§ 211-e. Educational partnership organizations. 1. The board of
education of a school district, and the chancellor of the city school
district of the city of New York, subject to the approval of the
commissioner, shall be authorized to contract, for a term of up to five
years, with an educational partnership organization pursuant to this
section to intervene in a school designated by the commissioner as a
persistently lowest-achieving school, consistent with federal
requirements, or a school under registration review.

2. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, rule or regulation to
the contrary, and except as otherwise provided in this section, such
contract shall contain provisions authorizing the educational
partnership organization to assume the powers and duties of the
superintendent of schools for purposes of implementing the educational
program of the school, including but not limited to, making
recommendations to the board of education on budgetary decisions,
staffing population decisions, student discipline decisions, decisions
on curriculum and determining the daily schedule and school calendar,
all of which recommendations shall be consistent with applicable
collective bargaining agreements. Such contract shall include district
performance expectations and/or benchmarks for school operations and
academic outcomes, and failure to meet such expectations or benchmarks
may be grounds for termination of the contract prior to the expiration
of its term. Such contract shall also address the manner in which
students will be assigned to the school, the process for employees to
transfer into the school, the services that the district will provide to
the school, and the manner in which the school shall apply for and
receive allocational and competitive grants.

3. The board of education shall retain the ultimate decision-making
authority over the hiring, evaluating, termination, disciplining,
granting of tenure, assignment of employees serving in the school as
well as with respect to staff development for those employees, together
with authority concerning all other terms and conditions of employment,
all of which decisions shall be made in a manner consistent with
applicable collective bargaining agreements. However, notwithstanding
any law, rule or regulation to the contrary, upon the effective date of
the contract, the educational partnership organization shall be
authorized to exercise all powers of a superintendent of schools with
respect to such employment decisions, including but not limited to
making recommendations, as applicable, to the board of education in
connection with and prior to the board of education making decisions
regarding staff assignments, the hiring, the granting of tenure, the
evaluating, the disciplining and termination of employees, as well as
concerning staff development. The employees assigned to the school shall
solely be in the employ of the school district and shall retain their
tenure rights and all other employment rights conferred by law, and
service in the school shall constitute service to the school district
for all purposes, including but not limited to, the requirements for
criminal history record checks and participation in public retirement
systems. Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, for
purposes of article fourteen of the civil service law, employees in the
school shall be public employees of the school district as defined in
subdivision seven of section two hundred one of the civil service law
and shall not be deemed employees of the educational partnership
organization by reason of the powers granted to the educational
partnership organization by this section. All such employees shall be
members of the applicable negotiating unit containing like titles or
positions for the public school district in which such school is
located, and shall be covered by the collective bargaining agreement
covering that public school district's negotiating unit, except that the
duly recognized or certified collective bargaining representative for
that negotiating unit may modify or supplement, in writing, the
collective bargaining agreement in consultation with the employees of
the negotiating unit working in the school. All such modifications of,
or supplements to the collective bargaining agreement are subject to
ratification by the employees employed within the school and by the
board of education of the public school district, consistent with
article fourteen of the civil service law. Upon the effective date of
the school district's contract with the educational partnership
organization, the educational partnership organization shall be
empowered to make recommendations to the board of education with respect
to the scope of, and process for making modifications and additions to
the collective bargaining agreement.

4. Where a recommendation is made by the educational partnership
organization to the board of education pursuant to subdivision two or
three of this section, and such recommendation is denied, the board of
education shall state its reasons for the denial, which shall include an
explanation of how such denial will promote improvement of student
achievement in the school and how such action is consistent with all
accountability plans approved by the commissioner for the school and the
school district. Nothing in this subdivision shall be construed to
prevent a board of education from denying a recommendation of the
educational partnership organization based upon the board of education's
determination that carrying out such recommendation would result in a
violation of law or violation of the terms of an applicable collective
bargaining agreement. If the board of education rejects a recommendation
of the educational partnership organization to terminate a probationary
employee assigned to the school or to deny tenure to an employee
assigned to the school, it shall be the duty of the board of education
to transfer such employee to another position in the school district
within such employee's tenure area for which the employee is qualified,
or to create such a position.

5. For purposes of this section the following terms shall have the
following meanings:

(i) "educational partnership organization" means a board of
cooperative educational services, a public or independent, non-profit
institution of higher education, a cultural institution, or a private,
non-profit organization with a proven record of success in intervening
in low-performing schools, as determined by the commissioner, provided
that such term shall not include a charter school;

(ii) "board of education" means the trustees or board of education of
a school district, or, in the case of a city school district of a city
having a population of one million or more, the chancellor of such city
district;

(iii) "school district" means a common, union free, central, central
high school or city school district, other than a special act school
district as defined in section four thousand one of this chapter.

(iv) "superintendent of schools" means the superintendent of schools
of a school district, and, in the case of a city school district of a
city having a population of one million or more, a community
superintendent and the chancellor of such city district when acting in
the role of a superintendent of schools.