The Senate Education and Health Public Education Subcommittee met on Thursday afternoon January 21, 2021 to consider legislation referred by the Chair of the Senate Education and Health Committee. The committee took the following actions regarding legislation on its docket.
SB 1225 (Boysko) Authorizes school boards to appropriate funds for the purposes of promoting, facilitating, and encouraging the expansion and operation of broadband services for educational purposes. The bill authorizes school boards to partner with private broadband service providers to promote, implement, and subsidize broadband for educational purposes to the households of students who would qualify for (i) a child nutrition program or (ii) any other program recognized or adopted by the local school board as a measuring standard to identify at-risk students. The bill was reported by a 5-0 vote.
SB 1257 (McClellan) Makes several changes to the Standards of Quality, including requiring the establishment of units in the Department of Education to oversee work-based learning and principal mentorship statewide in Standard 1 and requiring the Board of Education to establish and oversee the local implementation of teacher leader and teacher mentor programs in Standard 5. The bill also makes several changes relating to school personnel in Standard 2, including (i) establishing schoolwide ratios of students to teachers in certain schools with high concentrations of poverty and granting flexibility to provide compensation adjustments to teachers in such schools; (ii) requiring each school board to assign licensed personnel in a manner that provides an equitable distribution of experienced, effective teachers and other personnel among all schools in the local school division; (iii) requiring each school board to employ teacher leaders and teacher mentors at specified student-to-position ratios; (iv) requiring state funding in addition to basic aid to support at-risk students and granting flexibility in the use of such funds by school boards; (v) lowering the ratio of English language learner students to teachers; (vi) requiring each school board to employ reading specialists and establishing a student-to-position ratio for such specialists; (vii) requiring school boards to employ one full-time principal in each elementary school; (viii) lowering the ratio of students to assistant principals and school counselors in elementary, middle, and high schools; and (ix) requiring each school board to provide at least four specialized student support positions, including school social workers, school psychologists, school nurses, licensed behavior analysts, licensed assistant behavior analysts, and other licensed health and behavioral positions, per 1,000 students. The bill was reported by a vote of 3-0.
SB 1288 (Dunnavant) Requires the Department of Education and the Board of Education to develop new policies and procedures and effect numerous modifications to existing policies and procedures to improve the administration and oversight of special education in the Commonwealth. The bill was reported by a vote of 5-0.
SB 1317 (Dunnavant) Requires all local school boards to establish and implement policies to provide for the open enrollment to any school of any student who is eligible to receive free or reduced lunch upon the request of a parent or guardian, subject to conditions and limitations established by the local school board. The bill reported by a vote of 4-0-1.
SB 1357 (Dunnavant) Directs each local school division to develop and administer a fall and winter diagnostic assessment and a spring growth measurement assessment to each student to assess the student's competency in each core subject, as determined by the Department of Education. The bill reported by a vote of 4-0-1.
SB 1401 (Pillion) Reduces the total number and type of required Standards of Learning assessments to the minimum requirements established by the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended. The bill requires the Department of Education to annually report on the estimated projected and actual savings from the implementation of the bill and report the amount of such savings to the Governor and the Chairmen of the House Committee on Appropriations and the Senate Committee on Finance and Appropriations no later than the first day of each Regular Session of the General Assembly. The bill also requires that such amount be included in the total for Direct Aid to Public Education in any general appropriation act. The bill reported by a vote of 4-1.
SB 1439 (McClellan) Requires, subject to guidelines established by the Department of Education, any middle school or high school student who is absent from school to engage in a civic or political event to be granted an excused absence. The bill reported by a vote of 4-0.
