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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 24, 2013
Time and Place: 8:00 a.m. - Senate Room B
Revised - SB1099 to be on 1/31 docket
Patron: Hanger
Regulations applicable to restaurants; concession stands at youth athletic activities exempt. Exempts concession stands at youth athletic activities from regulations governing restaurants, provided that such concession stands are promoted or sponsored either by a youth athletic association or by any charitable nonprofit organization or group thereof that has been recognized as being a part of the recreational program of the political subdivision where the association or organization is located by an ordinance or resolution of such political subdivision.
Patron: Blevins
Administration of medications. Clarifies the circumstances under which emergency medical services personnel may administer medications and provides that emergency medical services personnel may administer medications pursuant to an oral or written order or standing protocol.
Patron: Stuart
Emergency medical care services; recertification and appeals. Directs the Board of Health to include an appeals process in its regulations regarding certification and recertification of emergency medical services providers and removes the requirement that the Board's regulations include certain testing and other requirements for recertification.
Patron: Garrett
Nonpublic school students; participation in interscholastic programs. Prohibits public schools from joining an organization governing interscholastic programs that does not deem eligible for participation a student who (i) is receiving home instruction or is attending a private school that does not offer the interscholastic program in which the student wishes to participate; (ii) has demonstrated evidence of progress for two years; (iii) is entitled to free tuition in a public school; (iv) has not reached the age of 19 by August 1 of the current school year; (v) is an amateur who receives no compensation, but participates solely for the educational, physical, mental, and social benefits of the activity; (vi) complies with all disciplinary rules applicable to all public high school athletes; and (vii) complies with all other rules governing awards, all-star games, parental consents, and physical examinations applicable to all high school athletes. The bill allows such students to be charged reasonable fees for participation. The provisions of this Bill will expire on June 30, 2018.
Patron: Garrett
Students receiving home instruction; participation in interscholastic programs. Prohibits public schools from joining an organization governing interscholastic programs that does not deem eligible for participation a student who (i) is receiving home instruction; (ii) has demonstrated evidence of progress for two consecutive academic years; (iii) is in compliance with immunization requirements; (iv) is entitled to free tuition in a public school; (v) has not reached the age of 19 by August 1 of the current academic year; (vi) is an amateur who receives no compensation but participates solely for the educational, physical, mental, and social benefits of the activity; (vii) complies with all disciplinary rules and is subject to all codes of conduct applicable to all public high school athletes; and (viii) complies with all other rules governing awards, all-star games, maximum consecutive semesters of high school enrollment, parental consents, physical examinations, and transfers applicable to all high school athletes. The bill allows such students to be charged reasonable fees for participation.
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: Puckett
Continuing education for prescribers; substance abuse, addiction, and related pain management and prescribing practices. Requires the Board of Dentistry, Board of Medicine, and Board of Optometry to require continuing education on the topics of substance abuse, addiction, and related pain management and prescribing practices for licensed practitioners who are authorized to prescribe controlled substances. The bill also requires the relevant Boards to seek to provide free online courses to fulfill this requirement.
Patron: Puckett
Prescription Monitoring Program; required checks. Requires prescribers to request and review information from the Prescription Monitoring Program prior to dispensing any Schedule II, Schedule III, or Schedule IV controlled substance.
Patron: Reeves
Board of Medicine; license revocation (Twomey bill). Makes it mandatory for the Board to revoke a license of a practitioner who engages in sexual contact with a patient under certain circumstances and provides that the person whose license has been revoked may not apply for reinstatement for five years. Under current law, revocation is at the Board's discretion and the person may apply for reinstatement after three years.
Patron: Reeves
Bumper stickers on school buses. Requires local school divisions to place decals on the rear of school buses noting that the buses stop at railroad crossings.
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: Garrett
Practice of medicine and other healing arts. Updates terminology in sections governing licensure of practitioners of the healing arts, provides for use of electronic communication, and eliminates the Psychiatric Advisory Board.
Patron: Favola
Student and school employee conduct; bullying. Defines the term "bullying" and requires school boards to prohibit students and school employees from engaging in any act of bullying. The bill also requires local school boards to implement policies and procedures for reporting, investigating, and addressing acts of bullying by July 1, 2014. The bill contains technical amendments.
Patron: Ruff
Public schools; teacher licensure. Directs the Board of Education to establish criteria in its regulations governing licensure that exempts any person seeking initial licensure from coursework and professional teacher's assessment requirements if such person graduated with a baccalaureate degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics in the top 10 percent of his graduating class from a regionally accredited institution of higher education.
Patron: Barker
Public schools; residency of children in kinship care. Allows a child receiving kinship care from an adult relative to enroll in the school division where the kinship care provider resides. The bill also allows local school divisions to require one legal parent and the kinship care provider to sign affidavits detailing the kinship care arrangement as well as a power of attorney authorizing the adult relative to make educational decisions regarding the child. The provisions of this bill will sunset on June 30, 2016.
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.
Patron: Black
Medical assistance services;fraud prevention; provider information database. Directs the Department of Medical Assistance Services to develop and maintain a database of all health care providers currently eligible for reimbursement for medical assistance services provided under the state plan for medical assistance and the Family Access to Medical Insurance Security Plan, and a program for checking each claim for reimbursement against the database prior to payment to verify eligibility of the provider seeking reimbursement and identify improper claims for payments.
Patron: Blevins
Nursing homes and certified nursing facilities; electronic monitoring by patients. Provides that the governing body of a nursing home or certified nursing facility shall ensure that each patient admitted to the facility is informed of the right of any patient to implement electronic monitoring in the room in which he resides, the right of any patient to consent or refuse to consent to electronic monitoring in any room in which he resides, and the options available to any patient in cases in which he refuses to consent to electronic monitoring; directs the Board of Health to include in regulations governing nursing homes and certified nursing facilities provisions for the use of electronic monitoring devices by patients in nursing homes and certified nursing facilities that protect the rights of patients; and provides that no person shall be discharged or transferred from a nursing home or certified nursing facility solely because he implements electronic monitoring in any room in which he resides.
Patron: Stuart
Public schools; cardiopulmonary resuscitation and automated external defibrillators. Allows school boards to require current certification or training in emergency first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and the use of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) for bus drivers; requires all administrative staff, physical education instructors, and coaches to have such training; and requires such training for those seeking initial teacher licensure, renewal of a license to teach, or a provisional teaching license with a waiver for teachers with disabilities. For students, beginning with first-time ninth grade students in the 2014-2015 school year, the bill adds a requirement that recipients of the standard and advanced diplomas must receive training in emergency first aid, CPR, and the use of AEDs with a waiver for students with disabilities. The bill also requires an AED in every school by the 2014-2015 school year.
Patron: Miller
Public schools; physical activity requirement. Requires at least 30 minutes of physical activity per day during the regular school year for students in grades kindergarten through eight. This requirement becomes effective beginning with the 2015-2016 school year.
Patron: Barker
Individual incapable of making an informed decision; procedure for physical evidence recovery kit examination. Provides that a licensed health care provider may perform a physical evidence recovery kit examination for a person who is believed to be the victim of a sexual assault and who is incapable of making an informed decision regarding consent to such examination when there is an immediate need to conduct the examination, no legally authorized representative is available to provide consent, and a capacity reviewer provides written certification that the person is incapable of providing informed consent and that the examination should be performed.
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: Barker
State Board for Community Colleges; mental health policies. Requires the State Board for Community Colleges to develop a mental health awareness and referral policy that would require community colleges to (i) undertake educational efforts to raise awareness of mental health needs among students and faculty and (ii) designate at least one individual at each college to serve as a point of contact with an emergency services system clinician at a local community services board, or another qualified mental health services provider, for screenings and referrals of students who may have emergency or emerging mental health needs.
Patron: Deeds
Virginia Commission on Higher Education Board Appointments. Clarifies that the Virginia Commission on Higher Education Board Appointments is required to evaluate potential appointees to higher education governing boards and to make recommendations to the Governor. Currently, these actions are considered powers and duties of the Commission and the Commission only makes recommendations upon the request of the Governor. The bill also requires the Commission to consider each list of qualified persons submitted to the Governor by the alumni association of any public institution of higher education.
Patron: McWaters
Medicaid; coordinated long-term care. Directs the Director of the Department of Medical Assistance Services to develop and implement a statewide, fully integrated managed care long-term care program that is risk-based and integrates Medicaid-reimbursed primary, acute, behavioral health, and long-term care services. The long-term care program shall expand access to and utilization of cost-effective home and community-based alternatives to institutional care for Medicaid-eligible individuals. The program shall include an institutional transition initiative. Managed-care entities shall develop a need-based methodology for reimbursement of nursing facility services.
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: Barker
Public schools; kindergarten instructional time. Directs the Board of Education to promulgate regulations, by July 1, 2015, establishing standards for accreditation that include a requirement that the standard school day for students in kindergarten must average at least 5.5 instructional hours in order to qualify for full accreditation. The bill has a delayed effective date of July 1, 2015.
Patron: Barker
Teacher compensation; goal. States that it is a goal of the Commonwealth that its public school teachers be compensated at a rate that is competitive with the national average teacher salary.
Patron: Barker
Commonwealth Teaching Fellows Program established. Creates a Commonwealth Teaching Fellows Program in which the Board of Education or a local school division in conjunction with a Virginia college or university with an approved education preparation program may create and serve as Administrator of intensive programs of at least eight weeks in length to prepare career-switchers and recent college graduates who have not completed coursework in education to teach in areas including science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and critical teaching shortage areas in public elementary and secondary schools in the Commonwealth. The Administrator would assist Fellows to secure teaching positions. Any Fellow hired as a teacher by a local school division would be awarded a three-year provisional license to teach, would receive such further training as the Board prescribes, and would have the opportunity to obtain a permanent license upon completion of three years of teaching.
Patron: Barker
Public schools; Standards of Learning tests. Directs the Board of Education to promulgate regulations to provide the same criteria for eligibility for an expedited retake of an end-of-course Standards of Learning test to each student regardless of grade level or course.
Patron: Barker
Student growth indicators; pilot program. Requires the Department of Education to establish a pilot program that explores the use and effectiveness of employing student growth indicators for school accountability and teacher evaluation. The bill requires the Department to give semiannual reports on the program to the Governor and the General Assembly. The program will expire on July 1, 2018.
Patron: Blevins
Public schools; early intervention services for reading and mathematics. Adds kindergarten and grades one and two to the requirement that local school divisions provide early intervention services to students in grade three who demonstrate deficiencies based on their individual performance on diagnostic reading tests. The bill requires local school divisions to provide algebra readiness intervention services to students in grades six through nine who are at risk of failing the Algebra I end-of-course test as demonstrated by their individual performance on diagnostic tests. The bill also removes the requirement that reading or mathematics specialists hired to provide such intervention services be licensed by the Board of Education.
Patron: Blevins
Standards of Quality; assignment of certain staff. Permits local school divisions that employ a sufficient number of librarians, guidance counselors, and school-based clerical personnel to meet the staffing requirements that are prescribed in Standard 2 of the Standards of Quality to assign librarians, guidance counselors, and school-based clerical personnel to schools within the division according to the area of greatest need, regardless of whether such schools are elementary, middle, or secondary.
Patron: Ruff
Teacher licensure; Teach for America license. Creates a two-year provisional license for participants in Teach for America, a nationwide nonprofit organization focused on closing the achievement gaps among students in low-income areas, who meet certain criteria, including having an offer of employment from a school division in the Commonwealth. The Board of Education may extend each Teach for America license for one additional year and may issue each licensee a renewable license upon completion of two full years of teaching experience, satisfaction of all other requirements for such a license, achievement of satisfactory scores on all professional teachers assessments required by the Board, and achievement of satisfactory end-of-year evaluations. The bill also provides for reciprocity to Teach for America teachers in other states upon satisfaction of certain conditions.
Patron: Martin
Career Pathways System Advisory Council; established. Establishes the Career Pathways System Advisory Council. The purpose of the council is to ensure the coordination and collaboration of career and technical education, adult education, and workforce development programs through business-driven sector strategies that provide for sequences of education and training articulated with higher levels of education and regional and state workforce needs and that also provide career coaching and advising support services and experiential learning. The Council will develop workforce readiness indicators, in coordination with the Virginia Workforce Council and the Council on Virginia's Future, which will include enrollment and graduation statistics in secondary, postsecondary, and adult education programs in science, technology, engineering, math, or health care-related areas; numbers of targeted industry certifications; and the Commonwealth's education and training capacity for key industry sectors, and will produce a scorecard documenting progress in these areas. The scorecard will also include a report on the progress of interagency collaboration and shared funding for the purposes of attaining select education and workforce development goals. The bill includes a sunset provision of July 1, 2016.
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: 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.
Patron: Deeds
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 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: Black
Career and technical education; High School to Work Partnerships. Directs the Board of Education to develop guidelines for the establishment of High School to Work Partnerships whereby each local school division's career and technical education administrator works with the guidance counselor office of each public high school to partner with local businesses to create apprenticeships, internships, and job shadow programs in a variety of trades and skilled labor positions.
Patron: Northam
Pharmacies; access to the Prescription Monitoring Program. Requires every pharmacy permitted by the Board of Pharmacy to ensure that at least one pharmacist who is physically present at the pharmacy shall have access to the Prescription Monitoring Program at all times.
Patron: Martin
Medical data. Prohibits any person that regularly stores medical data in an electronic or digital format from (i) participating in the establishment or implementation of the Nationwide Health Information Network; (ii) performing any analytic or statistical processing with regard to any medical records from multiple patients for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment, including population health management; or (iii) processing medical data at a facility within the Commonwealth in any instance where a majority of the patients whose medical data is being processed do not reside in the Commonwealth. A database at which medical data is regularly stored in an electronic or digital format shall not store or maintain in a manner that is accessible by the operator or any other person, in an electronic or digital format, at any one time, medical data regarding more than 10,000 patients. The measure provides that any health care provider shall not be subject to any penalty, sanction, or other adverse action resulting from its failure or refusal to implement an online computerized medical record system. A patient's consent to the sharing of his health care information shall be presumed not to grant consent to the electronic or digital storing or transmission of the information to any person other than for health care coverage purposes. Finally, the measure prohibits the Commonwealth from authorizing the establishment or operation of a health information exchange.
Patron: Barker
Public schools; virtual education. Provides that any student who enrolls full time in a virtual school program served by a multidivision online provider outside his school division of residence shall have his state share of Standards of Quality per pupil funding, as well as 76 percent of his local share, transferred from the school division of residence to the enrolling school division. The total state and local share funds transferred from the resident division to the enrolling division shall not exceed the actual cost of the virtual school program.
Patron: Garrett
Disposition of dead bodies; how expenses paid. Provides that the Commonwealth, not the county or city in which the decedent resided or in which the death occurred, shall pay the cost of disposition of a dead body if the claimant is financially unable to pay the reasonable costs of disposition.
Patrons: McDougle, Alexander
Opportunity Educational Institution and Board established. Creates the Opportunity Educational Institution to be administered and supervised by the Opportunity Educational Institution Board and requires any school that has been denied accreditation for the previous two school years to be transferred to the Institution and remain in the Institution for five years or until the school achieves full accreditation. The bill also sets forth requirements for student attendance, staffing, and funding for the Institution.
Patron: Marsden
Public schools; policies on concussion prevention. Requires the Board of Education to develop and distribute to local school divisions by July 1, 2014, guidelines for policies limiting the amount of contact experienced by student-athletes playing contact sports and requires each local school division to develop policies and procedures regarding the same, including a limitation on the amount of contact practices allowed per week for student-athletes playing football.
Patron: Wagner
Expansion of Medicaid. Expands the class of Medicaid recipients in Virginia to include those meeting the criteria in the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Such expansion would expire if federal financial participation for the expanded population is reduced below 90%. The bill also authorizes the Department of Medical Assistance Services to seek federal authorization to reform the Medicaid service delivery model in Virginia.
Patron: Northam
Eastern Virginia Medical School; board of visitors. Reduces the minimum number of required meetings of the Board of Visitors of the Eastern Virginia Medical School from six per year to four per year.
Patron: Northam
Abortion; optional ultrasound. Eliminates the requirement that a pregnant woman undergo a mandatory transabdominal ultrasound prior to the performance of an abortion to determine the gestational age of the fetus and provides that a pregnant woman shall be offered the opportunity to have an ultrasound performed.
Patron: Petersen
Teacher licensure; renewal requirements. Requires the Board of Education to amend its regulations to require any individual licensed and endorsed to teach (i) middle school civics or economics, or (ii) high school government or history who is seeking renewal of such license to demonstrate knowledge of Virginia history or state and local government by completing a module or professional development course specifically related to Virginia history or state and local government that has a value of five professional development points.
Patron: Ebbin
Virtual school programs; regulations. That the Board of Education shall promulgate regulations requiring (i) any enrollment form for full-time virtual school programs to include an opportunity for the parents of nonresident students to provide the reason or reasons for wanting to enroll in the full-time virtual program and (ii) to report to the Department of Education the number of and resident school divisions of nonresident students who are enrolled in full-time virtual school programs and any responses given on enrollment forms regarding the reasoning behind enrollment.