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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.
2018 SESSION
Chairman: Stephen D. Newman
Clerk: Patty Lung
Staff: Thomas Stevens
Date of Meeting: February 22, 2018
Time and Place: 8:00 AM - Senate Room A - Pocahontas Bldg.
Patron: Bell, Richard P.
Teacher licensure; reciprocity; spouses of Armed Forces members. Requires the Board of Education to provide for teacher licensure by reciprocity for a period of one year for any spouse of an active duty member of the Armed Forces of the United States or the Commonwealth, provided that such spouse has obtained a valid out-of-state license, with full credentials and without deficiencies, that is in force at the time the application for such a one-year reciprocal license is received by the Department of Education. The bill provides that any such individual who receives a satisfactory evaluation at the conclusion of the year of employment under such one-year reciprocal license is eligible for a renewable license.
Patron: Filler-Corn
Family life education curricula; personal privacy and personal boundaries. Requires any family life education curriculum offered in any elementary school, middle school, or high school to incorporate age-appropriate elements of effective and evidence-based programs on the importance of the personal privacy and personal boundaries of other individuals and tools for a student to use to ensure that he respects the personal privacy and personal boundaries of other individuals.
Patron: Hope
Local school boards; school meal policies. Requires each local school board to adopt policies that (i) prohibit school board employees from requiring a student who cannot pay for a meal at school or who owes a school meal debt to do chores or other work to pay for such meals or wear a wristband or hand stamp and (ii) require school board employees to direct any communication relating to a school meal debt to the student's parent, which may be made by a letter addressed to the parent to be sent home with the student.
Patron: Krizek
Teacher licensure by reciprocity; third-party verification of application documents. Requires the Board of Education, in its regulations providing for teacher licensure by reciprocity, to permit applicants to submit third-party employment verification forms.
Patron: Bell, Richard P.
Instruction in American Sign Language; academic credit; foreign language requirements. Requires any local school board that does not offer any elective course in American Sign Language to (i) grant academic credit for successful completion of an American Sign Language course offered by a comprehensive community college or a multidivision online provider approved by the Board on the same basis as the successful completion of a foreign language course and (ii) count completion of any such American Sign Language course toward the fulfillment of any foreign language requirement for graduation.
Patron: Yancey
Rainwater and gray water; regulations. Directs the State Department of Health (the Department) to adopt regulations regarding the use of gray water and rainwater. The regulations shall provide standards for the use of rainwater harvesting systems, which shall include systems that collect rainwater for use by commercial enterprises but do not provide water for human consumption. Such regulations shall not apply to nonpotable water, including graywater and rainwater, that is used by certain specified facilities. The bill also directs the Department to consider recognizing rainwater as an independent source of fresh water.
Patron: Knight
Teacher licensure; one-year license; instructors at regionally accredited institutions of higher education. Declares eligible for a renewable one-year license to teach in public high schools in the Commonwealth any individual who has (i) received a graduate degree from a regionally accredited institution of higher education; (ii) completed at least 30 credit hours of teaching experience as an instructor at a regionally accredited institution of higher education; (iii) received qualifying scores on the professional teacher's assessments prescribed by the Board, including the communication and literacy assessment and the content-area assessment for the endorsement sought and (iv) completed certain other licensure requirements.
Patron: Stolle
Medically or ethically inappropriate care not required. Establishes a process whereby a physician may cease to provide health care that has been determined to be medically or ethically inappropriate for a patient.
Patron: Hope
County manager plan of government; popular election of school board. Clarifies that in a county with the county manager plan of government (Arlington County), the county may have an elected school board notwithstanding the default method of school board appointment as set out in the Code.
Patron: Yancey
Public elementary and secondary school students; topical sunscreen. Permits any public elementary or secondary school student to possess and use unscented topical sunscreen in its original packaging on a school bus, on school property, or at a school-sponsored event without a note or prescription from a licensed health care professional if the topical sunscreen is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for nonprescription use for the purpose of limiting damage to skin caused by exposure to ultraviolet light. The bill contains an emergency clause.
EMERGENCY
Patron: Landes
Public institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth; campus free speech; policies, materials, and reports. Requires each public institution of higher education in the Commonwealth to (i) establish and include in its student handbook, on its website, and in its student orientation programs policies regarding free speech on campus; (ii) develop materials on such policies and notify any employee who is responsible for the discipline or education of enrolled students of such materials; and (iii) develop; post on its website in a searchable, publicly accessible, and conspicuous manner; and submit to the Governor and the General Assembly no later than December 1 of each year a report on the institution's compliance relating to free speech on campus.
Patron: Landes
State Council of Higher Education for Virginia; longitudinal data. Requires the data that the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia annually collects and publishes on (i) the percentage of graduates of public institutions of higher education and certain nonprofit private institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth who are known to be employed in the Commonwealth and (ii) the average salary and the average higher education-related debt for such graduates to be disaggregated by degree program and level. The bill requires an institution of higher education for which such data is collected and published to provide a link on its website to such data and make such link available to each admitted student.
Patron: Bulova
Elementary and secondary schools; sexual misconduct. Requires the Board of Education to adopt regulations that prohibit any school board or any individual who is an employee, contractor, or agent of such school board from assisting another employee, contractor, or agent in obtaining a new job if such school board or individual knows or has probable cause to believe that such other employee, contractor, or agent engaged in sexual misconduct regarding a minor or student.
Patron: Freitas
High School to Work Partnerships; establishment; exemptions. Permits each local school board to (i) establish High School to Work Partnerships (Partnerships) between public high schools and local businesses to create opportunities for high school students to (a) participate in an apprenticeship, internship, or job shadow program in a variety of trades and skilled labor positions or (b) tour local businesses and meet with owners and employees or (ii) delegate the authority to establish Partnerships to the local school division's career and technical education administrator or his designee, in collaboration with the guidance counselor office of each public high school in the school division. The bill requires such local school boards to educate high school students about opportunities available through such Partnerships. The bill also requires the Board of Education, the Department of Labor and Industry, and the State Board for Community Colleges to identify Partnerships that may be eligible for exemptions from certain federal and state labor laws and regulations and establish procedures by which such exemptions may be obtained for such Partnerships.
Patron: Freitas
Definition of restaurant; exception; bed-and-breakfast operations. Exempts from the definition of "restaurant" and from the requirement for a license as a restaurant any bed-and-breakfast operation that prepares food for and offers food to guests, regardless of the time the food is prepared and offered, so long as (i) the premises of the bed-and-breakfast operation is a home that is owner occupied or owner-agent occupied, (ii) the bed-and-breakfast operation prepares food for and offers food to guests only, (iii) the number of guests served by the bed-and-breakfast operation does not exceed 18, and (iv) guests for whom food is prepared and to whom food is offered are informed in a manner established by the State Board of Health in regulations that the food is prepared in a kitchen that is not licensed as a restaurant and is not subject to regulations governing restaurants.
Patron: Gooditis
Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services; report on suicide prevention activities. Requires the Commissioner of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services to report annually by December 1 to the Governor and the General Assembly on the Department's activities related to suicide prevention across the lifespan.
Patron: Price
Practice of social work. Provides that the Board of Social Work may license baccalaureate social workers, master's social workers, and clinical social workers, as those terms are defined, and may register persons proposing to obtain supervised post-degree experience in the practice of social work.
Patron: Kilgore
Required local effort for basic aid; debt service on projects in certain school divisions. Permits any local school board that governs a school division (i) in which the locality is designated as fiscally at-risk or fiscally distressed by the Appalachian Regional Commission in the most recent fiscal year or is determined to have above-average fiscal stress or high fiscal stress by the Virginia Commission on Local Government in its most recent "Report on the Comparative Revenue Capacity, Revenue Effort, and Fiscal Stress of Virginia Counties and Cities" and (ii) for which the composite index of local ability to pay is less than or equal to 0.2000 to expend up to 25 percent of the required local effort for basic aid for debt service on school building capital renovation or construction projects. The bill provides that in the event that the school division no longer meets such criteria, the local school board shall develop and implement a plan to readjust expenditures of the required local effort for basic aid over the course of no more than four fiscal years. The bill also provides that in the event that a school division that no longer met such criteria and that developed such plan subsequently meets the criteria again, the local school board may seek the approval of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to amend such plan. The bill has an expiration date of July 1, 2030.
Patron: Hodges
Onsite treatment works; effluent quality standards and maintenance requirements. Directs the Board of Health to publish a Notice of Intended Regulatory Action for the regulations for alternative onsite sewage systems no later than October 1, 2018, and to work with stakeholders to consider such regulatory amendments related to requirements governing sampling, field sampling procedures, performance requirements, and such other revisions to the regulations as may be deemed necessary by the Board.
Patron: Pogge
Children who are deaf or hard of hearing; services; advisory subcommittee. Declares it the goal of the Commonwealth that each child who is deaf or hard of hearing is (i) as linguistically ready for kindergarten as his peers who are not deaf or hard of hearing and (ii) receptively and expressively literate in English and literate in written English by the end of third grade. The bill requires each agency of the Commonwealth that is responsible for providing services to children who are deaf or hard of hearing to collaborate to provide unified and seamless services for each such child from the onset of the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention process through the end of his elementary and secondary school career. The bill also establishes a 14-member Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children's Advisory Subcommittee within the Disability Commission to advise the Commission on the provision of services in the Commonwealth for children who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Patron: Robinson
Nurse practitioners; practice agreements. Eliminates the requirement for a practice agreement with a patient care team physician for nurse practitioners who have been licensed as a nurse practitioner by the Boards of Medicine and Nursing, graduated from a nurse practitioner educational program accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, completed at least five years of full-time clinical experience as a licensed, certified nurse practitioner, and submitted an attestation from his patient care team physician stating that the patient care team physician routinely practices in the same specialty practice category as the nurse practitioner and that the nurse practitioner meets the requirements for practice without a practice agreement. The bill establishes title protection for advanced practice registered nurses, nurse practitioners, certified registered nurse anesthetists, and certified nurse midwives. The bill contains technical amendments.
Patron: O'Quinn
School bus operators; training. Requires any school bus operator applicant who does not possess an commercial driver's license to receive (i) a minimum of 24 hours of classroom training and (ii) six hours of behind-the-wheel training on a school bus that contains no pupil passengers and requires any school bus operator applicant who possesses a commercial driver's license to receive (a) a minimum of four hours of classroom training and (b) three hours of behind-the-wheel training on a school bus that contains no pupil passengers. Current law leaves the setting of such hourly requirements to the Department of Education. The bill contains technical amendments.
Patron: Hope
Direct support professional workforce; recommendations and report. Directs the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, in conjunction with the Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services, the Department of Medical Assistance Services, the Department of Social Services, the Virginia Association of Community Services Boards, the Virginia Network of Private Providers, and other relevant provider organizations and stakeholders, to convene a work group in support of the Joint Commission on Health Care's efforts to improve the quality of the Commonwealth's direct support professional workforce and, if necessary, develop recommendations for policy changes to increase the transparency of the employment history of direct support professional job candidates. Recommendations are to be reported to the Joint Commission on Health Care by October 1, 2018.
Patron: Orrock
Hospitals and nursing homes; frequency of inspections. Clarifies, in provisions governing frequency of hospital and nursing home inspections, that a second inspection of a hospital or nursing home that has previously been inspected may be performed before all other hospitals and nursing homes in the Commonwealth have been inspected only in cases in which the subsequent inspection is performed in conjunction with an inspection required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Patron: Orrock
Onsite sewage systems; authority of the Board of Health. Clarifies that the Board of Health shall have supervision and control over the maintenance, inspection, and reuse of conventional onsite sewage systems as well as alternative onsite sewage systems.
Patron: Orrock
Onsite sewage systems; maintenance. Provides that the adjustment or replacement of sewer lines, conveyance lines, distribution boxes, or header lines is considered maintenance of an onsite sewage system and thus does not require a permit. Under current law, adjustment and replacement of such equipment requires the system owner to obtain a permit.
Patron: Landes
Governing boards of public institutions of higher education; six-year plans. Specifies that the six-year plan and amendments to or affirmation of such plan that are required to be submitted no later than July 1 of each year to various executive and legislative entities and individuals by the governing board of each public institution of higher education shall be a preliminary version and prohibits any such preliminary plan, amendments, or affirmation from being posted on the General Assembly's website. The bill requires each such governing board to submit a finalized version of such plan, amendments, or affirmation no later than December 1 of the same year and requires such finalized version to be posted on the General Assembly's website.
Patron: Gilbert
School boards; employment of certain individuals. Permits any school board to employ any individual who was employed by a school board as of December 17, 2015, and who (i) has been convicted of a felony, with the exception of certain enumerated felonies, and (ii) has been granted a simple pardon by the Governor and has had his rights restored by the Governor.
Patron: Byron
Health care data reporting; penalty for failure to report. Provides that any medical care facility that fails to report data on utilization of services for which a certificate of public need is required or data on charity care provided to satisfy the conditions of a certificate of public need shall be subject to a civil penalty of up to $100 per day.
Patron: Yancey
Public schools; military students; enrollment. Requires any local school board of a school division in which a military installation or other military housing is located to establish and implement policies to provide for the enrollment to any school of any military student residing on a military installation or in military housing within the school division, upon the request of his parent. The bill permits such policies to include certain conditions. The bill requires a copy of such policies to be posted on the division's website and to be available to the public upon request.
Patron: Boysko
Hospitals; security and emergency department staff; mental health training. Requires the Board of Health to include in its regulations governing licensed hospitals a requirement that every hospital with an emergency department establish protocols to ensure that security personnel of the emergency department, if any, receive training appropriate to the populations served by the emergency department, which may include training in identifying and safely addressing situations involving patients and others who pose a risk of harm to themselves or others due to mental illness or who are experiencing a mental health crisis.
Patron: Price
Office of the Qualified Education Loan Ombudsman. Establishes the Office of the Qualified Education Loan Ombudsman (the Office) within the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. The Office's duties include (i) receiving, reviewing, and attempting to resolve complaints from qualified education loan borrowers; (ii) compiling and analyzing data on such complaints; (iii) assisting qualified education loan borrowers to understand their rights and responsibilities under the terms of qualified education loans; (iv) providing information regarding the problems and concerns of qualified education loan borrowers; (v) analyzing and monitoring the development and implementation of applicable laws and policies; and (vi) disseminating information concerning the availability of the Office to assist qualified education loan borrowers and any other participant in qualified education loan lending, with qualified education loan servicing concerns. The Office is further required to establish and maintain a qualified education loan borrower education course by December 1, 2019.
Patron: Wilt
Teacher licensure; endorsement in dual language instruction pre-kindergarten through grade six. Requires the Board of Education, in its regulations governing licensure, to provide for licensure of teachers with an endorsement in dual language instruction pre-kindergarten through grade six. The bill defines "dual language instruction" as instruction in English and in a second language. The bill requires the Board, in establishing the requirements for such endorsement, to require, at minimum, coursework in dual language education; bilingual literacy development; methods of second language acquisition; theories of second language acquisition; instructional strategies for classroom management for the elementary classroom; and content-based curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The bill provides that (i) each teacher with such an endorsement is exempt from the Virginia Communication and Literacy Assessment requirement but is subject to the subject matter-specific professional teacher's assessment requirements and (ii) no teacher with such an endorsement is required to obtain an additional endorsement in early/primary education pre-kindergarten through grade three or elementary education pre-kindergarten through grade six in order to teach in pre-kindergarten through grade six.
Patron: Pillion
Substance-exposed infants; plan for services; report. Provides that the Department of Health (the Department) shall serve as the lead agency with responsibility for the development, coordination, and implementation of a plan for services for substance-exposed infants in the Commonwealth. Such plan shall (i) support a trauma-informed approach to identification and treatment of substance-exposed infants and their caregivers and (ii) include (a) options for improving screening and identification of substance-using pregnant women, (b) use of multidisciplinary approaches to intervention and service delivery during the prenatal period and following the birth of the substance-exposed infant, and (c) referral among providers serving substance-exposed infants and their families and caregivers. The bill requires the Department to report annually to the General Assembly regarding implementation of the plan.
Patron: Garrett
Schedule I controlled substances. Adds drugs to the list of Schedule I controlled substances.
Patron: Garrett
Prescribing controlled substances; veterinarian-client-patient relationship. Provides that a veterinarian shall not prescribe medication unless a bona fide veterinarian-client-patient relationship exists and establishes the requirements for a bona fide veterinarian-client-patient relationship.
Patron: Austin
Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services; availability of testing services. Requires the Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services, or any other laboratory with which the Department of Health has contracted, to provide screening tests for time-critical disorders for newborns and children seven days a week. The bill has a delayed effective date of January 1, 2019.
Patron: Robinson
Registration of surgical assistants; renewal of registration. Provides that in cases in which a surgical assistant was initially registered based on a credential as a surgical assistant or surgical first assistant issued by the National Board of Surgical Technology and Surgical Assisting, the National Surgical Assistant Association, or the National Commission for the Certification of Surgical Assistants or a successor thereof, the surgical assistant must attest that such credential is still current upon applying for renewal of his registration as a surgical assistant.
Patron: Rodman
Marriage and family therapy; appraisal. Provides that "marriage and family therapy" means the appraisal and treatment of cognitive, affective, or behavioral mental and emotional disorders within the context of marriage and family systems through the application of therapeutic and family systems theories and techniques and delivery of services to individuals, couples, and families, singularly or in groups, for the purpose of treating such disorders. Currently, "marriage and family therapy" means the assessment and treatment of such disorders.
Patron: Delaney
Public schools; instructional time. Requires local school boards to provide (i) a minimum of 680 hours of instructional time to students in elementary, except for students in half-day kindergarten, in the four academic disciplines of English, mathematics, science, and history and social science and (ii) a minimum of 375 hours of instructional time to students in half-day kindergarten in the four academic disciplines of English, mathematics, science, and history and social science. The bill authorizes local school boards to include and requires the Board of Education to accept, elementary school, unstructured recreational time that is intended to develop teamwork, social skills, and overall physical fitness in any calculation of total instructional time or teaching hours.
Patron: Garrett
Schedule I and Schedule II drugs. Adds MT-45 (1-cyclohexyl-4-(1,2-diphenylethyl)piperazine) to Schedule I of the Drug Control Act and Dronabinol [(-)-delta-9-trans tetrahydrocannabinol] in an oral solution in a drug product approved for marketing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to Schedule II of the Drug Control Act and removes naldemedine from Schedule II of the Drug Control Act.
Patron: Miyares
Governing boards of public institutions of higher education; educational programs. Requires educational programs for the governing boards of public institutions of higher education to include presentations relating to (i) board members' primary duty to the citizens of the Commonwealth and (ii) student debt trends.
Patron: Filler-Corn
Truancy; procedures. Makes several changes to the procedures relating to interventions when a pupil fails to report to school for a total of five scheduled school days for the school year, no indication has been received by school personnel that the pupil's parent is aware of and supports the pupil's absence, and a reasonable effort to notify the parent has failed, including (i) removing the appointed attendance officer as a party to the plan to resolve such nonattendance, (ii) permitting but not requiring the attendance officer to participate in the conference necessitated by additional absences subsequent to the development of the plan, and (iii) permitting but not requiring the attendance officer to file a complaint with the juvenile and domestic relations court alleging the pupil is a child in need of supervision or to institute criminal proceedings against the parent pursuant to relevant law. Under current law, the attendance officer is required to participate in such conference and is also required to file such complaint and institute such proceedings in cases in which the pupil is absent for an additional school day without indication that the pupil's parent is aware of and supports the pupil's absence.
Patron: Cline
Virtual Virginia; enrollment. Requires enrollment in the Virtual Virginia online learning program during the school year to be open, on a space-available basis, to each public high school student in the Commonwealth and each high school student in the Commonwealth who receives home instruction.
Patron: Herring
Health education; prescription drugs. Permits the health education program required for each public elementary and secondary school student to include an age-appropriate program of instruction on the safe use of and risks of abuse of prescription drugs that is consistent with curriculum guidelines developed by the Board of Education and approved by the State Board of Health. The bill requires the Board of Education to consider the curriculum adopted by the School Board of the City of Virginia Beach regarding drugs and the opioid crisis in developing such curriculum guidelines.
Patron: Bell, Richard P.
Department of Health; means of protecting the public from cancer caused by radon. Directs the Department of Health to review consumer complaints regarding radon testing and mitigation received since 2013 and the current certification requirements for individuals performing radon testing and mitigation and to determine the benefits of any additional oversight for individuals performing radon testing and mitigation. The Department shall report its findings and any recommendations to the House Committee on Health, Welfare and Institutions and the Senate Committee on Education and Health by December 1, 2018.
Patron: Bourne
Student discipline; long-term suspension. Reduces the maximum length of a long-term suspension from 364 calendar days to 45 school days. The bill permits a long-term suspension to extend beyond a 45-school-day period but prohibits such a suspension from exceeding 364 calendar days if (i) the school board or division superintendent or his designee finds that aggravating circumstances exist, as defined by the local school board in a written policy, or (ii) the long-term suspension is preceded by another long-term suspension in the same school year.
Patron: Bell, Robert B.
Health instruction; mental health. Requires health instruction to incorporate standards that recognize the multiple dimensions of health by including mental health and the relationship of physical and mental health so as to enhance student understanding, attitudes, and behavior that promote health, well-being, and human dignity. The bill also directs the Board of Education to review and update the health Standards of Learning for students in grades nine and 10 to include mental health.
Patron: Orrock
Certificate of public need; psychiatric beds and services. Eliminates the requirement for a certificate of public need for certain projects involving mental hospitals or psychiatric hospitals and intermediate care facilities established primarily for the medical, psychiatric, or psychological treatment and rehabilitation of individuals with substance abuse. The bill also directs the Department of Health to develop a plan for an expedited permitting process for psychiatric beds consistent with the State Medical Facilities Plan by July 1, 2019.