HB74 (Kory) Requires each school board to adopt and
implement policies that require each teacher and other relevant personnel, as
determined by the school board, employed on a full-time basis, to complete a
Mental Health First Aid training or similar program. The bill requires each
school board to provide such training and provides that a school board may
contract with the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, a
community services board, a behavioral health authority, a nonprofit
organization, or other certified trainer to provide such training. The bill was reported and rereferred to Appropriations
17-2.
HB697 (Roem) Requires each local school board to adopt
policies that prohibit school board employees from requiring a student who
cannot pay for a meal at school or who owes a school meal debt to throw away or
discard a meal after it has been served to him.
The bill was reported 17-1.
HB698 (Roem) Allows public school boards to distribute
excess food to low-income students eligible for the School Breakfast Program or
National School Lunch Program administered by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture or to low-income students that the school board determines are
otherwise eligible to receive excess food. The bill was reported 18-0.
HB703 (Roem) Permits any school board to solicit and receive
any donation or other funds for the purpose of eliminating or offsetting any
school meal debt at any time during the school year and requires each school
board to use any such funds solely for such purpose, provided, however, that no
such funds are obtained in an illegal or illicit manner. The bill provides that
if a school board receives a donation that does not entirely eliminate or
offset the total school meal debt at any time during the school year, the
school board shall distribute the donation proportionately among each school
meal debt. The bill was reported 19-0.
HB837 (Carroll Foy) Requires the Board of Education to
include in its guidelines and model policies for codes of student conduct (i)
standards for reducing bias and harassment in the enforcement of any code of
student conduct and (ii) standards for dress or grooming codes, which the bill
defines as any practice, policy, or portion of a code of student conduct
adopted by a school board that governs or restricts the attire of any enrolled
student. The bill permits any school board to include in its code of student
conduct a dress or grooming code. The bill prohibits any school board that does
not include in its code of student a dress or grooming code from subjecting a
student to discipline for reasons typically assigned to a dress or grooming
code. The bill requires any dress or grooming code included in a school board's
code of student conduct or otherwise adopted by a school board to (a) permit
any student to wear any religiously, ethnically, or culturally specific or
significant head covering or hairstyle, including hijabs, yarmulkes, headwraps,
braids, locs, and cornrows; (b) maintain gender neutrality by subjecting any
student to the same set of rules and standards regardless of gender; (c) not
have a disparate impact on students of a particular gender; (d) be clear,
specific, and objective and avoid any subjective term or standard such as
"distracting," "provocative," or "inappropriate";
(e) prohibit any school board employee from enforcing the dress or grooming
code by direct physical contact with a student or a student's attire; and (f)
prohibit any school board employee from requiring a student to undress in front
of any other individual, including the enforcing school board employee, to
comply with the dress or grooming code.
The bill was reported 17-2.
HB1426 (Roem) Requires each school board to require each
public elementary and secondary school in the local school division to
participate in the federal National School Lunch Program and the federal School
Breakfast Program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and to
make meals available pursuant to such programs to any student who requests such
a meal, regardless of such student's family income or whether such student has
the money to pay for the meal or owes money for meals previously provided,
unless the student's parent has provided written permission to the school board
to withhold such a meal from the student.
The bill was reported and rereferred to Appropriations 14-4.
HB1443 (VanValkenburg) Requires the Department of Education
to conduct an annual review of teacher compensation that takes into
consideration the Commonwealth's compensation for teachers relative to member
states in the Southern Regional Education Board. The bill requires the Department
to report its findings to the Governor, the General Assembly, and the School
Board by June 1 of each year. Current law requires the Director of Human
Resource Management to complete a biennial review of teacher compensation that
also compares the Commonwealth's compensation for teachers to other occupations
requiring similar education and training.
The bill was reported 17-2.
HB1711 (Bagby) Requires that Virtual Virginia’s online
program be made available to all middle school students and that it may be made
available to elementary students.
Current law only requires that it be made available to high school
students. The bill was reported and
rereferred to Appropriations 19-0.
HB36 (Hurst) Declares that, except in certain limited
circumstances, a student journalist at a public middle school or high school or
public institution of higher education has the right to exercise freedom of
speech and the press in school-sponsored media, including determining the news,
opinion, feature, and advertising content of school-sponsored media, regardless
of whether the media is supported financially by the school board or governing
board, supported through the use of school or campus facilities, or produced in
conjunction with a class or course in which the student is enrolled. The bill
defines "school-sponsored media" as any material that is prepared,
substantially written, published, or broadcast by a student journalist at a
public middle school or high school or public institution of higher education
under the direction of a student media adviser and distributed or generally
made available to members of the student body.
The bill was substantially amended in committee to remove all provisions
related to middle and high school students.
As amended, the bill only provides additional protections for student
journalists as institutions of higher education. The amended bill was reported 18-1.
