The House Education Committee, today, advanced House Bill 356 (Tata) which authorizes the Board of Education (the Board) to establish regional charter school divisions consisting of at least two but not more than three existing school divisions in regions in which each underlying school division has (i) an enrollment of more than 3,000 students and (ii) one or more schools that have accreditation denied status for two out of the past three years. The bill requires such regional charter school divisions to be supervised by a school board that consists of eight members appointed by the Board and one member appointed by the localities of each of the underlying divisions. The bill authorizes the school board, after a review by the Board, to review and approve public charter school applications in the regional charter school divisions and to contract with the applicant. The bill requires that the state share of Standards of Quality per pupil funding of the underlying school district in which the student resides be transferred to such school. The committee voted along party lines, 12-10, to advance the legislation.
A similar bill, SB 125 (Obenshain), was defeated last week in the Senate Education and Health Committee by a 7-8 vote.
Two additional bills, HB 344 (Davis) and HB 346 (Davis) were passed by for the day. These bills will be heard during the full committee meeting on Wednesday, February 9, 2022.
The Committee also received reports from the K-12 and Early Childhood & Innovation Subcommittees. The following actions were taken on the subcommittee reports.
K-12 Subcommittee Report
HB 486 (Subramanyam) Requires the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology academic year Governor's School in Fairfax County to annually admit for first-time enrollment as freshmen at least 100 students who reside in the Loudoun County school division. The bill reported with a substitute by a 19-1 vote.
HB 789 (LaRock) Prohibits any public elementary or secondary school student from participating in any family life education program without the prior written consent of his parent. The bill requires the summary that is required to be posted and distributed to parents for each such program to include contact information for the individual or office responsible for maintaining printed and audio-visual program materials. The bill was reported by a vote 11-10.
HB 988 (Wyatt) Eliminates the requirement that each school board adopt policies that are consistent with the model policies developed by the Department of Education concerning the treatment of transgender students in public elementary and secondary schools. The bill also removes the requirement for such model policies to include information, guidance, procedures, and standards relating to the use of school facilities, requires the Department to amend its model policies to remove any such information, guidance, procedures, or standards, and requires the Department to make such amended model policies available to each school board no later than the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year. The bill failed to report by a vote of 11-11.
HB 1005 (Guzman) Declares a public school teacher employed after completing the probationary period to be entitled to a continuing contract whereby the contract continues in effect for the ensuing year in conformity with local salary stipulations, including increments, provided, however, that such teacher may be dismissed for any cause set forth in relevant law and in accordance with the procedures set forth in relevant law. Current law declares any such teacher to be entitled to such a continuing contract during good behavior and competent service. The bill requires a public school teacher who seeks to resign from a continuing contract (i) for the ensuing school year to give written notice of such resignation on or before June 15 of the current school year or (ii) in effect for the current school year or for the ensuing school year after June 15 of the current school year to request release from the contract at least two weeks in advance of intended date of resignation and requires such request to be in writing and to set forth the cause of resignation. Current law requires written notice of noncontinuation of a continuing contract by either party to be given by June 15 of each year and permits a teacher to resign after June 15 of any school year with the approval of the local school board or, upon authorization by the school board, with the approval of the division superintendent if the teacher requests release from the contract in writing at least two weeks in advance of the intended date of resignation and sets forth the cause of resignation. The bill also provides that if the school board has not authorized the division superintendent to approve resignations of teachers with continuing contracts, the school board shall decide whether to accept or reject the resignation of such a teacher. The bill was stricken at the request of the patron.
HB 1023 (Guzman) Permits any family life education curriculum offered by a local school division before high school to incorporate age-appropriate elements of effective and evidence-based programs on the prevention, recognition, and awareness of human trafficking of children. The bill reported with a substitute by a vote of 21-0.
HB 1026 (Guzman) Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to establish and appoint no more than 12 members to the Digital Citizenship, Internet Safety, and Media Literacy Advisory Council (the Council), including at least one of each of the following: teacher, librarian, representative of a parent-teacher organization who is the parent of a school-age child, school administrator, and individual with expertise in digital citizenship, Internet safety, and media literacy. The bill requires the Council to (i) develop and recommend to the Board of Education for adoption a model policy for local school boards that would enable such school boards to better support the digital citizenship, Internet safety, and media literacy of all students in the local school division; (ii) develop and recommend to the Board for adoption model instructional practices for the safe, ethical, and responsible use of media and technology by students in public elementary and secondary schools; (iii) design and post on the Department of Education's website a page with links to successful instructional practices, curricula, and other teacher resources used in school divisions within and outside of the Commonwealth for the safe, ethical, and responsible use of media and technology by students and teachers; and (iv) submit a report of its findings to the Chairmen of the House Committee on Education and the Senate Committee on Education and Health no later than October 31, 2023. The bill has an expiration date of July 1, 2024. The bill reported by a vote of 17-4.
HB 1093 (Batten) Requires the evaluation of each public school teacher and principal and division superintendent to include an evaluation of cultural competency if the relevant local school board has adopted and implemented policies to require cultural competency training. Under current law, such an evaluation of cultural competency is required and not conditioned upon any such action of the local school board. The bill permits any school board to adopt and implement policies that require each teacher and any other school board employee holding a license issued by the Board of Education to complete cultural competency training, in accordance with guidance issued by the Board of Education, at least every two years, but only after providing 30 days' advanced written notice of and holding a public hearing regarding the adoption and implementation of such policies. Current law requires such cultural competency training and makes no provision for such notice and public hearing. The bill reported by a vote of 12-10.
HB 1129 (Taylor) Requires each local school board to require its schools to fully collaborate with the chief law-enforcement officer of the locality or his designee when conducting required school safety audits. Under current law, the division superintendent is required to make the results of such audits available to the chief law-enforcement officer upon request, and his approval is not needed. The bill also requires that the completed walk-through checklist using the standardized checklist provided by the Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety be made available to the chief law-enforcement officer of the locality or his designee. Current law requires that the completed walk-through checklist be made available to the chief law-enforcement officer or his designee upon request. The bill reported with amendments by a vote 21-0.
HB 1188 (Davis) Requires the Governor to appoint to the Board of Education a high school student who will enter his senior year during the following school year as a nonvoting student advisor to serve for a term of one year. The bill provides that no such student is eligible to be reappointed. The bill was reported by a vote of 22-0.
Early Childhood & Innovation Subcommittee Report
HB 18 (Fowler) Permits any appointed school board to pay each of its members an annual salary that is consistent with the salary procedures and no more than the salary limits provided for local governments in relevant law or as provided by charter, with certain exceptions and conditions. Current law sets a specific maximum dollar amount for the salary of members of each such appointed school board. The bill reported by a vote of 22-0.
HB 197 (Webert) Permits any school board to utilize the NWEA MAP Growth assessment program as an alternative to the through-year growth assessment system established by the Board of Education for the administration of reading and mathematics assessments in grades three through eight, provided that such program is aligned to the Standards of Learning. The bill reported by a vote of 22-0.
HB 217 (Simonds) Requires the Virginia STEM Education Advisory Board (the Board) to (i) review the occupational categories in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' standard occupational classification system to determine the occupational categories that are not properly captured in the Commonwealth's existing STEM+C workforce profile and the gaps in the Commonwealth's tracking of careers in these occupational categories for the purpose of better aligning K-16 education priorities and the Board's tracking and coordination of STEM+C and (ii) share its findings with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership Authority's Office of Education and Labor Market Alignment (the Office) to include in the Office's efforts to specifically align STEM+C workforce and education. The bill requires the Board, in conducting such review, to focus on occupational categories such as advanced manufacturing, agriculture, financial systems, health care, military, and K-16 education careers that are not currently tracked or categorized by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as STEM+C career fields. The bill also requires the Board to submit its findings and any recommendations to the General Assembly no later than October 1, 2022. The bill was reported and referred as amended to the House Appropriations Committee by a vote of 21-0.
HB 221 (Davis) Adds science, technology, engineering, mathematics and computing (STEM+C), which includes real-world, interdisciplinary, and computational instruction and preparation of students in STEM+C, to the list of topics that shall be included in the Standards of Learning for the Commonwealth. The bill also directs the Virginia STEM Education Advisory Board to develop and submit to the Board of Education (i) a rubric that shall be used by the Board of Education in setting out what factors permit a school to be defined as a STEM school and (ii) recommendations for the Board to create a measurement for quality of STEM programming in general education instruction. The bill also directs the Virginia STEM Education Advisory Board to draft and report to the Department of Education proposed common language and terminology that better defines the basic literacies employed in STEM+C as methodological approaches to solving universal human challenges and, as essential, generalizable and transferable literacy toward the application of skills and content needed to solve those challenges. The bill also directs the Department of Education, based on such proposed language and terminology and no later than December 1, 2022, to recommend finalized language and terminology to the Board of Education. The bill was reported and referred to the House Appropriations Committee as amended by a vote of 21-0.
HB 223 (Coyner) Provides that any locality may provide group life, accident, and health insurance programs for employees of certain public school foundations. The bill was reported by a vote of 22-0.
HB 340 (Davis) Directs the Board of Education to establish pathways to the advanced studies high school diploma, and associated diploma seals for students who successfully follow and demonstrate excellence on such pathways, that require advanced coursework in career and technical education in lieu of world language courses or any other required course that the Board deems appropriate. The bill requires such pathways and diploma seals to become effective for the 2023-2024 school year and to be available to any student, regardless of the school year during which the student enters ninth grade. The bill reported with a substitute by a vote of 22-0.
HB 389 (Bulova) Requires the Board of Education to establish a system of regional entities that will be responsible for coordinating early childhood care and education services, guiding quality improvement of such services and coordinated access to such services for families, and implementing the uniform measurement and improvement system. The bill establishes the Child Care Subsidy Program Overpayment Fund, consisting of all overpayment moneys collected or recovered by the Department of Education or any state or local agency contracted to administer the Child Care Subsidy Program, net of any refunds due to the federal government, to be used solely for the purpose of covering the cost of providing training and supports to early childhood care and education entities. The bill was reported and referred to the House Appropriations Committee by a vote of 16-6.
HB 559 (O'Quinn) Provides that in any case in which a local school board enters into a comprehensive agreement with a private entity pursuant to the Public-Private Education Facilities and Infrastructure Act of 2002 whereby the private entity finances the construction of a new public school building in the local school division through the issuance of bonds; leases the building to the local school board in an arrangement such as a certificate of participation, a double net lease, or a triple net lease; and expects the local school board to make lease payments in an annual amount that approximates or is equal to the annual debt service on such bonds, the Department of Education shall not consider 50 percent of such lease payments as capital outlay and debt service and therefore shall not subtract such payments in the biennial calculation of net local expenditures for operations or required local effort for the purpose of determining such local school division's composite index of local ability-to-pay, if so requested by the local school board. The bill was reported and referred to the House Appropriations Committee with a substitute by a vote of 22-0.
HB 563 (O'Quinn) Establishes the School Construction Matching Grant Fund and Program for the purpose of awarding matching grants on a competitive basis to local school boards that demonstrate poor school building conditions, commitment, and need, based on certain enumerated factors, in order for such local school boards to fund the construction of new public school buildings in the local school division. The bill permits the Board of Education to transfer sums from the Literary Fund to the School Construction Matching Grant Fund and for the Department of Education to use such sums to provide matching grants pursuant to the Program. The bill was reported and referred to the House Appropriations Committee with amendments by a vote of 22-0.
HB 585 (Van Valkenburg) Requires, except for those middle and high school students with significant cognitive disabilities who participate in an alternate assessment, each student in middle and high school to take only those end-of-course Standards of Learning assessments necessary to meet federal accountability requirements and Virginia high school graduation requirements. The bill requires the Department of Education, in addition to such assessments, to develop or adopt and require each high school student to take, during junior year or at such other time as may be appropriate, statewide skills-based and performance-based end-of-course assessments in biology and U.S. history that are aligned to the Standards of Learning for each such subject. The bill requires each such assessment to be graded by the Department of Education according to statewide grading rubrics. The bill requires student performance on each such assessment to account for 10 percent of the student's final grade in each such course. The foregoing provisions of the bill have a delayed effective date of July 1, 2027, and the bill provides that the first such assessments shall be administered during the spring of the 2027–2028 school year. The bill further requires the Department of Education to (i) semiannually publish on a publicly accessible portion of its website sample statewide skills-based and performance-based end-of-course assessments in biology and U.S. history during the 2022–2023 through 2026–2027 school years and (ii) annually administer a pilot program during the 2023–2024 through 2026–2027 school years whereby it administers skills-based and performance-based end-of-course assessments in biology and U.S. history to high school juniors in select school divisions to determine the validity of such assessments and make such adjustments as may be necessary before the first such assessments are administered statewide during the spring of the 2027–2028 school year. The bill was reported and referred to the House Appropriations Committee with a substitute by a vote of 22-0.
HB 829 (Wilt) Permits school boards to fulfill the staffing ratio requirements for school counselors by employing other licensed counseling professionals or providing other licensed counseling professionals through contracted services. The bill reported with amendments by a vote of 18-1.
HB 938 (Robinson) Requires the Board of Education to collaborate with the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Secretary of Education to evaluate, to implement where possible, and to otherwise make recommendations to the General Assembly regarding the following goals: (i) promoting excellence in instruction and student achievement in mathematics, including elimination of the Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative and an evaluation of any other proposed changes to the Mathematics Standards of Learning, in advance of the next revision of such standards by the Board, to maintain and increase the rigor of mathematics instruction in public elementary and secondary schools and permit students demonstrating aptitude and high achievement in mathematics to accelerate their progress through core mathematics classes and concepts and take advanced mathematics courses before the eleventh grade; (ii) increasing the number of academic year Governor's Schools in the Commonwealth and maintaining standards of excellence for students in all such schools; (iii) preserving the Advanced Studies Diploma as an option for students in public high schools in the Commonwealth while maintaining or increasing course and credit requirements for such diploma; (iv) increasing the transparency and honesty of performance measures for public elementary and secondary schools in the Commonwealth and ensuring that such measures do not obscure or conceal disparities in performance among student groups; (v) ensuring that performance measures for public elementary and secondary schools prioritize the attainment of grade-level proficiency in reading and mathematics for all students, especially in grades kindergarten through five; (vi) ensuring that the Commonwealth's proficiency standards on Standards of Learning assessments in reading and mathematics are rigorous in comparison with assessments administered by other states and national assessments in reading and mathematics; and (vii) restoring a strong accreditation system that promotes meaningful accountability year-over-year. The bill requires the Secretary of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction, no later than November 30, 2022, to report to the chairmen of the House Committee on Education and the Senate Committee on Education and Health the results of such evaluation and recommendations to achieve such goals. The bill was reported with amendment by a vote of 22-0.
HB 994 (Brewer) Directs the Board of Education (the Board) to amend its regulations to permit all active duty members of the Armed Forces of the United States who serve as caregivers to dependents to apply for the Child Care Subsidy Program. The bill directs the Board to adopt emergency regulations to implement the provisions of the bill. The bill was reported with a substitute by a vote of 20-0.
HB 1047 (Tran) Provides that no student who needs or uses augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), which the bill defines as any device, tool, support, or service, or any combination thereof, that facilitates any form of communication, other than oral speech, that can be used to express thoughts, needs, wants, and ideas, shall be denied the opportunity for inclusion in regular classrooms or the provision of age-appropriate instruction on the basis that such student may require support with AAC. The bill prohibits any individualized education program team, member of such team, or school division employee from utilizing the results of any intelligence quotient test or any other test to measure intelligence or cognitive ability to determine a student with a disability's eligibility to be provided with and use AAC at school. The bill requires each school division to document on the individualized education program of a student with a disability who needs or uses AAC, beginning prior to the provision of instruction or support to the student, including any extended school year period, the student's AAC and communication access and support needs, including, as appropriate, individualized training as an assistive technology service for each school division employee or contractor who provides instruction or direct support to such student, to support the student's use of AAC and to ensure that curricula and instruction are designed or adapted as necessary to accommodate the student's unique communication access needs. The bill was stricken at the request of the patron.
HB 1064 (Brewer) Establishes the Public School Trades Incentive Fund (the Fund) and the Public School Trades Incentive Program (the Program) for the purpose of providing grants on a competitive basis from the Fund to any school board that seeks to (i) restore high school programs that teach students skilled trades that lead to earning industry-recognized certifications or credentials or (ii) create or restore middle school programs that encourage and recruit students to participate in high school programs that teach students skilled trades that lead to earning industry-recognized certifications or credentials. The bill requires the Department of Education to administer the Program and to establish such rules and procedures relating to applications and awards as it deems appropriate, provided that the Department considers and gives appropriate weight to certain criteria for grantees. The bill permits any grantee to use Program funds for equipment, curriculum development, or instructor training. The bill requires each grantee to longitudinally track students who complete any program for which the school board received funds in order to determine the effectiveness of the (a) new or restored middle school programs in recruiting students to participate in restored high school programs and (b) restored high school programs in matching students with high-paying jobs in the fields in which they are certified or credentialed. The bill was reported and referred to the House Appropriations Committee by a vote of 16-4.
HB 1100 (LaRock) Requires the Board of Education (the Board) to make recommendations to the General Assembly for amendments to the Standards of Quality to establish standards for the maintenance and operations, renovation, and new construction of public elementary and secondary school buildings. The bill requires such recommendations to include standards for the percentage of the current replacement value of a public school building that a school board should budget for the maintenance and operations of the building and such other standards as the Board deems appropriate. The bill also requires the Board to solicit the input of relevant stakeholders and the public in developing such recommendations. Finally, the bill requires the Board to submit its recommendations to the Chairmen of the House Committee on Education and the Senate Committee on Education and Health no later than December 1, 2022. This bill is a recommendation of the Commission on School Construction and Modernization. The bill was reported and referred to the House Appropriations Committee by a vote of 20-0.
HB 1125 (Anderson) Requires, within four hours of receiving notification of (i) a preliminary determination by the threat assessment team that a student poses a threat of violence or physical harm to self or others; (ii) threatening or aberrant behavior that may represent a threat to the school; or (iii) unlawful acts committed on school property, on a school bus, or at a school-sponsored activity that involve the unlawful use or possession of a weapon, homicide, criminal sexual assault, or trespassing, each division superintendent to notify the parent of each student enrolled in the relevant school of such threat, threatening or aberrant behavior, or unlawful act. The bill requires each school board to equip each public elementary and secondary school building in the local school division with at least one panic alarm that adheres to nationally recognized industry standards, including the standards of the National Fire Protection Association and Underwriters Laboratories, and is installed by a licensed and qualified professional. The bill defines "panic alarm" as a silent security system by which the user manually activates a device that sends a non-audible signal to the local law-enforcement agency that indicates a school security emergency, including a non-fire evacuation, lockdown, or active shooter situation, that requires immediate response and assistance from such agency. The bill was continued to 2023.
HB 1135 (Bourne) 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 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) increasing from at least three to at least four the required number of 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 and referred to the House Appropriations Committee with amendments by a vote of 16-4.
HB 1215 (Ransone) Physical education; public safety training. The bill reported with amendments by a 17-0 vote.
HB 1246 (Tran) Adds several provisions relating to the accessibility of each digital tool, defined in the bill as an online platform, a course, a digital application, information and communication technology services, and digital content, to be used in the instruction of public elementary and secondary school students, including requiring (i) the Department of Education to establish and revise when necessary guidelines for local school divisions that govern the purchase of accessible digital tools to be used in student instruction and (ii) except in certain limited circumstances, the procurement process utilized by each local school division for the purchase of a digital tool initiated on or after September 1, 2022, to require (a) the digital tool procured to meet or exceed the Department's standards; (b) each digital tool vendor to submit a voluntary product accessibility template prepared by a third-party professional accessibility tester to demonstrate how the digital tool conforms to the Department's standards and to remedy any nonconforming digital tool within 180 days of receipt of notice of such nonconformity from the local school division at any time during the term of the contract; and (c) each digital tool vendor to indemnify the local school board for liability resulting from the use of a procured digital tool that fails to meet the relevant federal accessibility standard, including nonvisual access. The bill was reported and referred to the House Appropriations Committee with a substitute by a vote of 21-0.
HB 1284 (Taylor) Requires election as the method of selecting the members of each school board in the Commonwealth. Current law requires such members to be appointed but permits their election under certain circumstances. The bill was stricken at the request of the patron.
HB 1299 (Coyner) Requires the Department of Education to collect and distribute to public schools and publicly post on its website information that assists high school students in making more informed decisions about their futures after graduating from high school and in doing so ensure that such students are aware of the costs and benefits of different educational and certificate programs. The bill directs the Department to annually collect and compile such information in consultation with the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and any other entity that can assist the Department with collecting and compiling such information and to update its distribution materials accordingly each year. The bill requires the Department to post and distribute the information to school boards, with any relevant updates, no later than October 1 each year and requires each school board to ensure that the information is readily available to each high school student and distributed to each high school student who expresses an interest in attending an institution of higher education or completing another training program as described in the bill. The bill reported with a substitute by a vote of 20-0.
K-12 Subcommittee Supplemental Report
HB 201 (Webert) Requires, in the event that any school board does not provide the option of in-person instruction as the sole method of instruction for any enrolled student, the parent of any such student who withdraws his child from attendance to receive, upon request, an education voucher in an amount equal to a prorated share of the applicable Standards of Quality per-pupil state funds appropriated for public school purposes and apportioned to the school division, including the per-pupil share of state sales tax funding in basic aid and any state per-pupil share of special education funding for which the child is eligible, to cover the expenses of providing in-person instruction in an alternative setting. The bill permits the Department of Education to establish rules, regulations, or procedures for the issuance of such education vouchers. The bill contains an emergency clause. The bill reported and referred to the House Appropriations Committee by a vote of 12-9.
HB 333 (Freitas) Permits any school board to establish a program to create savings accounts for students to be used for alternative educational programs. The bill requires the Department of Education to establish policies and procedures under which the parent of each student may use such funds on public or private educational programs. The bill reported and was referred to the House Appropriations Committee by a vote of 12-9.
HB 649 (Carr) Requires the Department of Education, in coordination with the Department for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing, to (i) select, with input from an advisory committee that the bill establishes, language developmental milestones and include such milestones in a resource for use by parents of a child from birth to age five who is identified as deaf or hard of hearing to monitor and track their child's expressive and receptive language acquisition and developmental stages toward English literacy; (ii) disseminate such resource to such parents; (iii) select existing tools or assessments for educators for use in assessing the language and literacy development of children from birth to age five who are deaf or hard of hearing; (iv) disseminate such tools or assessments to local educational agencies and provide materials and training on their use; and (v) annually produce a report that compares the language and literacy development of children from birth to age five who are deaf or hard of hearing with the language and literacy development of their peers who are not deaf or hard of hearing and make such report available to the public on its website. The bill was reported and referred to the House Appropriations Committee with a substitute by a vote of 20-0.
HB 873 (Greenhalgh) Requires each school board to enter into a collaborative agreement with the local law-enforcement agency to employ at least one school resource officer in each public elementary and secondary school in the local school division. The bill provides that no school board shall be granted any full or partial waiver from such staffing requirements and that no school board that fails to fully comply with such staffing requirements is eligible for any grant or waiver from the Commonwealth, Board of Education, or Department of Education. The bill also requires each division superintendent to include on the threat assessment team established for each public elementary and secondary school in the local school division at least one school resource officer employed in the school. The bill was reported and referred to the House Appropriations Committee by a vote of 12-10.
HB 1024 (LaRock) Permits the parents of qualified students, defined in the bill, to apply to the school division in which the qualified student resides for a one-year, renewable Parental Choice Education Savings Account that consists of an amount that is equivalent to a certain percentage of all applicable annual Standards of Quality per pupil state funds appropriated for public school purposes and apportioned to the resident school division in which the qualified student resides, including the per pupil share of state sales tax funding in basic aid and any state per pupil share of special education funding for which the qualified student is eligible. The bill permits the parent of the qualified student to use the moneys in such account for certain education-related expenses of the qualified student, including tuition, deposits, fees, and required textbooks at a private elementary school or secondary school that is located in the Commonwealth. The bill also contains provisions relating to auditing, rescinding, and reviewing expenses made from such accounts. The bill was reported and referred to the House Appropriations Committee by a vote 12-10.
HB 1164 (Runion) Requires, for the purpose of determining the state and local shares of basic aid funding, that the composite index of local ability-to-pay utilize the use value of all applicable real estate (i) devoted to agricultural use, horticultural use, forest use, and open-space use in each locality that has adopted an ordinance by which it provides for the use valuation and taxation of such real estate and (ii) used in agricultural and forestal production within an agricultural district, forestal district, agricultural and forestal district, or agricultural and forestal district of local significance in each locality that provides for the use valuation and taxation of such real estate, regardless of whether it has adopted a local land-use plan or local ordinance for such valuation and taxation. The bill was reported and referred to the House Appropriations Committee by a vote of 12-10.
HB 1179 (Clark) Establishes the 29-member Virginia Asian American, Pacific Islander, Latino, and Indigenous Education Advisory Board as an advisory board in the executive branch of state government for the purpose of advising the Governor, his Cabinet members, and the General Assembly on the current ways that Asian American, Pacific Islander, Latino, and Indigenous history is described in the relevant Standards of Learning and associated curriculum frameworks; how that content is taught in classrooms; and strategies to develop Asian American and Pacific Islander history and social studies elective courses, Latino history and social studies elective courses, and Indigenous history and social studies elective courses. The bill was Laid on the Table.
