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2016 SESSION

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Senate Committee on Education and Health
Subcommittee Public Education

Carrico (Chairman), Dunnavant, Garrett, Howell, Locke

Clerk: Patty Lung
Staff: Thomas Stevens, Ryan Brimmer
Date of Meeting: February 18, 2016
Time and Place: 30 Minutes After Adjournment - 3rd Fl. East Conf. Room
Revised to include 12 additional bills

H.B. 36

Patron: Bell, Richard P.

Twelfth-grade government courses at public high schools; civics portion of the U.S. Naturalization Test. Requires each local school board to implement a program of instruction in each twelfth-grade government course in the school division on all information and concepts contained in the civics portion of the U.S. Naturalization Test.

H.B. 46

Patron: Greason

Secretary of Education; establishment of School Readiness Committee. Directs the Secretary of Education to establish a School Readiness Committee with the first goal of addressing the development and alignment of an effective professional development and credentialing system for the early childhood education workforce in the Commonwealth, including the (i) development of a competency-based professional development pathway for practitioners who teach children birth to age five in both public and private early childhood education programs; (ii) consideration of articulation agreements between associate and baccalaureate degree programs; (iii) refinement of teacher licensure and education programs to address competencies specific to early childhood development; (iv) alignment of existing professional development funding streams; and (v) development of innovative approaches to increasing accessibility, availability, affordability, and accountability of the Commonwealth's workforce development system for early childhood education teachers and providers.

H.B. 261

Patron: Yancey

Former members of the Armed Forces of the United States or the Virginia National Guard; provisional teaching licenses. Requires the Board of Education to provide for the issuance of a provisional license, valid for a period not to exceed three years, to any former member of the Armed Forces of the United States or the Virginia National Guard who has received an honorable discharge and has the appropriate level of experience or training but does not meet the requirements for a renewable teacher license.

H.B. 381

Patron: Greason

Children with disabilities; alternative means to demonstrate achievement of the Standards of Learning. Requires the Board of Education to prescribe alternative means for children with disabilities who meet criteria established by the Board to demonstrate achievement of the Standards of Learning.

H.B. 436

Patron: Austin

Standards of Learning assessments in English reading and mathematics; retake; recovery credit. Requires the Department of Education to award recovery credit to any student in grades three through eight who fails a Standards of Learning assessment in English reading or mathematics, receives remediation, and subsequently retakes and passes such an assessment, including any such student who subsequently retakes such an assessment on an expedited basis.

H.B. 487

Patron: McClellan

School Resource Officer Grants Program school resource officers; conditions of employment. Relieves school resource officers employed pursuant to the School Resource Officer Grants Program from the obligation to enforce school board rules and codes of student conduct as a condition of their employment.

H.B. 516

Patron: Landes

Board of Education; policy on sexually explicit instructional material. Requires the Board of Education to establish a policy to require each public elementary or secondary school to (i) notify the parent of any student whose teacher reasonably expects to provide instructional material that includes sexually explicit content, (ii) permit the parent of any student to review instructional material that includes sexually explicit content upon request, and (iii) provide, as an alternative to instructional material and related academic activities that include sexually explicit content, nonexplicit instructional material and related academic activities to any student whose parent so requests.

H.B. 518

Patron: LeMunyon

Local school boards; public school choice. Requires, notwithstanding any agreement, waiver from the federal government, or provision of law to the contrary, the Board of Education, effective starting with the 2017-2018 school year, to select 12 schools identified for comprehensive support and improvement and require such schools to provide all enrolled students with the option to transfer to another public school in the school division in accordance with relevant federal law and subject to certain conditions and limitations established by the relevant local school board. The bill will not become effective unless reenacted by the 2017 session of the General Assembly.

H.B. 519

Patron: LeMunyon

School-affiliated entities; student personal information. Extends various protections for student information that is collected and maintained, used, or shared on certain websites, mobile applications, or online services used by school affiliated entities. The bill defines "school affiliated entity" as any private entity that provides support to a local school division or a public elementary or secondary school in the Commonwealth, including alumni associations, booster clubs, parent-teacher associations, parent-teacher-student associations, parent-teacher organizations, public education foundations, public education funds, and scholarship organizations.

 

H.B. 521

Patron: LeMunyon

Board of Education; annual report; local reporting requirements. Requires the annual Board of Education report to the Governor and the General Assembly to include a complete listing of each report (i) that local school divisions are required to submit to the Board or any other state agency, including name, frequency, and an indication of whether the report contains information that the local school division is also required to submit to the federal government, and (ii) pertaining to public education that local school divisions are required to submit to the federal government, including name and frequency.

H.B. 524

Patron: LeMunyon

Data on teacher performance and quality; confidentiality. Requires data collected by or for the Department of Education or the local school board or made available to and able to be used by the local school board to judge the performance or quality of a teacher, maintained in a teacher's personnel file or otherwise, to be confidential in most instances. Current law requires such data to be confidential only if it is used by a local school board to make such a judgment. The bill provides that if such data is disclosed pursuant to court order, for the purposes of a grievance proceeding involving the teacher, or as otherwise required by state or federal law, such disclosure shall be made in a form that does not personally identify any student or other teacher.

H.B. 659

Patron: Filler-Corn

High school family life education curricula; programs on the prevention of dating violence, domestic abuse, sexual harassment, and sexual violence. Requires any high school family life education curriculum offered by a local school division to incorporate age-appropriate elements of effective and evidence-based programs on the prevention of dating violence, domestic abuse, sexual harassment, and sexual violence.

H.B. 749

Patron: Greason

School service providers. Makes several changes to the provisions relating to the protection of student personal information by school service providers, including (i) defining "targeted advertising" as advertising that is presented to a student and selected on the basis of information obtained or inferred over time from such student's online behavior, use of applications, or sharing of student personal information, which does not include advertising that is presented to a student at an online location on the basis of such student's online behavior, use of applications, or sharing of student personal information during his current visit to that online location or in response to that student's request for information or feedback and for which a student's online activities or requests are not retained over time for the purpose of subsequent advertising and (ii) clarifying that other provisions of law do not prohibit school service providers from performing certain acts, including disclosing student personal information to ensure legal or regulatory compliance, protect against liability, or protect the security or integrity of its school service.

H.B. 750

Patron: Greason

Student personal information; school services; college and career readiness assessment. Excludes any website, mobile application, or online service that is used for the purposes of college and career readiness assessment from the definition of "school service," thus relieving providers of such websites, mobile applications, and online services from the obligation to provide various protections for student personal information collected through such websites, mobile applications, and online services.

H.B. 936

Patron: Toscano

Certain students with limited English proficiency; standard diploma; credit flexibility. Requires the Board of Education to make provision in its regulations for flexibility for any student with limited English proficiency to earn the credits required for a diploma. The bill requires such flexibility to permit local school divisions to award credit to such students who have failed reading, writing, or mathematics Standards of Learning assessments by a narrow margin, as defined by the Board.

H.B. 1377

Patron: LeMunyon

School boards; assignment of teachers; class size limits. Provides that any time the number of students in a class exceeds the statutorily prescribed class size limit, the local school division shall notify the parent of each student in such class of such fact no later than 10 days after the date on which the class exceeded the class size limits. The bill requires such notification to state the reason that the class size exceeds the class size limit and describe the measures that the local school division will take to reduce the class size to comply with the limit.