The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed by President Obama on December 10, 2015. This bipartisan measure reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, the national education law and longstanding commitment to equal opportunity for all students. The prior reauthorization of ESEA, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, was enacted in 2001.

ESSA includes provisions that help ensure success for students and schools:

• Advances equity by upholding critical protection for America’s disadvantaged and high–need students.

• Requires that all students in America be taught to high academic standards that prepare them to succeed in college and careers.

• Ensures that vital information is provided to educators, families, students and communities through annual statewide assessments that measure students’ progress toward those high standards.

• Helps to support and grow local innovations—including evidence–based and place–based interventions developed by local leaders and educators.

• Sustains and expands investments in increasing access to high–quality preschool.

• Maintains an expectation that there will be accountability and action to effect positive change in our lowest–performing schools

ESSA was adopted, in part, to ensure that schools and school districts across the country employ teachers and instructional assistants who meet applicable state certification and licensure requirements in schools that receive federal funds.

In compliance with the requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act, parents may request the following information:

• Whether the student’s teacher —

has met state qualification and licensing criteria for the grade levels and subject areas in which the teacher provides instruction;

is teaching under emergency or other provisional status through which State qualification or licensing criteria have been waived; and

is teaching in the field of discipline that matches the certification of the teacher.

• Whether the child is provided services by paraprofessionals and, if so, their qualifications.

Lexington County School District One’s Board of Trustees places top priority on hiring, for all of our classrooms, teachers and paraprofessionals who meet applicable state certification and licensure requirements.

As part of our continued commitment to excellence, we ask each teacher to put information about his/her qualifications on his/her teacher web page. You can access those web pages by going to the website of your child’s school. School websites are listed here.

If you neither own a computer nor have access to the internet, the Gilbert, Lexington and Pelion branches of the Lexington County Public Library system all provide internet access.

If you cannot get this information from our website and would like to receive it, simply send a letter to your child’s principal. In that letter, please give your child’s name, the name of the teacher or paraprofessional, and the grade or subject that person teaches. Your child’s principal will provide you with the information after receiving your request.