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2014 SESSION

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Senate Committee on Education and Health
Subcommittee Public Education

Carrico (Chairman), Howell, Locke, Black, Newman, Martin

Clerk: Patty Lung, Wesley Bland
Staff: Thomas Stevens, Ryan Brimmer
Date of Meeting: January 27, 2014
Time and Place: 1/2 Hr. After Adjournment - 3rd Fl. East Conf. Room

S.B. 155

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 2016-2017 school year.

S.B. 240

Patron: Carrico

Public schools; withholding child from custodial parent. Makes it a Class 3 misdemeanor for any principal, assistant principal, or supervisor employed by a local school board who fails to or refuses to release a child into the custody of the child's custodial parent or other legal custodian, unless such failure or refusal is necessitated by a critical event or emergency governed by the school crisis, emergency management, and medical emergency response plan.

S.B. 276

Patron: Favola

Charter schools; enrollment. Authorizes the local school board to require that current students of an existing public school that is to be converted into a public charter school and their siblings be given enrollment priority over the open enrollment lottery. This bill contains an emergency clause.

EMERGENCY

S.B. 291

Patron: Carrico

Visually impaired students; Braille. Requires each visually impaired student to be evaluated by a certified Teacher of the Visually Impaired and requires the student to receive instruction in Braille or the use of Braille unless the team responsible for developing the student's IEP (IEP team) or the team responsible for developing the student's plan pursuant to § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (504 team) determines that instruction in Braille or the use of Braille is not appropriate to the student's educational needs. Current law requires a determination of the appropriateness of Braille but does not require the evaluation. The bill allows IEP teams and 504 teams to provide other specialized educational services and assistive technology devices in addition to Braille. The bill disallows the presence of some residual vision from precluding instruction in Braille and the use of Braille. The bill permits IEP teams and 504 teams to provide blind students with instruction in Nemeth Braille and the use of Nemeth Braille in addition to Braille.

S.B. 441

Patron: Garrett

Public schools; appeal process for suspensions and expulsions. Requires that school board regulations outlining procedures for short-term suspensions, long-term suspensions, and expulsions allow an appeal to the full school board.

S.B. 588

Patron: Black

Student discipline; modifying long-term suspensions and expulsions. Permits a school board or a committee thereof to reduce the long-term suspension or expulsion of a student or students who received a greater punishment in cases in which the school board or committee determines that (i) two or more students have engaged in closely related offenses arising out of the same incident or circumstances that lead to each student's expulsion or suspension, (ii) the cases resulted in highly disparate disciplinary decisions in which at least one student received a lesser punishment, and (iii) no rational basis exists for the disparate disciplinary decisions. The bill provides that such decisions of the school board or a committee thereof are not subject to judicial review.

S.B. 599

Patron: Cosgrove

Student data; cloud computing. Requires each cloud computing service provider that enters into a contract with a local school board to provide services to only process and monitor student data according to the terms of its contract with the local school board. The bill prohibits cloud computing service providers from using cloud computing services for any secondary purpose that benefits the service provider or a third party, including online behavioral advertising, creating or correcting an individual household profile, the sale of student data for any commercial purpose, or any other similar for-profit activity.

S.B. 636

Patron: Hanger

Board of Education; Standards of Learning assessments. Directs the Board of Education to review the Standards of Learning assessments and to develop a plan to reduce, by the 2015-2016 school year, the number of such assessments by at least 25 percent.