Report from Senate Education and Health

During its meeting today, the Senate Committee on Education and Health reported a number of bills of interest to school boards. Among the bills the Committee adopted was a substitute for Senator Martin’s SB 1189 which authorizes the Board of Education to grant waivers to school boards from regulatory requirements to increase the quality of instruction and improve student achievement. The bill would also authorize the BOE to grant waivers from the certain SOQ staffing requirements so long as the school board employs a sufficient number of personnel division-wide to meet the SOQ requirements. This bills are an attempt to give school boards additional flexibility. The Committee also reported SB 1131 (McWaters) that exempted charter school applications initiated by one or more school boards from having to go through the Board of Education review process. The Committee reported SB 1158 (Barker) which directs the BOE to adopt regulations authorizing school boards to determine the date for administering the SOLs. This is a very significant flexibility bill.

House Education Subcommittee - Students and Early Education

This morning, the Students and Early Education Subcommittee of the House Education Committee took the following action:

HB 1406 (Bell) would require school boards annually to provide educational information about or screenings for eating disorders in students in grades 5 - 12.  The bill also established a work group to update the Virginia School Health Guidelines to assist school boards in providing the information or screenings.  Del. Bell confirmed that school boards can comply with the requirements of this bill by distributing information about eating disorders electronically, such as by posting it on the division website.  The bill was recommended for reporting. 

HB 1377 (Cole) would have, among other things, required school boards to provide training on diabetes care to all employees.  It would also allow the parents of a student with diabetes to develop a diabetes care plan in which the parents could dictate what care and services the school system must provide to the student.  This bill would have imposed a significant cost on school boards.  The bill died in subcommittee for lack of a motion. 

HB 1420 (Pogge) directs the BOE to promulgate regulations defining the term "intervener" as an individual with knowledge and skill in the mode of communication of a deaf-blind student and who can communicate to the deaf-blind student what is occurring in the student's educational setting.  The bill was reported and referred to Appropriations. 

HB 1468 (Greason) fixes an omission from the legislation last year that allowed school board employees to possess and administer epinephrine to students.  The bill adds employees of a local governing and employees of a local health department to the list of individuals who can possess and administer epinephrine in schools.  The reason for the bill is that some school divisions do not employ school nurses directly.  Rather, the nurses are employed by wither the health department or the local governing body.  The bill was recommended for reporting.     

Update from House Education

HB 2066 (Peace), which would amend Standard 2 to allow school boards to meet the staffing requirements for librarians, guidance counselors, and clerical staff on a division-wide basis, rather than meeting the standard for elementary, middle and high schools separately was reported and referred to Appropriations.

HB 2068 (LeMunyon), which would require school boards to provide early reading intervention to certain students in grades K-2 and algebra readiness intervention to certain students in grades 6-9, was reported and referred to Appropriations.

HB 2098 (Tata) would allow the BOE to waive staffing standard 2 to allow a school division flexibility in determining whether to hire librarians, guidance counselors, or other staff members to meet staffing standards. A school board that is granted a waiver would have to employ the requisite total number of staff members but would have the ability to determine how many to hire in each category. The bill was reported and referred to Appropriations. 

HB 2144 (Landes), which creates a pilot program that will allow certain schools to seek waivers from the third grade science, social science, or history SOL assessments in order to focus on reading, was reported.

Recap of House Education SOQ Subcommittee

Here is a recap of what happened in the House Education SOQ subcommittee today:

HB 2144 (Landes) creates a pilot program that will allow certain schools to seek waivers from the third grade science, social science, or history SOL assessments in order to focus on reading. The bill was recommended for reporting.

HB 1502 (Krupika) would expand the Virginia Index of Performance incentive program to recognize and reward schools and school divisions that make progress towards narrowing achievement gaps.  The patron explained that the purpose of the bill was to recognize and reward teachers and schools who are making significant achievements in challenging circumstances.  The bill was passed by indefinitely.

HB 1503 (Krupika) would, among other things, prohibit a school from receiving the highest accreditation rating is any one subgroup failed  to demonstrate proficiency on any SOL assessments.  The patron explained that schools in which one or more subgroups were failing did not "deserve an A."  Members of the subcommittee observed that this goal ran counter to the purpose that Del. Krupika was trying to achieve with HB 1502.  The bill was tabled on a unanimous vote.

HB 2098 (Tata) would allow BOE to waive staffing standard 2 to allow a school division flexibility in determining whether to hire librarians, guidance counselors, or other staff members to meet staffing standards.  A school board that is granted a waiver would have to employ the requisite total number of staff members but would have the ability to determine how many to hire in each category.  The subcommittee voted unanimously to recommend that the bill be reported and referred to Appropriations.

HB 2066 (Peace) would amend Standard 2 to allow school boards to meet the staffing requirements for librarians, guidance counselors, and clerical staff on a division-wide basis, rather than meeting the standard for elementary, middle and high schools separately.  The subcommittee voted to recommend that the bill be reported.

HB 1350 (Albo) is targeted to end the use of calculators on math SOLs.  Del. Albo brought a similar bill last year.  The bill was amended in subcommittee so that it provides that no student in the seventh or eight grade who fails the non-calculator portion of the end-of-grade mathematics assessments shall be placed in Algebra I or higher. (The original version of the bill would have prohibited the use of calculators on the SOL assessment.) After much discussion and amendment, the bill was passed by for the day so that Del. Albo could bring back another amendment to the bill. 

HB 2068 (LeMunyon) would require school boards to provide early reading intervention to certain students in grades K-2 and algebra readiness intervention to certain students in grades 6-9.  The bill was recommended to be reported and referred to Appropriations. 

HB 1730 (Cole) would require every school board to establish a collaborative agreement with local law-enforcement agencies to employ one full time SRO in every school.  The bill was passed by for the day to allow time for the Governor's recently appointed school safety task force to make a recommendation. 

Update from Public Education subcommittee of the Senate Education and Health Committee

SB900 would allow allow school boards to sell space on school buses and school property for advertising and, if a school board did so, would require school boards to use the proceeds for pay for pupil transportation and for maintenance and construction of school buildings, respectively.  School boards already can, and do, sell advertising space on school property (e.g. on athletic fields) but, under the current law, school boards are not limited in how they can use the proceeds from such advertising.  The bill was recommended to be passed by indefinitely by the Public Education subcommittee of the Senate Education and Health Committee today.

SB936 changes the date by which a school board must notify continuing contract principals, assistant principals, and supervisors of a reassignment to a classroom teaching position from April 15 to June 15. This bill is intended to parallel similar changes that were made last session to the Code sections relating to the nonrenewal of a teacher's contract.  The bill was recommended for reporting today by the Public Education subcommittee of the Senate Education and Health Committee.

SB940 would require school boards to have an SRO in every elementary, middle, and high school.  The bill also provides that the cost associated with the bill would be paid from the general appropriation act rather than by any locality or school board.  The bill was recommended for referral to the Senate Finance Committee by the Public Education subcommittee of the Senate Education and Health Committee today.

Governor McDonnell Highlights Education Agenda in State of the Commonwealth Address

In tonight's State of the Commonwealth Address, Governor McDonnell unveiled several new parts of his education agenda, including the Virginia "Opportuniuty Education Institution", which we anticipated last week. 

An excerpt of the Governor's comments about his K-12 agenda is below.  Click here to access the full speech.

If a young person does not graduate from high school, or does not graduate career or college ready, you have failed, I have failed, and, worse, they have failed.

All children, regardless of their zip code, must have world-class educational opportunities. It's the only way Virginia will continue to recruit world-class companies like Hilton, Northrop Grumman, Bechtel and Intelsat that require highly-educated, highly-motivated employees.

The brutal fact is, when it comes to educating our young people, America is slipping.

While Virginia's schools rate well nationally, according to the Program for International Student Assessment, the United States now ranks 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in mathematics. This is unacceptable. Those are not grades that we want to put on the national refrigerator.

The time for action is now.

Great teachers in great schools make great students and citizens. A great teacher, like my sister Nancy in Amherst County, makes all the difference in the life of a young person. We need to recruit, incentivize, retain and reward excellent teachers and treat them like the professionals that they are. I'm proposing giving teachers their first state supported pay raise since 2007, and my budget amendments provide over $58 million for a 2% pay raise for all SOQ funded instructional personnel.

The Educator Fairness Act will streamline the bureaucratic grievance procedure to benefit teachers and principals. It will extend the probationary period for new teachers from three to five years, and require a satisfactory performance rating as demonstrated through the new performance evaluation system to keep a continuing contract. Good teachers will advance and flourish; poor ones will not.

Students are falling behind in mastering the STEM-H disciplines essential for the global economy.

I'm asking you to approve funding to support new teachers who teach science, technology, engineering, or mathematics in our middle and high schools.

I want our very best teachers in every subject to have incentives to excel. I'm proposing $15 million for school districts to reward their well-performing educators. This strategic compensation plan based on a model developed in the Salem school system will be implemented through local guidelines that best fit each school division's unique characteristics.

We need some of our best teachers in our hard to staff and underperforming schools. Therefore, I am proposing legislation to start the Teach for America program in the Commonwealth.

Since 1990, Teach for America has placed 28,000 exceptional graduates from top universities into some of our nation's most challenging school systems. All over America this program works, but not here. There are almost 300 Teach for America participants from Virginia who should be teaching right here at home.

I'm also asking you to approve a budget amendment to place one reading specialist in each school that scores below 75% in the 3rd grade Standard of Learning test, and to fully fund the state share for staffing standards for blind and visually impaired students.

I also propose a new method to obtain waivers from bureaucratic red tape, putting the algebra readiness and early reading intervention initiatives into the SOQ, and expanding character education and youth development programs.

Parents need to know how well their child's school is working. We should grade schools like we grade students' papers and tests. I'm proposing an A-F school ranking scale to empower parents and students to demand excellence.

This new grading transparency will allow us to hold schools more accountable. Even in a state like ours with a very good public education system, some students are trapped in underperforming and unaccredited schools. This must end!

We now equip low performing schools with turnaround specialists and additional resources from the state and private sector. If they haven't improved that's unacceptable. We must have a zero tolerance policy for failing schools.

Therefore, I'm asking you to approve a bold initiative to establish a statewide Opportunity Educational Institution to provide a high quality education alternative for children attending any chronically underperforming public elementary or secondary school. The Opportunity Educational Institution will be a new statewide school division to turnaround failing schools. If a school is consistently failing, the Opportunity Educational Institution will step in to manage it. If the school has failed for two years, the Institution can take it over and provide a brand new approach to a broken system.

This model is proven nationally. Louisiana and Tennessee have created Recovery and Achievement districts, and the results are positive. For the very small subset of schools that are failing Virginia's students, we have no other option.

As the parent of five children who graduated from good Virginia public schools, I know we must raise the bar and end failure.

We must continue to bring more innovation and choices to our public education system. Excellent education demands having the courage to try new approaches.

Public charter schools have done well nationally to help bring options to our most underserved communities. They can increase flexibility and innovation and offer a wider range of educational experiences. We've approved new charter laws, but we haven't done nearly enough.

Massachusetts has 72 charter schools. Pennsylvania 164. Florida 520. Virginia has just four!

We still have one of the weakest public charter schools laws in the country. The best public charter school operators in the nation will not come here because we make it nearly impossible for them. We need new charter school laws that demand excellence, set clear standards, and welcome the best charter schools into our communities. This session I'm asking you to join me to pass a Constitutional amendment to allow the state Board of Education to authorize charter applicants. And I am asking your support of legislation to eliminate the requirement that local school boards who originate a charter school application must first apply for authorization from the state Board of Education. These ideas will make it much easier for proven charter schools to open up.

Better schools mean better jobs and a stronger Virginia.

Governor's Education Agenda - Part 2

We have received an invitation to attend a press conference by the Governor to announce Part 2 of his education legislative agenda, billed as “ALL STUDENTS: Accountability + Innovation.”  We are not privy to this agenda, but we suspect that it may include a few bills with which we may not be in agreement.  One bill we anticipate would establish the “Virginia Opportunity School District.”  (Leave aside the fact that we have “school divisions” - not “school districts” - in Virginia.”)  We suspect that this concept will be borrowed from Louisiana’s “Recovery School District,” which is described on the official website as “a special school district administered by the Louisiana Department of Education.”  We have a high confidence level in a bill along these lines being announced since a budget sheet appearing on the Department of Planning and Budget website describes $600,000 for funding in 2014 to support “the Virginia Opportunity School District.”  It will be interesting to see how this concept can be drafted to conform to the Virginia Constitution’s mandate that school boards supervise the schools in a school division.  Perhaps the use of the word “district” is intentional after all.

A second possible bill may be one that institutes a grading system for public schools.  Currently, public schools receive designations under the Standards of Accreditation, e.g. accredited, accredited with warning, etc.  Grading schools is a concept started in Florida, and most recently adopted in Ohio, which assigns schools an A, B, C, D. F or I grade depending on how the students in the school perform on the state assessment tests (SOLs in Virginia) in elementary and middle schools and on state assessment tests and other factors for high schools.  If such a bill is introduced, we anticipate that it will supplement, not supplant, the accreditation designations we now have. 

A third possible bill may be a virtual school bill that would require a school board that does not offer a full-time virtual program (versus courses) to transfer its state ADM and local funds to another school system that enrolls one of its students in a full-time program.  Perhaps such a concept is viewed by some as an incentive for school boards to offer full-time programs.  Of course, many school systems do not have the wherewithal to develop such programs internally, so they will have to contract with a private provider.  Is there any wonder that the private provider community has been a staunch supporter of this concept!  Of course, the state has yet to develop standards for online schools.  If this bill is introduced it will be the proverbial cart before the horse.