Thursday, January 11, 2018

Update from the General Assembly

The 2018 session of the General Assembly opened yesterday!  Your VSBA lobbying team has been hard at work identifying legislation that impacts school boards and meeting with legislators.  We have identified more than 150 bills that we are actively tracking.  We will use this blog throughout the session to keep you informed about the key legislation that may impact local school boards.   

Today the Senate Education Committee met and reported two bills that are of interest to school boards as they pertain to the teacher licensure process.  SB76 (Sen. Barbara Favola), would require the Board of Education to include four-year undergraduate teacher education programs in its teacher licensure regulations standards. VSBA supports this bill.  The Committee also reported SB103 (Sen. David Suetterlein), which would require 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 a currently valid and credentialed out-state teaching license. Individuals with a satisfactory evaluation at the end of one year would be eligible for renewal. VSBA supports this bill.

VSBA staff also attended the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Education Subcommittee meetings where committee members were briefed on Governor McAuliffe’s proposed budget for the 2018-2020 biennium. Materials presented and discussed can be accessed here and here.


In other news, the House of Delegates unanimously voted to appoint Del. Kirk Cox as Speaker of the House. House Committee membership was also decided and can be reviewed here along with their regular meeting times. Committees will begin assigning subcommittee membership in the coming days.