20 U.S.C. § 7861 — Waivers of statutory and regulatory requirements

(a) In general. (1) Request for waiver by State or Indian tribe. A State educational agency or Indian tribe that gets money under a program in this chapter can ask the Secretary to waive any statutory or regulatory requirement of this chapter. (2) Local educational agency and school requests submitted through the State. (A) A local educational agency (school district) that gets funds and wants a waiver must send a request — containing the information listed in subsection (b)(1) — to its State educational agency. The State may then forward it to the Secretary if the State thinks the waiver makes sense. (B) A school that wants a waiver must send its request to its local educational agency, which may then forward it to the State (as in (A)) if the district thinks the waiver makes sense. (3) Receipt of waiver. Except as limited by (b)(4) or (c), the Secretary may grant a waiver of any statutory or regulatory requirement for which a proper request was submitted. (b) Request for waiver. (1) In general. The State (for itself or on behalf of a district under (a)(2)), or an Indian tribe, must submit a request to the Secretary that includes a plan which: (A) names the federal programs the waiver would affect; (B) describes exactly which federal requirements would be waived; (C) explains how waiving them would help students learn more; (D) describes how the requester will monitor and evaluate whether the plan is working; (E) includes only information directly related to the request; and (F) explains how schools will keep serving the same students the waived programs were serving — and, if the waiver touches certain reporting rules (section 6311(b) or (h)), explains how the requester will keep or improve transparency in reporting to parents and the public, including reporting on specific groups of students. (2) Additional information. These requests (A) may cover waivers for States, districts, tribes, and schools together; and (B) must be submitted either (i) by districts to their State, and then by the State (on its own behalf or on districts' behalf) to the Secretary, or (ii) by Indian tribes, on behalf of tribal schools, directly to the Secretary. (3) General requirements. (A) States. A State submitting its own or a district's waiver request must: (i) give the public and any affected district notice and a real chance to comment; (ii) send those comments to the Secretary along with an explanation of how the State addressed them; and (iii) give notice and a comment period to the public and districts the same way it normally does. (B) Districts. A district's waiver request must (i) be reviewed and approved by the State, with any State or public comments attached, before going to the Secretary; and (ii) go through the district's normal notice-and-comment process with the State and the public. (4) Waiver determination, demonstration, and revision. (A) The Secretary must issue a written decision within 120 days of receiving the request. The Secretary can only deny it at first if: (i) the request doesn't meet this section's requirements; (ii) the waiver isn't allowed under (c); (iii) the plan's explanation of how the waiver helps students isn't good enough; or (iv) the plan lacks an adequate way to evaluate itself. (B) If the Secretary initially denies a request, the Secretary must: (i) immediately tell the requester (and post detailed written reasons publicly, such as on the Department's website); (ii) let the requester revise and resubmit within 60 days; and (iii) if the resubmission still falls short, hold a hearing within 30 days of the resubmission if the requester asks for one. (C) The Secretary can only finally deny a request after the requester has had that chance to revise and resubmit, and either didn't resubmit, or resubmitted and still didn't meet the requirements (after a hearing, if one was requested). (D) The Secretary cannot deny a waiver request based on issues that fall outside what the request actually asked for. (c) Restrictions. The Secretary can never waive rules about: (1) how funds are allocated or distributed to States, districts, tribes, or other recipients; (2) maintenance of effort (keeping up existing State/local spending); (3) comparability of services between schools; (4) the rule that federal funds must add to — not replace — non-federal funds; (5) equal participation of private-school students and teachers; (6) parent participation and involvement; (7) civil rights requirements; (8) the requirement for charter schools under part C of subchapter IV; (9) prohibitions in subpart 2 of part F, on using funds for religious worship or instruction (section 7885), or on the activities in section 7906; or (10) how a school or school attendance area is selected under section 6313(a) and (b) — except the Secretary can waive this last one to let a school participate in certain Title I-A activities, as long as its share of low-income children isn't more than 10 percentage points below the lowest-qualifying school in the district. (d) Duration and extension of waiver; limitations. (1) A waiver normally lasts no more than 4 years. (2) The Secretary can extend it if the State shows the waiver has worked — helping carry out the planned activities and improving student achievement — and that extending it serves the public interest. (3) The Secretary can never require a State, district, school, or tribe, as a condition of getting a waiver, to add or drop specific academic standards (like the Common Core), use specific tests, or add or drop specific elements of State standards, assessments, accountability systems, or teacher/school-leader evaluation systems. (e) Reports. A State, district, school, or tribe with a waiver must include, in its required annual report under section 6311(h): (1) how much progress the waiver-covered schools made toward better student achievement; and (2) how the waiver helped make that progress happen. (f) Termination of waivers. The Secretary must end a waiver — after notice and a chance for a hearing — if the Secretary either (A) shows with real evidence that the waiver isn't helping schools make the progress described in (e)(1), or (B) decides the waiver is no longer needed for its original purpose. (g) Publication. Every waiver the Secretary grants must be announced in the Federal Register, and the Secretary must share the notice with State educational agencies and other interested people — educators, parents, students, advocacy and civil rights groups, and the public.