The
Pre-K-12 subcommittee met this evening and considered the following bills.
SB4 (Stanley) Creates the Public School Assistance Fund and Program, to be
administered by the Department of Education, for the purpose of providing
grants to school boards to be used solely for the purpose of repairing or
replacing the roofs of public elementary and secondary school buildings in the
local school division. The bill permits any school board in the Commonwealth to
apply for Program grants but requires the Department of Education to give
priority in the award of grants to school boards that demonstrate the greatest
need based on the condition of existing school building roofs and the ability
to pay for the repair or replacement of such roofs. The provisions of the bill
are contingent on funding in a general appropriation act. The bill
was recommended to be reported and rereferred to Appropriations 7-1.
SB5 (Stanley) Requires the Board of Education to prescribe by
regulation uniform minimum standards for the erection of modern public school
buildings and the modernization of existing public school buildings for the
purpose of promoting positive educational outcomes for each public elementary
and secondary school student. The bill requires such regulations to include
uniform minimum modern public school building standards that promote (i) the
delivery of instruction that complies with the Standards of Learning by
addressing enrollment capacity and available space and (ii) the health and
safety of each enrolled student. The bill requires each school board, once
every three years, to (a) assess and report to the Board the extent to which
each public school building in the local school division complies with such
uniform minimum standards and (b) submit to the Board a long-range plan for
compliance with such uniform minimum standards, including an assessment of the
cost of such compliance, in any case in which the school board determines that
a public school building in the local school division does not comply with such
standards. The provisions of the bill are contingent on funding in a general
appropriation act. The bill was amended
to require the Board of Education to revise its regulations once every 10
years. The bill was recommended to be
reported are rereferred to Appropriations 6-2.
SB41 (DeSteph) Adds two nonlegislative citizen members to the
Virginia Council on the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for
Military Children, one of whom is a parent of a military child, to be appointed
by the Governor, and one of whom is a military spouse serving on the Department
of Education's Military Student Support Process Action Team, to be appointed by
the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The bill was recommended to be
reported 7-0.
SB44
(Spruill) Permits any public elementary or secondary school student to possess
and use 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 was recommended to be reported 4-1.
SB377 (Bell) Permits a school board to conduct a teacher
grievance hearing before a three-member fact-finding panel consisting of one
member selected by the teacher, one member selected by the division
superintendent, and an impartial hearing officer selected by the other two
panel members, to serve as the chairman of the panel. Under current law, the
school board has the option of appointing a hearing officer or conducting such
hearing itself. The bill also removes the requirement that a teacher grievance
hearing be set within 15 days of the request for such hearing and extends from
five days to 10 days the minimum period of advanced written notice to the
teacher of the time and place of such hearing.
The bill initially failed to report
on a vote of 4-4 but at the end of the meeting, the motion was reconsidered and
the bill was recommended to be reported 4-3.
SB410
(Hashmi) Requires each school board to maintain a water management program for
the prevention of Legionella at each public school building in the local school
division. The bill requires the Department of Education to make recommendations
for the establishment, maintenance, and validation of water management programs
in public school buildings and to notify each local school board of its
recommendations no later than September 1, 2020. The bill was recommended to be reported and
rereferred to Appropriations 5-3.
SB463 (Reeves) Directs the Board of Education to develop,
biennially update, and distribute to each local school division guidelines on
policies to inform and educate coaches, student-athletes, and student-athletes'
parents or guardians about the nature and risk of sudden cardiac arrest,
procedures for removal from and return to play, and the risks of not reporting
symptoms. The bill also requires local school divisions to develop and
biennially update policies and procedures regarding the identification and
handling of symptoms that may lead to sudden cardiac arrest in
student-athletes. The bill was recommended to be reported 8-0.
SB515 (McDougal) 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. The bill
was recommended to be reported 8-0.
SB594 (Hanger) 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. The bill was recommended to be
reported 7-0.
SB595 (Hanger) Classifies vaping detectors as eligible security equipment
under the Public School Security Equipment Grant Act of 2013. The bill
was recommended to be reported 5-2.
SB832 (Ebbin) 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. The bill
was recommended to be reported 5-2.
SB845 (Ebbin) Requires
each local school board to develop and implement a plan to test and, if
necessary, a plan to remediate mold in public school buildings in accordance
with guidance issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The bill
requires each local school board to (i) submit such testing plan and report the
results of any test performed in accordance with such plan to the Department of
Health and (ii) take all steps necessary to notify school staff and the parents
of all enrolled students if testing results indicate the presence of mold in a
public school building at or above the minimum level that raises a concern for
the health of building occupants, as determined by the Department of Health. The bill was recommended to be reported 5-2.
SB1020 (Stanley) Allows a school board to adopt an alternative school
discipline 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 school discipline process. The bill
was recommended to be reported 8-0.
SB1040 (Vogel) Authorizes
the City of Winchester to compensate its school board members with an annual
salary not to exceed $4,500. The bill
was recommended to be reported and rereferred to Appropriations 4-1.
SB1080 (Morrissey) 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. The bill was recommended to be reported and rereferred to
Appropriations 6-2.
