SB 235 (Hashmi) Provides that nothing in the law requiring the Department of Education to develop and make available to each school board model policies for ensuring parental notification of any instructional material that includes sexually explicit content and requiring each school board to adopt policies that are consistent with but may be more comprehensive than such model policies or that is in such model policies or school board policies shall be construed to permit the censoring of books in any public elementary or secondary school.
The bill reported from committee 12-9.
SB 379 (Boysko) Requires the Board of Education to develop Standards of Learning and curriculum guidelines for research-based hazing prevention instruction to be provided to as a part of physical or health education provided to students in grade nine or 10. The bill requires such hazing prevention instruction to include age-appropriate, extensive, and current education about hazing, including (i) examples of hazing; (ii) the dangers of hazing, including the consequences of alcohol intoxication; and (iii) school policies and laws related to hazing, including criminal penalties and bystander intervention. The bill requires such research-based hazing prevention instruction to be offered in-person but requires each school board to provide options for virtual participation for any student who is enrolled in an online or virtual physical or health education program. Finally, the bill requires each school board to provide such research-based hazing prevention instruction beginning with the school year following the Board's adoption of revised Standards of Learning for physical and health education for grades nine and 10 incorporating such research-based hazing prevention instruction and directs the Board to, in the intermediary time, develop and post on its website guidance documents for the purpose of making such research-based hazing prevention instruction available to local school boards.
The bill reported from committee 12-9.
SB 443 (Durant) Requires the superintendent of any school division to, upon receiving notification of the disposition in a delinquency case concerning a student who is not enrolled in such school division, forward such notification to the superintendent of the school division where such student is enrolled or where such student intends to enroll, as evidenced by the receipt of a request from the other school division for such student's scholastic records. Current law only permits the superintendent of any such school division to forward such notification to the superintendent of the school division in which the student is currently enrolled. The bill also requires a copy of the complete student disciplinary records of any student transferring from one school division to another to be transferred to the school division to which such student is transferring, upon request from such school division.
The bill reported from committee 21-0.
SB 624 (Lucas) Clarifies several provisions of the Virginia Literacy Act (the Act), enacted during the 2022 Regular Session of the General Assembly and effective with the 2024-2025 school year, including (i) clarifying that the term "evidence-based literacy instruction" does not include practices that instruct students to gain meaning from print through the use of (a) three-cueing, which includes semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic cues; (b) meaning, structure, and visual cues; or (c) visual memory for word recognition; (ii) removing the option to use a literacy screener approved by the Department of Education for certain purposes enumerated in the Act; (iii) requiring the Department to develop a list of core literacy curricula for students in kindergarten through grade five and supplemental instruction practices and programs and intervention programs for students in kindergarten through grade eight that consist of evidence-based literacy instruction aligned with science-based reading research; and (iv) requiring each divisionwide literacy plan to address how the local school board will align (a) core reading and literacy curriculum for students in kindergarten through grade five and (b) screening, supplemental instruction, and interventions for students in kindergarten through grade eight with evidence-based literacy instruction practices aligned with science-based reading research.
The bill reported from committee 20-1.
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