The Senate Education and Health Committee met for its first meeting of the 2022 legislative session. Following introductions by committee members and staff, the following actions were taken on pending legislation.
SB 161 (Hashmi) Department of Education; heat-related illness; guidelines. Directs the Department of Education, in conjunction with stakeholders, to develop guidelines on policies to inform and educate coaches and student athletes and their parents or guardians of the nature and risk of heat-related illness, how to recognize the signs of heat-related illness, and how to prevent heat-related illness to be distributed to local school divisions by August 1, 2022. The bill was reported and referred to the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee by a vote of 14-0.
SB 238 (McPike) Department of Education; school division maintenance reserve tool. Requires the Department of Education, in consultation with the Department of General Services, to develop or adopt and maintain a data collection tool to assist each school board to determine the relative age of each public school building in the local school division and the amount of maintenance reserve funds that are necessary to restore each such building. The bill requires each school board to provide to the Department of Education in a timely fashion the local data that is necessary to ensure that such tool remains relevant and useful for the determination of maintenance reserve needs. The bill requires the Department of Education to consider converting or using as a template the Department of General Services' M-R FIX tool to meet the above requirement to maintain such a tool. This bill is a recommendation of the Commission on School Construction and Modernization. The bill was reported and referred tot he Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee by a vote of 15-0.
In addition tot he legislative actions taken this morning, the committee announced that the Public Education Subcommittee would meet during the 2022 session 30 minutes following the adjournment of the Senate of Virginia on Thursday afternoons. To view the subcommittee membership and docket which is revised each week, click here.
