(a) As used in this section:

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(1) “Teacher” means any certified professional employee below the rank of superintendent employed by a board of education for at least ninety days in a position requiring a certificate issued by the State Board of Education;

(2) “Teacher preparation program” means a program designed to qualify an individual for professional certification as an educator provided by institutions of higher education or other providers approved by the Department of Education, including, but not limited to, an alternate route to certification program.

(b) The Department of Education shall develop and implement a state-wide public school information system. The system shall be designed for the purpose of establishing a standardized electronic data collection and reporting protocol that will facilitate compliance with state and federal reporting requirements, improve school-to-school and district-to-district information exchanges, and maintain the confidentiality of individual student and staff data. The initial design shall focus on student information, provided the system shall be created to allow for future compatibility with financial, facility and staff data. The system shall provide for the tracking of the performance of individual students on each of the state-wide mastery examinations under section 10-14n in order to allow the department to compare the progress of the same cohort of students who take each examination and to better analyze school performance. The department shall assign a unique student identifier to each student prior to tracking the performance of a student in the public school information system.

(c) The state-wide public school information system shall:

(1) Track and report data relating to student, teacher and school and district performance growth and make such information available to local and regional boards of education for use in evaluating educational performance and growth of teachers and students enrolled in public schools in the state. Such information shall be collected or calculated based on information received from local and regional boards of education and other relevant sources. Such information shall include, but not be limited to:

(A) In addition to performance on state-wide mastery examinations pursuant to subsection (b) of this section, data relating to students shall include, but not be limited to, (i) the primary language spoken at the home of a student, (ii) student transcripts, (iii) student attendance and student mobility, (iv) reliable, valid assessments of a student’s readiness to enter public school at the kindergarten level, and (v) data collected, if any, from the preschool experience survey, described in section 10-515;

(B) Data relating to teachers shall include, but not be limited to, (i) teacher credentials, such as master’s degrees, teacher preparation programs completed and certification levels and endorsement areas, (ii) teacher assessments, such as whether a teacher is deemed highly qualified pursuant to the No Child Left Behind Act, P.L. 107-110, or deemed to meet such other designations as may be established by federal law or regulations for the purposes of tracking the equitable distribution of instructional staff, (iii) the presence of substitute teachers in a teacher’s classroom, (iv) class size, (v) numbers relating to absenteeism in a teacher’s classroom, and (vi) the presence of a teacher’s aide. The department shall assign a unique teacher identifier to each teacher prior to collecting such data in the public school information system;

(C) Data relating to schools and districts shall include, but not be limited to, (i) school population, (ii) annual student graduation rates, (iii) annual teacher retention rates, (iv) school disciplinary records, such as data relating to suspensions, expulsions and other disciplinary actions, (v) the percentage of students whose primary language is not English, (vi) the number of and professional credentials of support personnel, (vii) information relating to instructional technology, such as access to computers, and (viii) disaggregated measures of school-based arrests pursuant to section 10-233n.

(2) Collect data relating to student enrollment in and graduation from institutions of higher education for any student who had been assigned a unique student identifier pursuant to subsection (b) of this section, provided such data is available.

(3) Develop means for access to and data sharing with the data systems of public institutions of higher education in the state.

(d) On or before July 1, 2011, and each year thereafter until July 1, 2013, the Commissioner of Education shall report, in accordance with the provisions of section 11-4a, to the joint standing committee of the General Assembly having cognizance of matters relating to education on the progress of the department’s efforts to expand the state-wide public school information system pursuant to subsection (c) of this section. The report shall include a full statement of those data elements that are currently included in the system and those data elements that will be added on or before July 1, 2013.

(e) The system database of student information shall not be considered a public record for the purposes of section 1-210. Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit the ability of a full-time permanent employee of a nonprofit organization that is exempt from taxation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, or any subsequent corresponding internal revenue code of the United States, as from time to time amended, and that is organized and operated for educational purposes, to obtain information in accordance with the provisions of subsection (h) of this section.

(f) All school districts shall participate in the system, and report all necessary information required by this section, provided the department provides for technical assistance and training of school staff in the use of the system.

(g) Local and regional boards of education and preschool programs which receive state or federal funding shall participate, in a manner prescribed by the Commissioner of Education, in the state-wide public school information system described in subsection (b) of this section. Participation for purposes of this subsection shall include, but not be limited to, reporting on (1) student experiences in preschool by program type and by numbers of months in each such program, and (2) the readiness of students entering kindergarten and student progress in kindergarten. Such reporting shall be done by October 1, 2007, and annually thereafter.

(h) On and after August 1, 2009, upon receipt of a written request to access data maintained under this section by a full-time permanent employee of a nonprofit organization that is exempt from taxation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, or any subsequent corresponding internal revenue code of the United States, as from time to time amended, and that is organized and operated for educational purposes, the Department of Education shall provide such data to such requesting party not later than sixty days after such request, provided such requesting party shall be responsible for the reasonable cost of such request. The Department of Administrative Services shall monitor the calculation of such fees charged for access to or copies of such records to ensure that such fees are reasonable and consistent with those charged by other state agencies. The Department of Education shall respond to written requests under this section in the order in which they are received.

(i) The superintendent of schools of a school district, or his or her designee, may access information in the state-wide public school information system regarding the state-wide mastery examination under section 10-14n. Such access shall be for the limited purpose of determining examination dates, examination scores and levels of student achievement on such examinations for students enrolled in or transferring to the school district of such superintendent.