Today started
very early with the House Education Reform subcommittee at 7:00a.m. With crossover
next week each body is busy finalizing their actions on legislation.
Immediately following the subcommittee, the full House Education committee met
to take up a lot of bills that went through the subcommittee process earlier
this week. Below is a summary of the actions the Education Reform subcommittee took
this morning.
HB1303
(Farrell) reported with a substitute. The legislation requires the Department
of Education to make the Standards of Learning assessments for middle and high
schools available by December 1 of the school year in which the assessments
will be administered or when newly developed assessments are available,
whichever is later.
HB1713
(LeMunyon) failed to report from the subcommittee on a 2-5 vote. This bill
required the Board of Education to establish and implement a policy, with
certain conditions and limitations, that would allow any student assigned to a
school accredited with warning for three consecutive years or denied
accreditation to enroll in the same grade level at another school in the
division that is fully accredited or accredited with warning for fewer than
three consecutive years as long as the
students enrollment didn’t exceed the schools enrollment capacity.
HB1714
(LeMunyon) gives flexibility to the Board of Education relating to the science
assessment for middle school students. It will allow the Board to permit the
student to take the SOL assessment in science after the student receives
instruction in the grade 6 science, life science, and physical science SOL and
before the student completes grade 8. Current law permits the Board to require
each student to the SOL assessment in grade 8. The bill reported unanimously.
HB1752
(LaRock) reported from the subcommittee. This bill prohibits the Board of
Education from adopting the Common Core State Standards without prior approval
from the General Assembly.
HB1872
(Bulova) requires the Board of Education to
develop a training program for principals and assistant principals that imparts
the knowledge and leadership skills necessary to oversee the improvement of
student performance in elementary, middle, or high schools that have been
denied accreditation or accredited with warning for two consecutive years.
Additionally, the bill allows the school board in which the principal and each
assistant principal of an elementary or secondary school that has been denied
accreditation or accredited with warning for two consecutive years have
successfully completed the training program to request, and requires the Board
to grant, release from (i) state regulations currently granted to any school in
the school division or (ii) school division policies and state regulations
currently granted to any public charter school in the school division. These
releases will remain in effect for five years or until any such administrator
no longer meets the criteria for training program completion or is not enrolled
in the training program and may be renewed for additional five-year periods.
HB2220
(Davis) was tabled in the subcommittee. Many education stakeholders worked with
the patron on this legislation but a compromise couldn’t be reached. As
originally drafted, the bill required per-pupil funding to be allocated to the
charter school by the local school division on a noncategorical basis.
HB2271
(Futrell) requires the Board of Education, as part of its regular waiver
process, to request a waiver under ESEA authorizing the use of an English language
proficiency assessment such as the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs assessment as an
alternative to the 11th grade Standards of Learning End-of-Course
English/Reading test for students with limited English proficiency.
