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2017 SESSION

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Senate Committee on Education and Health
Subcommittee Public Education

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

Clerk: Patty Lung, Rhonda Johnson
Staff: Thomas Stevens
Date of Meeting: January 26, 2017
Time and Place: 30 Minutes after Adjournment - 3rd Floor East

S.B. 829

Patron: Wexton

Public schools; suspensions. Directs the Board of Education to establish guidelines for alternatives to short-term and long-term suspension for consideration by local school boards.

S.B. 983

Patron: Favola

Children from birth to age five who are deaf, deaf-blind, or hard-of-hearing; parent resource; tools or assessments for educators; report. Requires the Division of Special Education and Student Services of the Department of Education to (i) select, with input from an advisory committee that it establishes, language development milestones and include such milestones in a resource for use by parents of a child from birth to age five who is identified as deaf, deaf-blind, or hard-of-hearing to monitor and track their child's expressive and receptive language acquisition and developmental stages toward English literacy; (ii) disseminate such resource to such parents; (iii) select existing tools or assessments for educators for use in assessing the language and literacy development of children from birth to age five who are deaf, deaf-blind, or hard-of-hearing; (iv) disseminate such tools or assessments to local educational agencies and provide materials and training on their use; and (v) annually produce a report, using existing data reported in compliance with the federally required state performance plan on students with disabilities, that compares the language and literacy development of children from birth to age five who are deaf, deaf-blind, or hard-of-hearing with the language and literacy development of their peers who are not deaf, deaf-blind, or hard-of-hearing and make such report available to the public on its website. The bill is a recommendation of the Disability Commission.

S.B. 995

Patron: Stanley

Student discipline; long-term suspension. Reduces the maximum length of a long-term suspension from 364 calendar days to 45 school days. The bill prohibits a long-term suspension from extending beyond the current grading period unless aggravating circumstances exist and prohibits a long-term suspension from extending beyond the current school year.

S.B. 996

Patron: Stanley

Public schools; student discipline. Provides that no student shall receive a long-term suspension or expulsion for disruptive behavior unless such behavior involves intentional physical injury or credible threat of physical injury to another person.

S.B. 997

Patron: Stanley

Public schools; student discipline. Prohibits students in preschool through grade five from being suspended or expelled except for drug offenses, firearm offenses, or certain criminal acts.

S.B. 1082

Patron: Wexton

School principals; incident reports. Eliminates the requirement that school principals report certain enumerated acts that may constitute a misdemeanor offense to law enforcement.

S.B. 1089

Patron: Sturtevant

Public schools; Standards of Learning assessments. Reduces the total number and type of required Standards of Learning assessments to the minimum requirements established by the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, P.L. 89-10, as amended.

S.B. 1163

Patron: Reeves

School principals; incident reports. Provides that school principals are not required to report criminal misdemeanors or status offenses to law enforcement if in the principal's discretion, based on a totality of the circumstances and consistent with Board of Education guidelines, such report is not warranted. The bill requires the Board of Education, in consultation with the Department of Juvenile Justice, the Office of the Attorney General, and any interested stakeholders, to update its Student Conduct Policy Guidelines to provide guidance for principals in exercising such discretion.

S.B. 1475

Patron: McClellan

Family life education; curriculum guidelines and curricula. Makes changes to family life education curriculum guidelines and curricula, including (i) requiring family life education curriculum guidelines to include instruction as appropriate for the age of the student in the benefits, challenges, responsibilities, and value of family relationships for men, women, children, and communities; (ii) amending the definition of "abstinence education" for the purposes of such curriculum guidelines; and (iii) permitting the age-appropriate elements of effective and evidence-based programs on sexual violence that are required to be incorporated into any high school family life education curriculum offered by a local school division to include instruction that increases student awareness of the fact that consent is required before sexual activity.

S.B. 1477

Patron: McClellan

Students with blindness or visual impairments. Makes several changes to provisions relating to students with blindness or visual impairments, including (i) requiring a learning media assessment (LMA) to be administered as part of the initial evaluation and each reevaluation of each student with blindness or visual impairments or more frequently, if such student's Individualized Education Program (IEP) team so determines and requiring instruction in Braille reading and writing and accommodations for materials in Braille to be included in the IEP of a student with blindness or visual impairments commensurate with his IEP team's determination of his needs based upon the results of such LMA and (ii) requiring the Virginia Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired to assist the Board of Education and each local school board with ongoing professional development for teachers of students with blindness or visual impairments, including knowledge of and instruction in Braille and the administration and evaluation of LMAs.

S.B. 1556

Patron: Newman

Board of Education; graduation requirements. Requires the Board of Education's graduation requirements to require a student to earn at least one verified credit in each of the following subjects: mathematics, reading, writing, science, and history and social science. The bill requires a student to achieve a passing score on the associated end-of-course Standards of Learning assessment to earn a verified credit. The bill prohibits the associated end-of course Standards of Learning assessment from being diluted or replaced by another assessment.

S.B. 1584

Patron: Suetterlein

High school graduation requirements; verified credit; locally selected, nationally recognized high school academic assessments. Requires the Board of Education, in establishing high school graduation requirements, to provide for the award of verified units of credit for satisfactory scores on locally selected, nationally recognized high school academic assessments approved by the Board in lieu of the correlated Standards of Learning assessments.