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2005 SESSION

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Senate Committee on Education and Health
Subcommittee Public Education

Newman, Houck, Howell, Ruff, Blevins

Clerk: Jocelyn Lance
Date of Meeting: January 21, 2005
Time and Place: Friday, 7:30 a.m., 3rd Fl. West Conference Room, GAB

S.B. 958 Standards of Quality; requires employment of speech-language pathologists.

Patron: Potts

Standards of Quality; speech-language pathologists.  Requires local school boards to employ speech-language pathologists in a manner to provide a ratio of one full-time speech-language pathologist for every 60 students. The bill also requires that these positions be supported through state funding.

S.B. 1006 Children in foster care; public schools shall provide free education.

Patron: Hanger

Educational protections for children in foster care.  Clarifies that the public schools in a school division shall be free to children in foster care living in that school division in the same manner as provided to homeless children and youth pursuant to the McKinney-Vento Act and state law.

S.B. 1045 Diplomas; guidelines for awarding.

Patron: Wagner

Diplomas; student-selected verified credits.  Directs the Board of Education to establish guidelines for local school boards, to be effective for the graduating class of 2007, for the award of verified credits, not to exceed two such credits per student, for passing scores on industry certifications and assessments approved by the Board of Education for substitution for the Standards of Learning assessments. Such guidelines shall be designed to ensure that students have acquired the knowledge and skills required to enter a technical or skilled trade upon graduation. School boards shall report annually to the Board of Education the number of industry certifications obtained and will include this number as a category on the school's achievement report card

Currently, the Standards of Accreditation (SOA) require the accumulation of a specific number of standard and verified units of credit for standard diplomas. The verified unit of credit is awarded upon passage of the relevant Standards of Learning (SOL) test (additional tests approved by the Board of Education), as well as the course (8 VAC 20-131-110 A, B). The Standard Diploma requires 22 credits, six of which must be verified units of credit, while the Advanced Studies Diploma requires 24 credits, with nine verified units. The SOA currently require verified units of credit in specific subjects, such as English, mathematics, science, history and social science. The Modified Standard Diploma is awarded to students with disabilities who are "unlikely to meet the credit requirements for a Standard Diploma" (8 VAC 20-131-50).

School accreditation is based on pass rates for the SOL assessments (8 VAC 20-131-300).

S.B. 1130 Elementary schools; physical education instruction requirement.

Patron: Lambert

Elementary schools.  Requires physical education instruction to include 30 minutes daily of cardio-vascular, muscle building, and stretching exercises utilizing existing school personnel.