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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: February 7, 2013
Time and Place: 8:00 AM - Senate Room B
Revised to add HB 1726
Patron: Bell, Richard P.
Special education; children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. Permits local school divisions to ensure that Individualized Education Program (IEP) teams consider the specific communication needs of children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and address those needs as appropriate in the child's IEP.
Patron: Pogge
Criminal history checks of emergency medical services personnel. Provides that the State Board of Health shall require each person who, on or after July 1, 2013, applies to be a volunteer with or employee of an emergency medical services agency to submit fingerprints and provide personal descriptive information for the purpose of a state and national criminal history record check.
Patron: Habeeb
Notice to principals, vice principals, and supervisors of reassignment to teaching positions. Changes the date by which a school board is required to give notice to a principal, vice principal, or supervisor under continuing contract status of reassignment to a teaching position from April 15 to June 15 of any year. The bill contains technical amendments.
Patron: Bell, Richard P.
Health screenings for public school students; eating disorders. Requires each school board to annually provide parent educational information on eating disorders for public school students in grades five through 12. The bill also requires the Department of Education and the Department of Health to develop and implement policies for providing parent educational information on eating disorders.
Patron: O'Bannon
Mandatory outpatient treatment; who may file petition. Allows the community services board serving the county or city in which the person who would be the subject of an order for mandatory outpatient treatment following a period of voluntary or involuntary treatment resides and the community services board serving the county or city where such person receives treatment to petition for an order of mandatory outpatient treatment.
Patron: Head
Home care organizations. Requires every licensed home care organization to maintain a liability insurance policy and third party crime insurance policy or blanket fidelity bond in an amount sufficient to compensate patients or individuals for injuries and losses resulting from negligent or criminal acts of the licensee. The bill also provides for operation of branch offices by a single licensee.
Patron: Greason
Public schools; possession and administration of epinephrine. Adds employees of local governing bodies and employees of local health departments to the lists of individuals who are permitted to possess and administer epinephrine and not be held liable for civil damages when certain conditions are met. The bill also requires local school boards to include in policies for the possession and administration of epinephrine a provision adding any employee of a local governing body or an employee of a local health department who is authorized by a prescriber and trained in the administration of epinephrine to administer the drug to any student believed to be having an anaphylactic reaction. This bill contains an emergency clause.
EMERGENCY
Patron: Scott, E.T.
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: Stolle
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: O'Bannon
Pharmacy; collaborative agreements. Clarifies parties with whom a pharmacist may enter into a collaborative agreement; provides that a patient who does not wish to participate in a collaborative procedure must notify the prescriber of his decision; and provides that a prescriber may elect to have a patient not participate in a collaborative agreement by contacting the pharmacist or his designated alternative pharmacist or by documenting his decision on the patient's prescription. The bill also clarifies that collaborative agreements may be in writing or in electronic form.
Patron: Orrock
Administration of drugs; private schools, private nursery schools, and private preschools. Provides that nothing shall prevent the administration of drugs by a person to a child in a private nursery school or preschool that is accredited by the Virginia Council for Private Education and exempt from licensure by the Board of Social Services, or in a private school that is accredited by the Virginia Council for Private Education in accordance with standards prescribed by the Board of Education, provided such person has completed an approved training program, obtained written authorization of the parent, and administers drugs dispensed from a pharmacy and maintained in the original labeled container only to the child identified on the prescription label and in accordance with the prescriber's instructions.
Patron: Cole
Armed security officers; protection of schools and child day centers. Permits any armed security officers, licensed by the Department of Criminal Justice Services, to carry firearms onto private or religious school property if such officer is hired by the private or religious school to provide protection to students and employees. The bill also prohibits the Board of Social Services from adopting any regulations that would prevent a child day center from hiring an armed security officer.
Patron: Stolle
Physician Loan Repayment Program. Extends eligibility for the Physician Loan Repayment Program to graduates of accredited medical schools who are currently employed in a geriatrics fellowship and who agree to a minimum two-year period of medical service in the Commonwealth.
Patron: Hugo
Higher education; mental health treatment coordination. Requires the governing board of each public four-year institution of higher education to establish a written memorandum of understanding with its local community services board or behavioral health authority and with local hospitals and other local mental health facilities in order to expand the scope of services available to students seeking treatment. The bill requires each public four-year institution of higher education to designate a contact person to be notified when a student is involuntarily committed, or when a student is discharged from a facility and he consents to such notification. The bill requires the memorandums to include the institution of higher education in the post-discharge planning of a student who has been committed and intends to return to campus, to the extent allowable under state and federal privacy laws.
Patron: Gilbert
Higher education; student organizations. Permits, to the extent allowed by law, religious or political student organizations at public institutions of higher education to determine that only persons committed to the organization's mission may conduct certain activities. The bill also prohibits, to the extent allowed by law, public institutions of higher education from discriminating against a student organization that makes such a determination.
Patron: Ward
Secure inpatient treatment hearings; report to counsel for respondent. Provides that copies of all reports evaluating the condition of a respondent in a hearing for continuation of secure inpatient treatment shall be provided to counsel for the respondent.
Patron: Pogge
Emergency medical care services; recertification and appeals. Eliminates the requirement that the Board of Health's regulations governing recertification of emergency medical services providers include certain provisions related to testing and other requirements.
Patron: Stolle
Prescription Monitoring Program; disclosure of information to local law enforcement. Adds an agent designated by the chief law-enforcement officer of any county or city to the list of individuals to whom the Department of Health Professions must disclose information relevant to a specific investigation of a specific recipient, dispenser, or prescriber upon request, and provides that agents designated by the superintendent of the Department of State Police or the chief law enforcement officer of a county or city to receive information relevant to a specific investigation of a specific recipient, dispenser, or prescriber shall have completed the Virginia State Police Drug Diversion School. The bill also provides that the Department may disclose information relating to prescriptions for covered substances issued by a specific prescriber to that prescriber.
Patron: Scott, E.T.
Non-gravel effluent drain systems for onsite sewage systems; regulations. Directs the Board of Health to promulgate regulations for chamber and bundled expanded polystyrene effluent distribution systems for onsite sewage systems and other effluent distribution system technologies for onsite sewage systems as may be deemed necessary by the Board. The bill contains an emergency clause.
EMERGENCY
Patron: O'Bannon
Administration of medications; percutaneous gastrostomy tube. Provides that nothing shall prevent the administration of drugs to a person receiving services in a program licensed by the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services via percutaneous gastrostomy tube when such drugs are administered by a person who has completed an approved training program and has been approved, upon demonstration of competency in administration of drugs via percutaneous gastrostomy tube, by a registered nurse. The bill requires semiannual renewal of approval by a registered nurse, upon demonstration of continuing competency by the person seeking to administer drugs via percutanous gastrostomy tube.
Patron: Filler-Corn
Mammography results; information about dense breast tissue. Clarifies the conditions under which a mammography services provider must notify a patient of dense breast tissue. The bill provides that such notice must be sent to patients who are determined by the interpreting physician to have heterogeneously dense or extremely dense tissue, as defined in nationally recognized guidelines or systems for breast imagining reporting of mammography screening, including the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System and any equivalent new terms, and modifies the existing language of the notice.
Patron: Garrett
Suspension of license, registration or certificate by a health regulatory agency; practice pending appeal. Prohibits a practitioner of the healing arts whose license, certificate, registration, or permit has been suspended or revoked by a health regulatory board from engaging in practice pending appeal of the board's order.
Patron: Orrock
Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy; privatization. Makes various technical and other statutory changes necessary to implement the privatization of the Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy.
Patron: Orrock
Career and technical occupational experiences for secondary school students; model waiver form. Requires the Board of Education to develop, by July 1, 2014, a model waiver form for use by any entity providing a career and technical occupational experience for public secondary school students.
Patron: Robinson
School-based offenses; delinquency charges. Clarifies that a local law-enforcement agency is not required to file delinquency charges and that a school and a local law-enforcement agency may deal with school-based offenses through graduated sanctions or educational programming after a school principal reports to a local law-enforcement agency certain acts that may constitute a criminal offense. The bill also requires the Board of Education and the Department of Criminal Justice Services to develop a model cooperative agreement between schools and local law-enforcement agencies for dealing with school-based offenses.
Patron: Robinson
Public schools; expulsion of students. Removes certain weapons from the definition of weapons that require mandatory expulsion from school for up to one year. These are weapons that are not included in the definition of "firearm" in the federal Improving America's Schools Act of 1994 (Part F-Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994).
Patron: LeMunyon
Public schools; personnel files. Requires performance indicators, or other data used by the local school board to judge the growth or quality of a teacher, to be kept confidential but permits such information to be disclosed pursuant to court order, for the purposes of a grievance proceeding involving the teacher, or as otherwise required by state or federal law.
Patron: Peace
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: LeMunyon
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.
Patron: Stolle
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: Cox, M.K.
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 groups or types of teachers to receive awarded funds. The bill sets forth eligibility requirements for teachers receiving funds.
Patron: Cox, M.K.
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: Tata
Postsecondary schools; student records and closures. Provides that in the event of a postsecondary school closure, the school shall transfer the academic and financial records of its students to the State Council for Higher Education of Virginia or enter an agreement with another school to preserve such records. The bill also requires that a closing school develop and submit to SCHEV a "teachout plan," which is a written agreement between or among postsecondary schools that provides for the equitable treatment of students if one of those institutions stops offering an educational program before all students enrolled in that program complete the program. The bill finally requires the Council to deny owners certification to operate another postsecondary school in the Commonwealth if the owner does not provide an adequate teachout plan or adequate preservation of records.
Patron: Tata
School boards; releases from state regulations. Requires any school board that has requested a release from certain state regulations to provide a description of how the release from the state regulation is designed to increase the quality of instruction and improve the achievement of students in the affected school or schools. The bill permits the Board to grant and renew such releases for a period of up to five years. The bill also permits the Board of Education to grant local school boards waivers of specific staffing requirements that would permit the school board to assign instructional personnel to the schools with the greatest needs, provided that the local school board provides a description of how the waiver is designed to increase the quality of instruction, and improve the achievement of students in the affected school or schools.
Patron: Ramadan
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 between public high schools and local businesses to create apprenticeships, internships, and job shadow programs in a variety of trades and skilled labor positions. The bill also provides that local school boards may encourage the local school division's career and technical education administrator to work with the guidance counselor office of each public high school to establish such partnerships.
Patron: O'Bannon
Board of the Virginia College Savings Plan; elected positions. Eliminates the position of secretary from the Board of the Virginia College Savings Plan. The bill also changes the timeframe for the election of Board positions from each calendar year to annually. The bill contains technical amendments.
Patron: Spruill
Nursing homes and certified nursing facilities; electronic monitoring by patients. Directs the Board of Health to promulgate regulations governing the implementation of electronic monitoring in the rooms of residents of nursing homes, which shall include existing policies and procedures set forth in the Board's guidelines governing electronic monitoring of nursing home residents' rooms.
Patron: Landes
Standards of Quality; waivers from third grade Standards of Learning assessments in certain scenarios. Allows a public elementary school that had an adjusted pass rate of less than 75 percent on the third grade Standards of Learning reading assessment administered during the previous school year to apply to the Board of Education for a two-year waiver from the science or history and social science Standards of Learning assessment requirement, or both, for third grade students. Elementary schools that apply for a two-year waiver must satisfy certain conditions to be granted the waiver. The bill will expire on July 1, 2015.
Patron: Bell, Richard P.
Public schools; evaluation policies and grievance procedures. Makes several changes to the processes by which teachers and certain administrators are evaluated. The bill requires teachers, assistant principals, and principals to be evaluated every year, either formally or informally, and such evaluations to include student academic progress as a significant component and an overall summative rating. The bill allows local school boards to increase from three years to five years the term of probationary service required before a teacher becomes eligible for a continuing contract.
The bill also changes the grievance procedure for teachers by giving local school boards the option to assign a grievance hearing to be heard by an impartial hearing officer designated by the local school board and by removing the option for a grievance to be heard in front of a fact-finding panel.
Patron: O'Bannon
Nurses; authority to possess and administer oxygen to treat emergency medical conditions. Provides that a prescriber may authorize registered nurses and licensed practical nurses to possess oxygen for administration in treatment of emergency medical conditions.
Patron: Lewis
Northampton County School Board; terms. Shortens or lengthens the terms of the currently appointed members of the Northampton County School Board so they all expire on December 31, 2013, and provides for the initial staggering of terms of the members elected to the board in the November 2013 general election.
EMERGENCY
Patron: Rush
Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Fund; amount of financial assistance. Specifies that qualified survivors and dependents are eligible for financial assistance from the Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Fund in an amount up to $2,000 or as provided in the appropriation act for board and room charges, books and supplies, and other expenses at any public institution of higher education or other public accredited postsecondary institution granting a degree, diploma, or certificate in the Commonwealth.