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ACROSS SESSIONS
- Subject Index: Since 1995
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Developed and maintained by the Division of Legislative Automated Systems.
2020 SESSION
Hashmi (Chair), Howell, Locke, Dunnavant, Peake
Date of Meeting: January 30, 2020
Time and Place: 30 Min. after Adj. Subcommittee Rm 2 5th Fl. Pocahontas Bldg
Updated to add SB 1091
Patron: Suetterlein
Department of Education; pilot program; feasibility of educational placement transition of certain students with disabilities. Requires the Department of Education and relevant local school boards to develop and implement a pilot program for up to four years in two to eight local school divisions in the Commonwealth. In developing the pilot, the Department is required to partner with the appropriate school board employees in each such local school division to (i) identify the resources, services, and supports required by each student who resides in each such local school division and who is educated in a private school setting pursuant to his Individualized Education Program; (ii) study the feasibility of transitioning each such student from his private school setting to an appropriate public school setting in the local school division and providing the identified resources, services, and supports in such public school setting; and (iii) recommend a process for redirecting federal, state, and local funds, including funds provided pursuant to the Children's Services Act, provided for the education of each such student to the local school division for the purpose of providing the identified resources, services, and supports in the appropriate public school setting. The bill requires the Department of Education to make a report to the Governor, the Senate Committees on Education and Health and Finance, and the House Committees on Education and Appropriations on the findings of each pilot program after two and four years.
Patron: Favola
School Divisions of Innovation; performance-based assessments. Allows a local school board, when applying for its school division to be designated as a School Division of Innovation, to apply to the Board of Education to replace the Virginia Studies and Civics and Economics Standards of Learning assessments with performance-based assessments. The bill requires any such application to (i) demonstrate that the proposed performance-based assessment requires that students demonstrate the knowledge and skills required by the relevant Standards of Learning and that students demonstrate one or more of the skills and qualities of critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, or citizenship and (ii) provide evidence of the local school board's capacity to administer and score performance-based assessments.
Patron: Barker
High school graduation requirements; advanced diploma; standard units of credit; certain substitutions. Requires the Board of Education, in establishing high school graduation requirements, to pemit any student who is pursuing an advanced studies diploma to substitute two standard units of credit in computer science for two standard units of credit in a foreign language.
Patron: McPike
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, as amended.
Patron: McDougle
Opening of the school year; Northern Neck Technical Center. Permits the school board of any school division from which students attend Northern Neck Technical Center to set the school calendar so that the first day that students are required to attend school is earlier than Labor Day, including earlier than 14 days before Labor Day.
Patron: Ruff
High school graduation requirements; standard diploma; workforce skills training. Requires the Board of Education, in establishing high school graduation requirements, to permit any student who has successfully completed during high school at least two years of workforce skills training as evidenced by written certification from the training provider to graduate with a standard diploma without completing the remaining credit requirements for such diploma.
Patron: Hanger
Public School Security Equipment Grant Act of 2013; eligible security equipment. Classifies security-related devices located outside of the school building on school property and security-related devices located on school buses as eligible security equipment under the Public School Security Equipment Grant Act of 2013.
Patron: Hanger
Public School Security Equipment Grant Act of 2013; eligible security equipment; vaping detectors. Classifies vaping detectors as eligible security equipment under the Public School Security Equipment Grant Act of 2013.
Patron: Deeds
Teacher licensure; mental health first aid. Requires the Board of Education to amend its regulations related to teacher licensure to require that every person seeking initial licensure complete a Mental Health First Aid training or similar program and every person seeking renewal of a license complete an online module on mental health developed or approved by the Department of Education. The bill requires the Department of Education, in collaboration with the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, to develop or approve one or more online modules on mental health by November 30, 2020.
Patron: Mason
Teachers in certain schools for students with disabilities; provisional licenses; extension. Requires the Board of Education to extend for at least one additional year, but for no more than two additional years, the three-year provisional license of a teacher employed in a school for students with disabilities that is licensed by the Board upon receiving from the school administrator of such school (i) a recommendation for such extension and (ii) satisfactory performance evaluations for such teacher for each year of the original three-year provisional license. The provisions of the bill mirror current law relating to the extension of provisional licenses for public school teachers.
Patron: Obenshain
School Guardian Fund and Program; establishment. Establishes the School Guardian Fund and requires the Virginia Center for School and Campus safety to establish and administer the School Guardian Program for the purpose of providing grants from the Fund on a competitive basis to school boards for the appointment or hiring of school guardians, which the bill defines as any individual, including any school resource officer, school security officer, or other school board employee, who is hired or appointed by a school board to carry a firearm on school property during normal school hours for school security purposes. The bill requires each such school guardian to receive an annual stipend of $500 for the performance of his duties. The bill requires the Center to (i) establish training and screening standards for such school guardians that include, at minimum, a requirement to receive a psychological screening and a drug screening prior to the commencement of school guardian duties and (ii) adopt such other rules and policies as it deems necessary for the administration of the Program, including rules and policies for grant applications and awards.
Patron: McClellan
Standards of Quality; work-based learning; teacher leaders and mentors; principal mentors; certain personnel positions and initiatives. Makes several changes to the Standards of Quality, including requiring the establishment of a unit in the Department of Education to oversee work-based learning statewide in Standard 1 and requiring the Board of Education to establish and oversee the local implementation of teacher leader and teacher mentor programs and the establishment of a unit in the Department of Education to oversee principal mentorship statewide in Standard 5. The bill also makes several changes relating to school personnel in Standard 2, including (i) establishing schoolwide ratios of students to teachers in certain schools with high concentrations of poverty and granting flexibility to provide compensation adjustments to teachers in such schools; (ii) requiring each school board to assign licensed personnel in a manner that provides an equitable distribution of experienced, effective teachers and other personnel among all schools in the local school division; (iii) requiring each school board to employ teacher leaders and teacher mentors at specified student-to-position ratios; (iv) requiring state funding in addition to basic aid to support at-risk students and granting flexibility in the use of such funds by school boards; (v) lowering the ratio of English language learner students to teachers; (vi) requiring each school board to employ reading specialists and establishing a student-to-position ratio for such specialists; (vii) requiring school boards to employ one full-time principal in each elementary school; (viii) lowering the ratio of students to assistant principals and school counselors in elementary, middle, and high schools; and (ix) requiring each school board to provide at least four specialized student support positions, including school social workers, school psychologists, school nurses, and other licensed health and behavioral positions, per 1,000 students.
Patron: McClellan
School principals; incident reports. Eliminates the requirement that school principals report certain enumerated acts that may constitute a misdemeanor offense to law enforcement.
Patron: Ebbin
Private schools; sexual misconduct; employment assistance prohibited. Requires the governing boards or administrators of private elementary and secondary schools accredited on behalf of the Board of Education by the Virginia Council for Private Education to adopt and implement policies prohibiting any individual who is a governing board member, administrator, employee, contractor, or agent of such school to assist a governing board member, administrator, employee, contractor, or agent of such school in obtaining a new job if such individual knows or has probable cause to believe that the individual seeking new employment engaged in sexual misconduct regarding a minor or student in violation of law.
Patron: Pillion
Public schools; Standards of Learning assessments; report. 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, as amended. The bill requires the Department of Education to annually report on the estimated projected and actual savings from the implementation of the bill and report the amount of such savings to the Governor and the Chairmen of the House Committee on Appropriations and the Senate Committee on Finance no later than the first day of each Regular Session of the General Assembly. The bill also requires that such amount be included in the total for Direct Aid to Public Education in any general appropriation act.
Patron: Hashmi
Standards of Quality; state funding; ratios of teachers to English language learners. Requires state funding, pursuant to the general appropriation act, to be provided pursuant to Standard 2 of the Standards of Quality to support divisionwide ratios of English language learner students in average daily membership to full-time equivalent teaching positions as follows: (i) for each English language learner identified as proficiency level one, one position per 25 students; (ii) for each English language learner identified as proficiency level two, one position per 30 students; (iii) for each English language learner identified as proficiency level three, one position per 40 students; and (iv) for all other English language learners, one position per 58 students. Current law requires 17 full-time equivalent instructional positions for each 1,000 students identified as having limited English proficiency.
Patron: Favola
Department of Education; common statewide definition; "students with limited or interrupted formal education." Requires the Department of Education to develop and adopt a common statewide definition for the term "students with limited or interrupted formal education" and to require school boards to report on the number of students who fall under such definition as part of the required data collection and reporting on average daily membership for the purposes of documenting any changes in such numbers over time and allowing for comparisons of such numbers across local school divisions. The bill provides that in developing and adopting such common statewide definition, the Department of Education shall consider and may adopt existing definitions of "students with limited or interrupted formal education."
Patron: Edwards
State Board of Education; technical professional licenses; military science endorsement. Directs the State Board of Education to amend its regulations to require that persons seeking a technical professional license with an endorsement to teach military science have either the appropriate credentials issued by the United States military or a recommendation from a Virginia employing educational agency.
Patron: Stanley
Public schools; alternative accountability process. Allows a school board to adopt an alternative accountability process to provide a principal and parties involved in an incident involving assault, or assault and battery without bodily injury, that occurs on a school bus, on school property, or at a school-sponsored event an option to enter into a mutually agreed-upon process between the involved parties as an alternative to reporting such incident to law enforcement. The bill provides that a principal in a school division with such an alternative accountability process may attempt to engage the parties involved in such an incident in the process prior to reporting such incident to the local law-enforcement agency and prohibits, if provided for by the school board, a principal from reporting a party who successfully completes the alternative accountability process.
Patron: Vogel
School board member compensation; City of Winchester. Authorizes the City of Winchester to compensate its school board members with an annual salary not to exceed $4,500.
Patron: Suetterlein
Department of Education; federal accountability indicators; PSAT/NMSQT; PreACT. Directs the Department of Education to amend its state plan pursuant to the Every Student Succeeds Act to include the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test and the PreACT in the next federal accountability indicators application. The bill directs the Department and the Board of Education to grant verified credit to students who have earned approved scores on these two tests and permit schools to count those students as a "pass."
Patron: Morrissey
Superintendent of Public Instruction; Urban Teacher Fund and Program; established. Establishes the Urban Teacher Fund and Program, to be administered by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, for the purpose of providing grants to persons employed in urban school divisions with teacher shortages who remain employed by the urban school division for a period of at least five years.
Patron: Pillion
Department of Education; School Construction Fund and Program. Establishes the School Construction Fund as a special nonreverting fund in the state treasury and requires the Department of Education to establish the School Construction Program for the purpose of providing grants from the Fund, subject to certain conditions, to school boards that leverage federal, state, and local programs and resources to finance the design and construction of new school buildings and facilities or the modernization and maintenance of existing school buildings and facilities.
Patron: Stanley
Authorization of volunteer school security officers by local school boards and private or religious schools.