The Senate Committee on Education and Health met Thursday, February 28, 2020 and considered the following pieces of legislation.
HB36
(Hurst) Declares that, except in certain limited circumstances, a student
journalist at a 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 governing board of the institution, supported through the
use of campus facilities, or produced in conjunction with a 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 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 amended to replace “school”
with “institution.” The bill reported 9-5.
HB74 (Kory)
Requires each school board to (i) 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 awareness training
or similar program at least once and (ii) provide such training, which may be
provided pursuant to a 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 or via an
online module. This bill incorporates HB 716 and HB 1554. The bill reported
10-1.
HB332
(Hope) Requires the Department of
Education to develop and implement a geographically representative two-year
pilot program to administer reading diagnostic tests that include all
components of a normed rapid automatized naming test. The bill requires each
local school division in the pilot program to provide evidence-based
instruction, including structured literacy instruction, to students in
kindergarten through grade three who fall below the benchmark on any such
reading diagnostic test or demonstrate deficiencies based on their individual
performance on the Standards of Learning reading test. The bill requires
the Department of Education to report to the Governor and General
Assembly, no later than December 1, 2022, on the outcomes of the pilot program
and the necessary resources for statewide implementation of such tests and
instruction. Continued to 2021 with Letter from Chair on a 14-0-1 vote.
HB376
(Willett) Requires (i) each school board to
report to the Department of Education annually the number and type of teacher,
other instructional personnel, and support staff vacancies in the school
division and (ii) each approved education preparation program to report to the
Department of Education annually the number of individuals who completed
the program by endorsement area. The bill requires the Department of Education
to (a) establish deadlines for and the format of the reporting of such data and
(b) aggregate and report such data annually on the Department's website. The
bill reported 10-5.
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 reported 15-0.
HB698
(Roem) Allows public school boards to
distribute excess food to students eligible for the School Breakfast Program or
National School Lunch Program administered by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture or to students that the school board determines are otherwise
eligible to receive excess food. The bill reported 15-0.
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 and requires each school board to use
any such funds solely for such purpose. The bill reported 15-0.
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 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
and ethnically 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 in defining
terms, if used; (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 reported 8-4-3.
HB894
(Levine) Requires education preparation programs
offered by public institutions of higher education and private institutions of
higher education to ensure that, as condition of degree completion, each
student enrolled in the education preparation program receives
instruction on positive behavior interventions and supports; crisis
prevention and de-escalation; the use of physical restraint, consistent with
regulations of the Board of Education; and appropriate alternative methods
to reduce and prevent the need for the use of physical restraint and seclusion.
The bill requires every person seeking initial licensure as a teacher who has
not received such instruction to receive instruction or training
on such topics. The bill requires the Board of Education to adopt regulations
to implement the foregoing requirements. The bill reported 9-6.
HB916
(Sickles) Requires the Department of Education to
establish and appoint such members as it deems appropriate to a Culturally
Relevant and Inclusive Education Practices Advisory Committee for the purpose
of providing (i) standards recommendations to the Department of Education
which shall be considered by the Board of Education during the 2021-2022 review
of the history and social science Standards of Learning and (ii)
recommendations on meaningful professional development with school personnel
related to culturally relevant and inclusive education practices. The bill
requires the Committee to report its recommendations to the Board of Education,
the Governor, and the Chairpersons of the House Committee on Education and the
Senate Committee on Education and Health no later than July 1, 2021. This bill
incorporates HB 483 and HB 1110. The bill reported 13-2.
HB975
(Guzman) Requires, effective with the 2020-2021 school
year, state funding to be provided pursuant to the general appropriation act to
support 18.5 full-time equivalent instructional positions for each 1,000
students identified as having limited English proficiency and, effective with
the 2021-2022 school
year, 20 full-time equivalent instructional positions for each 1,000
students identified as having limited English proficiency. Current law requires
state funding to support 17 such positions for each 1,000 such students. This
bill incorporates HB 1323. The bill was conformed to the Senate version. The
bill was reported and referred to the Senate Committee on Finance and
Appropriations on a 9-5 vote.
HB1012
(Bulova) Requires the Board of Education to
establish a statewide unified public-private system for early childhood care
and education in the Commonwealth to be administered by the Board of Education,
the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the Department of Education. The
bill transfers the authority to license and regulate child day programs and
other early child care agencies from the Board of Social Services and Department
of Social Services to the Board of Education and Department of Education. The
bill maintains current licensure, background check, and other requirements of
such programs. Such provisions of the bill have a delayed effective date of
July 1, 2021. The bill requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to
establish a plan for implementing the statewide unified early childhood care
and education system and requires the Department of Social Services and the
Department of Education to enter into a cooperative agreement to coordinate the
transition. The bill also requires the Board of Education to establish, no
later than July 1, 2021, a uniform quality rating and improvement system
designed to provide parents and families with information about the quality and
availability of certain publicly funded early childhood care and education
providers and to publish the initial quality ratings under such system in the
fall of 2023. The bill reported 9-5.
HB1139
(Keam) Requires the Board of Education, as
part of its current comprehensive review of its Regulations Governing
Educational Services for Gifted Students, to consider revisions to (i) the
process of screening and identifying students for eligibility for gifted and
talented programs and referring students to such programs to improve the
identification of student populations that are underrepresented in such
programs, including economically disadvantaged students, English language
learner students, and students with disabilities and (ii) the data
collection requirements of the annual report required by such regulations to
better inform equitable screening and identification for and access to gifted
and talented programs for student populations that are underrepresented in such
programs. The bill reported 10-4-1.
HB1143
(Tran) Includes licensed behavior analysts and
licensed assistant behavior analysts as support services positions in a
local school division for the purposes of Title 22.1 (Education). The bill
reported 15-0.
HB1276 (O’Quinn) Requires each school board to include,
as part of each student's academic and career plan in the career and technical
education curricula, a list of (i) the top 100 professions in the Commonwealth
by median pay and the education, training, and skills required for each such
profession and (ii) the top 10 degree programs at institutions of higher
education in the Commonwealth by median pay of program graduates. The bill
requires the Department of Education to annually compile such lists and provide
them to each local school board. The bill reported 15-0.
HB1355
(Rasoul) Requires the Department of
Education to establish an interagency task force composed of state and local
agencies and entities in the areas of early childhood development, health,
social services, community engagement, family engagement, higher education, communities
in schools, and workforce development for the purpose of developing a program
for the establishment of community schools whereby public elementary and
secondary schools serve as centers for the provision of such community programs
and services to students and their families as may be necessary on the basis of
the unique needs of the student population to be served. The bill requires such
program to include a process by which school boards and community partnerships
may apply to the Department of Education to designate an elementary or
secondary school in the local school division as a community school. The bill
was reported and referred to the Senate Committee on Finance and Appropriations
14-1.
HB1388
(Adams, D.M.) Eliminates the ability of a school that
only maintains a passing rate on Virginia assessment program tests or
additional tests approved by the Board of Education of 95 percent or above in
each of the four core academic areas for two consecutive years to apply for and
receive a waiver of accreditation from the Department of Education, which
waiver confers full accreditation for a three-year period. Current law provides
high-performing schools a separate pathway to obtain three-year accreditation.
The bill reported 13-1-1.
HB1419
(Jones) Requires school resource officers and
school security officers to receive training specific to the role and
responsibility of a law-enforcement officer working with students in a school
environment that includes training on (i) relevant state and federal laws; (ii)
school and personal liability issues; (iii) security awareness in the school
environment; (iv) mediation and conflict resolution, including de-escalation
techniques; (v) disaster and emergency response; (vi) awareness of cultural
diversity and implicit bias; (vii) working with students with disabilities,
mental health needs, substance abuse disorders, or past traumatic experiences;
and (viii) student behavioral dynamics, including current child and adolescent
development and brain research. The bill was conformed to SB171. The bill reported
14-1.
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 reported 13-2.
HB1443
(VanValkenburg) Requires the Department of Education to
conduct a biennial review of teacher compensation that takes into
consideration the Commonwealth's compensation for teachers relative
to national average teacher salary. Current law requires the Director
of Human Resource Management to complete such biennial review.
HB1508
(McQuinn) Requires local school boards to employ school counselors in
accordance with the following ratios, effective with the 2020-2021 school
year: in elementary schools, one hour per day per 75 students, one full-time
equivalent at 375 students, one hour per day additional time per 75 students or
major fraction thereof; in middle schools, one period per 65 students, one
full-time equivalent at 325 students, one additional period per 65 students or
major fraction thereof; and in high schools, one period per 60 students, one
full-time equivalent at 300 students, one additional period per 60 students or
major fraction thereof. The bill also requires local school boards to employ
one full-time equivalent school counselor position per 325 students in grades
kindergarten through 12, effective with the 2021-2022 school
year. This bill incorporates HB 398. The bill was conformed to the Senate bill.
The bill reported and was referred to the Senate Committee on Finance and
Appropriations 13-1.
HB1633
(Edmunds) Requires the Board of Education to
establish a program to use Literary Fund proceeds to subsidize interest
payments on certain loans made by the Virginia Public School Authority to local
governing bodies and school boards for the design and construction of new
school buildings and facilities or the modernization and maintenance of
existing school buildings and facilities as follows: for school divisions in
localities determined to have above-average or high fiscal stress by the Commission
on Local Government in its most recent version of such report, the Board shall
subsidize up to 100 percent of the interest due on such loan. Under current
law, eligibility for such interest rate subsidy payment is based on the local
composite index of ability to pay. The bill was reported and referred to the Senate
Committee on Finance and Appropriations on a 14-0-1 vote.
HB1653
(Wilt) Requires the Department of Education to
collect data from school boards regarding their ability to fill school
counselor positions, including (i) the number of school counselors employed in
elementary, middle, and high schools in the local school division; (ii) the
number and duration of school counselor vacancies; (iii) the number, role, and
license type of other licensed counseling professionals employed by the school
board; and (iv) information about their preferences for meeting updated school
counselor to student ratios with other licensed counseling professionals. The
bill requires the Department of Education to report the results of such data
collection to the Governor, the Secretary of Education, the House Committee on
Appropriations, and the Senate Committee on Finance and Appropriations no later
than December 1, 2020. The bill was reported as amended 15-0.
HB1680
(Tyler) Requires the Board of Education to
review and revise, in consultation with certain stakeholders and no later than
December 1, 2020, its Career and Technical Education Work-Based Learning Guide
to expand the opportunities available for students to earn credit for
graduation through high-quality work-based learning experiences or in the case
of agricultural education, supervised agricultural experiences, in addition
to job shadowing, mentorships, internships, and externships. The bill
reported 15-0.
HB1711 (Bagby)
Virtual Virginia; availability. The bill was conformed to the Senate version.
The bill was stricken from the docket at request of the patron.
HB1722
(Roem) Requires the Department of Education to
develop and publish no later than November 16, 2020, guidance and resources
relating to the provision of applied behavior analysis services in public
schools for students who are in need of such services. The bill reported 14-1.
