Parents Right to Know District Link
Elementary
and Secondary Education Act requires all LEAs to notify parents of all
children in all Title I schools that they have the right to request and
receive timely information on the professional qualifications of their
children’s classroom teachers. This notice must be sent at the start of
each school year. The notice does not itself contain the teacher
information; it simply tells parents the types of information they may
request.
At a minimum, if a parent requests it, LEA/school must report:
•
Whether the teacher has met state qualifying and licensing criteria for
the grade levels and subject areas in which the teacher is teaching;
•
Whether the teacher is teacher under emergency or other provisional
status through which state qualification or licensing criteria have been
waived;
•
The baccalaureate degree major of the teacher and any other graduate
certification or degree held by the teacher, including the field of
discipline of the certification or degree; and
• Whether the child is provided services by paraprofessional and, if so, their qualifications.
In
addition, if a child is assigned, or taught by, a teacher who is not
“highly qualified” for four or more consecutive weeks, the parents must
receive timely notice.
These
and other communications with parents must be in an understandable and
uniform format and, to the extent practical, in a language the parents
can understand. According to ED guidance, if there is no other way to
provide information, it should be provided in oral translation.