improve:

• (a) The use of specific screening processes and programs to identify student strengths and needs;
• (b) The use of screening data for designing instructional interventions;
• (c) The use of multisensory instructional strategies and other interventions validated for effectiveness by evidence-based research;
• (d) Progress monitoring of student performance; and
• (e) Accelerated, intensive, direct instruction that addresses students’ individual differences, including advanced learners, and enables students that are experiencing difficulty to catch up with typically performing peers. (5) The department shall develop and maintain a Web-based resource providing teachers access to:
• (a) Information on the use of specific screening processes and programs to identify student strengths and needs, including those for advanced learners;
• (b) Current, evidence-based research and age-appropriate instructional tools that may be used for substantial, steady improvement in:
• 1. Reading when a student is experiencing difficulty with phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, general reading comprehension, or reading in specific content areas, or is exhibiting characteristics of dyslexia, aphasia, or other reading difficulties;
• 2. Writing when a student is experiencing difficulty with consistently producing letters or numbers with accuracy or is exhibiting characteristics of dysgraphia;
• 3. Mathematics when a student is experiencing difficulty with basic math facts, calculations, or application through problem solving, or is exhibiting characteristics of dyscalculia or other mathematical difficulties; or
• 4. Behavior when a student is exhibiting behaviors that interfere with his or her learning or the learning of other students; and
• (c) Current, evidence-based research and age-appropriate instructional tools that may be used for continuous progress of advanced learners. (6) The department shall encourage districts to utilize both state and federal funds as appropriate to implement a district-wide system of interventions. (7) The department is encouraged to coordinate technical assistance and training on current best practice interventions with state postsecondary education institutions. (8) The department shall collaborate with the Kentucky Collaborative Center for Literacy Development, the Kentucky Center for Mathematics, the Kentucky Center for Instructional Discipline, the Education Professional Standard Board, the Council on Postsecondary Education, postsecondary teacher education programs, and other agencies and organizations as deemed appropriate to ensure that teachers are prepared to utilize evidence-based interventions in reading, writing, mathematics, and behavior.

(2) The Kentucky Board of Education shall disseminate to local school districts and schools a model curriculum framework which is directly tied to the goals, outcomes, and assessment strategies developed pursuant to this section and KRS 158.645 and 158.6453. The framework shall provide direction to local districts and schools as they develop their curriculum. The framework shall identify teaching and assessment strategies, instructional material resources, ideas on how to incorporate the resources of the community, a directory of model teaching sites, alternative ways of using school time, and strategies to incorporate character education throughout the curriculum.