The House Education K-12 Subcommittee met on Monday February 7, 2022 and took the following actions on legislation on the docket.
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 on a vote of 4-2.
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 on a vote of 4-2.
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 6-0.
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 4-2.
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 4-2
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 4-2.
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 by a vote of 4-3.
