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2000 SESSION

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SB 652 Teaching Scholarship Loan Program.

Introduced by: Henry L. Marsh III | all patrons    ...    notes | add to my profiles

SUMMARY AS PASSED: (all summaries)

Virginia Teaching Scholarship Loan Program. Modifies the Virginia Teaching Scholarship Loan Program to (i) allow support through gifts, donations, grants, bequests, and other funds that may be obtained by the Department of Education; (ii) expand the Program to include scholarships to support critical teacher shortage disciplines, including special education as well as paraprofessional development; and (iii) to expand eligibility to include part-time students, sophomores, and graduate students. Board regulations will include in award criteria consideration of teacher shortages in rural and urban areas and in certain teaching endorsements. Scholarship recipients are to agree to teach in Virginia public schools in a critical teaching shortage discipline or, regardless of teaching discipline, in a school with a high concentration of students eligible for free or reduced lunch or in a rural or urban region of Virginia experiencing a teacher shortage.

The measure also renames the Diversity in Teaching Program as the Diversity in Teaching Initiative, a component of the Virginia Teaching Scholarship Loan Program. The Initiative will provide incentives to students of diverse backgrounds and will consist of five pilot projects distributed across Virginia. The Board is to develop criteria for Diversity Initiative scholarships in consultation with the Office of the Attorney General.

The bill also designates the present trust fund to cover the umbrella program (the Virginia Teaching Scholarship Loan Program) instead of solely for the Diversity in Teaching Initiative and requires Diversity in Teaching funds to be accounted for separately within the fund and distributed solely for scholarships awarded pursuant to the Diversity in Teaching Initiative. The Board of Education is required to promulgate emergency regulations, regardless of whether additional funds are appropriated for this program to implement the Program within 280 days of the enactment of this measure. This measure is identical to HB 1404, HB 1408, SB 630, and SB 737.


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