Section 203 – Paid professional hours for educators.

• (1) Subject to legislative appropriations, the state board shall provide funding to each LEA to provide additional paid professional hours to the following educators in accordance with this section:
  • (a) general education and special education teachers;
  • (b) counselors;
  • (c) school administration;
  • (d) school specialists;
  • (e) student support;
  • (f) school psychologists;
  • (g) speech language pathologists; and
  • (h) audiologists.

• (2) The state board shall distribute funds appropriated to the state board under Subsection 53F-9-204(6) to each LEA in proportion to the number of educators described in Subsection (1) within the LEA.

• (3) An LEA shall use funding under this section to provide paid professional hours that:
  • (a) provide educators with the knowledge and skills necessary to enable students to succeed in a well-rounded education and to meet the challenging state academic standards; and
  • (b) may include activities that:
    • (i) improve and increase an educator’s:
      • (A) knowledge of the academic subjects the educator teaches;
      • (B) time to plan and prepare daily lessons based on student needs;
      • (C) understanding of how students learn; and
      • (D) ability to analyze student work and achievement from multiple sources, including how to adjust instructional strategies, assessments, and materials based on the analysis;
    • (ii) are an integral part of broad school-wide and LEA-wide educational improvement plans;
    • (iii) allow personalized plans for each educator to address the educator’s specific needs identified in observation or other feedback;
    • (iv) advance educator understanding of:
      • (A) effective and evidence-based instructional strategies; and
      • (B) strategies for improving student academic achievement or substantially increasing the knowledge and teaching skills of educators;
    • (v) are aligned with, and directly related to, academic goals of the school or LEA; and
    • (vi) include instruction in the use of data and assessments to inform and instruct classroom practice.

• (4) An educator shall:
  • (a) before the first day of instruction in a given school year, create a plan, in consultation with the educator’s principal, on how the educator plans to use paid professional hours provided under this section during the school year; and
  • (b) before the end of a given school year, provide a written statement to the educator’s principal of how the educator used paid professional hours provided under this section during the school year.

Enacted by Chapter 386, 2022 General Session

Technically renumbered to avoid duplication of enacted Section also enacted in HB 475, Chapter 407.