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ACROSS SESSIONS
- Subject Index: Since 1995
- Bills & Resolutions: Since 1994
- Summaries: Since 1994
Developed and maintained by the Division of Legislative Automated Systems.
2013 SESSION
Chairman: Stephen H. Martin
Clerk: Patty Lung, Cheryl Law
Staff: Thomas Stevens, Ryan Brimmer
Date of Meeting: January 17, 2013
Time and Place: 8:30 AM - Senate Room B
Revised-adding SBs 900, 936 & 940 from Subcommittee
Patron: McEachin
Birth control; definition. Adds a definition of birth control. "Birth control" means contraceptive methods that are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Birth control shall not be considered abortion for the purposes of Title 18.2.
Patron: Wagner
Nursing education programs; minimum examination passage rates. Requires approved nursing education programs to maintain a minimum passage rate among graduates taking the national licensing examination required for licensure as a professional or practical nurse for the first time that is not lower than 10 percentage points less than the national average passage rate, and provides that in cases in which an approved nursing education program fails to maintain a satisfactory passage rate in two consecutive years, the Board of Nursing shall cause a survey of the program to be made and may place the program on conditional approval with terms and conditions.
Patron: Garrett
Funding for certain abortions. Repeals the section authorizing the Board of Health to fund abortions for women who meet the financial eligibility criteria of the State Plan for Medical Assistance in cases in which a physician certifies that he believes that the fetus would be born with a gross and totally incapacitating physical deformity or mental deficiency.
Patron: Reeves
Sale of commercial advertising space on school buses and real property. Permits a school board to sell advertising space on the exterior of school buses and real property with certain limitations. The limitations include requirements for the size and placement of advertisements on buses and prohibitions on any political, religious, or age-inappropriate advertisement. The bill requires the board to devote revenue from bus advertisements to the costs of transporting students and revenue from real property advertisements to the costs of constructing and maintaining school buildings.
Patron: Vogel
Movable Soccer Goal Safety Act created. Requires every organization that owns and controls a movable soccer goal to establish a soccer goal safety and education policy that outlines how the organization will address any safety concern related to movable soccer goals, including the dangers of unanchored or improperly anchored soccer goals tipping over and the care that must be taken to ensure proper installation, setup, maintenance, and transportation of movable soccer goals. The bill prohibits the sale of movable soccer goals that are not tip-resistant beginning July 1, 2014, and instructs the Board of Health to provide technical assistance for improving soccer goal safety.
Patron: Smith
Principals, assistant principals, and supervisors; reassignment. Changes the deadline for a school board to notify principals, assistant principals, or supervisors under continuing contract of their reassignment to teaching positions from April 15 to June 15.
Patron: Stuart
School resource officers; local law-enforcement agencies to provide. Requires every school board throughout the Commonwealth to coordinate with the local law-enforcement agency to provide at least one school resource officer for every public elementary, middle, and high school within the district. The bill provides that funding for these school resource officers shall be provided through the general appropriation act and not by any locality or school board.
Patron: Garrett
Medical assistance fraud investigations; service of subpoenas. Authorizes the Attorney General or his authorized representative to serve subpoenas in medical assistance fraud cases.
Patron: Black
Lyme disease; disclosure of information to patients. Requires physicians to provide each patient for whom a test for the presence of Lyme disease is ordered with a notice about Lyme disease, about testing for Lyme disease, and about the need to contact his physician with questions or concerns about Lyme disease.
Patrons: Black, Favola
Closure of training centers; moratorium. Imposes a moratorium on the closure of training centers for individuals with intellectual disabilities until such time as the General Assembly adopts a plan for the closure of training centers that satisfies the requirements of the settlement agreement between the Commonwealth and the United States Department of Justice, and requires the Secretary of Health and Human Resources to submit a preliminary plan developed in consultation with the Chairmen of the House Committee on Appropriations and Senate Committee on Finance, with opportunity for stakeholder participation, no later than one year after the effective date of such settlement agreement.
Patron: Marsh
Temporarily employed teachers. Provides that no school board shall hire temporarily employed or unlicensed teachers to fill vacancies at the elementary grade levels or in the core subjects of English, mathematics, science, and history and social studies at the middle and high school grade levels in a manner that results in the staffing of elementary grade levels or core subject areas with a majority of temporarily employed or unlicensed teachers or shall employ such teachers for consecutive or alternating teaching assignments for more than 90 teaching days in the same class during a school year.
Patron: Newman
Access to vital records; certified copies of vital records. Directs the State Registrar to enter into an agreement with the Commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles to allow the Department of Motor Vehicles access to vital records by October 1, 2013, and to further allow the Department of Motor Vehicles to issue certified copies of such records by July 1, 2014. The bill also directs the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Health to study transferring vital records and the functions associated with keeping such records to the Department of Motor Vehicles and report.
Patron: Obenshain
Higher education; student organizations. Authorizes religious or political student organizations or groups to determine that the core functions of ordering the organization's internal affairs, selecting the organization's leaders and members, defining the organization's doctrines, and resolving the organization's disputes are in furtherance of the organization's religious or political mission and that only persons committed to that mission should conduct those activities. The bill also prohibits public institutions of higher education that have granted recognition of and access to any student organization or group from discriminating against any such student organization or group that limits its core functions to persons committed to its mission.
Patron: Miller
DMAS to designate certain waiver slots for dependents of certain military personnel. Directs the Department of Medical Assistance Services to designate 10 Mental Retardation/Intellectual Disabilities Medicaid Waiver slots, 10 Individual and Family Developmental Disability and Support Medicaid Waiver slots, and 10 Day Support Medicaid Waiver slots for dependents of active duty military personnel stationed in the Commonwealth.
Patrons: Favola, Northam
Ultrasound imaging. Provides that no law or regulation of the Commonwealth or administrative action of an agent of the Commonwealth shall require that a person receive ultrasound imaging for nonmedical reasons or ultrasound imaging that is not medically indicated as a condition of receiving a medical procedure.
Patrons: Northam, Favola
Ultrasound prior to abortion. Removes the requirement that a woman undergo a transabdominal ultrasound prior to an abortion.
Patron: McEachin
In-state tuition; undocumented persons. Establishes that an undocumented person who is unlawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible for in-state tuition unless he meets all of the following criteria: (i) he has resided with his parent, guardian, or other person standing in loco parentis while attending a public or private high school in this state; (ii) he has graduated from a public or private high school in the Commonwealth or has received a General Education Development (GED) certificate in the Commonwelath; (iii) he has registered as an entering student in a public institution of higher education in the Commonwealth; (iv) he has resided in the Commonwealth for at least three years immediately preceding his registration as an entering student in an institution of higher education in the Commonwealth or for at least one year if he is a veteran or an active duty member of the United States armed forces; (v) he has provided an affidavit to the institution stating that he has been approved for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; and (vi) he has submitted evidence that he or, in the case of a dependent student, at least one parent, guardian, or person standing in loco parentis has filed, unless exempted by state law, Virginia income tax returns for at least three years prior to the date of enrollment.
Patron: Hanger
Adjustment of the calculation of the local composite index for public school funding. Directs the Department of Education to adjust its funding calculations for the local ability to pay by using the use-value assessment of real property, instead of the true value, in localities that have adopted use-value taxation.
Patron: Hanger
Two-Year College Transfer Grant Program; Expected Family Contribution. Broadens eligibility for the Two-Year College Transfer Grant Program by including students whose Expected Family Contribution, as calculated by the federal government using the family's financial information reported on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), is no more than $12,000. Currently the program is available only to students whose Expected Family Contribution is no more than $8,000. The additional eligibility requirements for the Two-Year College Transfer Grant Program remain the same.
Patron: Herring
Classification as hospitals of certain facilities in which abortions are performed. Eliminates language classifying facilities in which five or more first trimester abortions per month are performed as hospitals for the purpose of compliance with regulations of the Board of Health related to construction, maintenance, operation, staffing, and equipping of hospitals.
Patron: Herring
Design and construction standards for certain facilities. Provides that regulations of the Board of Health for the construction, maintenance, operation, staffing, and equipping of hospitals shall apply to facilities in which five or more first trimester abortions per month are performed only when the design or construction of such facility is initiated after July 1, 2013. This bill includes an emergency clause.
EMERGENCY
Patron: McWaters
Charter schools; applications. Provides that charter school applications that are initiated by one or more local school boards are not subject to review by the Board of Education.
Patron: Barker
Virginia Student Achievement Fund; established. Establishes the Virginia Student Achievement Fund that shall be used solely for the purposes of awarding grants on a competitive basis to any local school division or other qualified entity to fund student achievement improvement initiatives. At least 50 percent of the annual funds shall be granted to local school divisions or other qualified entities applying for funds for initiatives aimed at closing student achievement gaps among local school divisions, individual schools, and among all student subgroups identified pursuant to the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.
Patron: Barker
Public schools; Standards of Learning assessments. Requires the Board of Education to promulgate regulations authorizing local school divisions to determine the date for administering Standards of Learning assessments.
Patron: Vogel
Teacher performance; Strategic Compensation Grant Initiative created. Establishes the Strategic Compensation Grant Initiative and Fund, which provides that local school divisions may submit proposals to the Board of Education to receive grants that may be used as incentives to improve teacher and school performance. School divisions must include in their proposals a compensation model and designate teachers to receive awarded funds. The bill sets forth eligibility requirements for teachers receiving funds.
Patron: Vogel
State Medical Assistance Plan; investigatory powers of the Attorney General; allowable charge for services. Expands the authority of the Attorney General or his authorized representatives in auditing and investigating providers of services under the State Medical Assistance Plan by giving authority to compel the production of fingerprints, photographs, and handwriting exemplars by witnesses. The bill provides that a witness who refuses to testify or produce requested evidence may be held in contempt and incarcerated until he complies. Subpoenas are excepted from certain provisions related to health records privacy and notice provisions, and information developed during a civil investigation is privileged. The bill also requires the Department of Medical Assistance Services to require that the actual charge for certain services, equipment, and materials shall not exceed the lowest price charged by or paid to the provider by any individual or entity, with certain exceptions.
Patron: Martin
School boards; releases from state regulations. Requires any school board that has requested a release from certain state regulations to demonstrate that the release from the state regulation will increase the quality of instruction and improve the achievement of students in the affected school or schools. The bill requires the Board of Education to provide (i) guidance to any local school division that requests releases from state regulations and (ii) information about opportunities to form partnerships with other agencies or entities to any local school division in which the school or schools granted releases from state regulations have demonstrated improvement in the quality of instruction and the achievement of students. The bill permits the Board to grant and renew such releases for a period of up to five years.
Patron: Martin
Participation in interscholastic programs; students residing on a military or naval reservation. Requires any student who resides on a military or naval reservation with military-owned housing located wholly or partly within the geographical boundaries of multiple school divisions to be deemed eligible for interscholastic programs immediately upon enrollment in a public elementary or secondary school in any of the aforementioned school divisions.
Patron: Locke
Board of Education; report to include information on school choice. Requires the Board of Education to include information regarding school choice in its annual report to the Governor and the General Assembly.
Patron: McDougle
Board of Education; regulations. Removes the requirement that the Board of Education promulgate regulations concerning the process for submitting proposals for the consolidation of school divisions and temporarily employed teachers.
Patron: Stanley
Public schools; individual school performance grading system. Requires the Board of Education to develop, by August 1, 2013, a grading system in addition to the standards of accreditation for individual school performance. The grading system will be based on an A to F grading scale and will include the school%92s accreditation rating. The Board will make the system and the assigned grades available to the public.
Patron: Norment
Public schools; evaluation policies and grievance procedures. Makes several changes to the processes by which teachers and certain administrators are evaluated and to the grievance procedure process. The bill requires teachers, assistant principals, and principals to be evaluated every year, either formally or informally, and such evaluations will include student academic progress as a significant component and an overall summative rating. The bill increases from three years to five years the term of probationary service required for a teacher before becoming eligible for a continuing contract. The bill requires local school boards to provide a new principal with a mentor.
The bill also changes the grievance procedure for teachers. It gives local school boards the option to assign a grievance hearing to be heard by a hearing officer designated by the local school board. The option for a grievance to be heard in front of a fact-finding panel would no longer be available.