The Florida Senate

229.555  Educational planning and information systems.--

(1)  EDUCATIONAL PLANNING.--

(a)  The commissioner shall be responsible for all planning functions for the department, including collection, analysis, and interpretation of all data, information, test results, evaluations, and other indicators that are used to formulate policy, identify areas of concern and need, and serve as the basis for short-range and long-range planning. Such planning shall include assembling data, conducting appropriate studies and surveys, and sponsoring research and development activities designed to provide information about educational needs and the effect of alternative educational practices.

(b)  Each district school board shall maintain a continuing system of planning and budgeting which shall be designed to aid in identifying and meeting the educational needs of students and the public. Provision shall be made for coordination between district school boards and community college district boards of trustees concerning the planning for vocational and adult educational programs. The major emphasis of the system shall be upon locally determined goals and objectives, the state plan for education, and the minimum performance standards developed by the Department of Education. The district planning and budgeting system must include consideration of student achievement data obtained pursuant to s. 229.57. The system shall be structured to meet the specific management needs of the district. The system of planning and budgeting shall ensure that the budget adopted by the district school board reflect the plan the board has also adopted. Each district school board shall utilize its system of planning and budgeting to emphasize a system of school-based management in which individual school centers become the principal planning units and eventually to integrate planning and budgeting at the school level.

(2)  COMPREHENSIVE MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS.--The commissioner shall develop and implement an integrated information system for educational management. The system shall support, as feasible, the management decisions to be made in each division of the department and at the individual school and district levels. Similar data elements among divisions and levels shall be compatible. The system shall be based on an overall conceptual design; the information needed for such decisions, including fiscal, student, program, personnel, facility, community, evaluation, and other relevant data; and the relationship between cost and effectiveness. The system shall be managed and administered by the commissioner and shall include a district subsystem component to be administered at the district level, with input from the reports-and-forms control management committees. Each district school system with a unique management information system shall assure that compatibility exists between its unique system and the district component of the state system to the extent that all data required as input to the state system shall be made available in the appropriate input format.

(a)  The specific responsibilities of the commissioner shall include:

1.  Consulting with school district representatives in the development of the system design model and implementation plans for the management information system for public school education management;

2.  Providing operational definitions for the proposed system;

3.  Determining the information and specific data elements required for the management decisions made at each educational level, recognizing that the primary unit for information input shall be the individual school and recognizing that time and effort of instructional personnel expended in collection and compilation of data should be minimized;

4.  Developing standardized terminology and procedures to be followed at all levels of the system;

5.  Developing a standard transmittal format to be used for collection of data from the various levels of the system;

6.  Developing appropriate computer programs to assure integration of the various information components dealing with students, personnel, facilities, fiscal, program, community, and evaluation data;

7.  Developing the necessary programs to provide statistical analysis of the integrated data provided in subparagraph 6. in such a way that required reports may be disseminated, comparisons may be made, and relationships may be determined in order to provide the necessary information for making management decisions at all levels;

8.  Developing output report formats which will provide district school systems with information for making management decisions at the various educational levels;

9.  Developing a phased plan for distributing computer services equitably among all public schools and school districts in this state as rapidly as possible. The plan shall describe alternatives available to the state in providing such computing services and shall contain estimates of the cost of each alternative, together with a recommendation for action. In developing such plan, the feasibility of shared use of computing hardware and software by school districts, community colleges, and universities shall be examined. Laws or administrative rules regulating procurement of data processing equipment, communication services, or data processing services by state agencies shall not be construed to apply to local agencies which share computing facilities with state agencies;

10.  Assisting the district school systems in establishing their subsystem components and assuring compatibility with current district systems;

11.  Establishing procedures for continuous evaluation of system efficiency and effectiveness;

12.  Initiating a reports-management and forms-management system to ascertain that duplication in collection of data does not exist and that forms and reports for reporting under state and federal requirements and other forms and reports are prepared in a logical and uncomplicated format, resulting in a reduction in the number and complexity of required reports, particularly at the school level; and

13.  Initiating such other actions as are necessary to carry out the intent of the Legislature that a management information system for public school management needs be implemented. Such other actions shall be based on criteria including, but not limited to:

a.  The purpose of the reporting requirement;

b.  The origination of the reporting requirement;

c.  The date of origin of the reporting requirement; and

d.  The date of repeal of the reporting requirement.

(b)  The specific responsibilities of each district school system shall include:

1.  Establishing, at the district level, a reports-control and forms-control management system committee composed of school administrators and classroom teachers. The district school board shall appoint school administrator members and classroom teacher members; or, in school districts where appropriate, the classroom teacher members shall be appointed by the bargaining agent. Teachers shall constitute a majority of the committee membership. The committee shall periodically recommend procedures to the district school board for eliminating, reducing, revising, and consolidating paperwork and data collection requirements and shall submit to the district school board an annual report of its findings.

2.  With assistance from the commissioner, developing systems compatibility between the state management information system and unique local systems.

3.  Providing, with the assistance of the department, inservice training dealing with management information system purposes and scope, a method of transmitting input data, and the use of output report information.

4.  Establishing a plan for continuous review and evaluation of local management information system needs and procedures.

5.  Advising the commissioner of all district management information needs.

6.  Transmitting required data input elements to the appropriate processing locations in accordance with guidelines established by the commissioner.

7.  Determining required reports, comparisons, and relationships to be provided to district school systems by the system output reports, continuously reviewing these reports for usefulness and meaningfulness, and submitting recommended additions, deletions, and change requirements in accordance with the guidelines established by the commissioner.

8.  Being responsible for the accuracy of all data elements transmitted to the department.

(c)  It is the intent of the Legislature that the expertise in the state system of public education, as well as contracted services, be utilized to hasten the plan for full implementation of a comprehensive management information system.

History.--s. 3, ch. 76-223; s. 130, ch. 81-259; s. 21, ch. 83-324; s. 3, ch. 85-191; s. 2, ch. 90-99; s. 69, ch. 91-105.