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2000 SESSION

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HB 1227 Teaching Scholarship Loan Program.

Introduced by: A. Donald McEachin | all patrons    ...    notes | add to my profiles

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Virginia Teaching Scholarship Loan Program. Changes the Diversity in Teaching Program to the Diversity in Teaching Initiative Awards and makes it a component of the Virginia Teaching Scholarship Loan Program. The Program focuses on at-risk and disadvantaged students and the need for special educators. Currently, the Program specifies only at-risk students.

The Board of Education is required to establish criteria in regulations for determining critical teacher shortage disciplines and high-poverty areas in the Commonwealth and to consult with the State Council of Higher Education in developing and implementing the Program. The criteria must reflect research findings concerning the characteristics of at-risk and disadvantaged students and the impact of socioeconomic deprivations on learning and the educational outcomes for such students. The bill provides that paraprofessional are eligible to receive scholarships and awards to complete undergraduate programs to become fully licensed teachers. Also, the bill sets criteria for the recipients of the awards. Students must repay the loans by teaching in a critical teacher shortage discipline, such as in special education, in a high-poverty area, in a school division with high concentrations of at-risk or disadvantaged students, or at grade levels or in a geographical region of the Commonwealth in which teachers who have been at-risk or disadvantaged students are under-represented.

The Board of Education is required to promulgate emergency regulations to implement the Program within 280 days of its enactment.

This bill is a recommendation of the Joint Subcommittee Studying the Overrepresentation of African-American Students in Special Education.


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