On September 17, 2015, the Board of Regents (“Regents”) approved revised emergency regulations governing Annual Professional Performance Reviews (“APPR”) following a 45-day public comment period on the initial emergency regulations approved by the Regents in June.  The revised regulations take effect on September 28, 2015.  It is anticipated that these revised regulations will be presented to the Regents in November for permanent adoption, following an additional public comment period.

The revised regulations remain largely unchanged from those previously adopted in June, despite the submission of over 100 public comments to the State Education Department (“SED”) requesting various amendments.  However, the Regents did make two notable changes to the regulations, namely to add a new hardship waiver process from the independent evaluator requirement for rural and small school districts and to add a new State appeals process for certain teachers and principals rated Ineffective on their State-provided growth scores.  The Regents also made a minor change to the disclosure language in the regulations and several other technical amendments.