Updated February 28, 2001

Most education-related bills have completed their trek through the legislative process, as the General Assembly nears a scheduled adjournment on Saturday, February 24. Negotiators failed to meet a Tuesday deadline for crafting a compromise budget. At the center of the impasse is the size of the car tax reduction, and until this issue is resolved, work on the revised 2000-2002 spending plan will remain at a standstill.

The debate continues over the Pledge of Allegiance bill, which would require students to recite the Pledge on a daily basis. The House had a lengthy debate Wednesday on SB 1331, finally approving the measure overwhelmingly after stripping the bill of its enforcement provisions. Under the House-approved bill, students may refuse to recite the Pledge for any reason (not just for religious or philosophical reasons) and all provisions concerning discipline of students who so refuse are deleted from the bill. A compromise version of this bill will be worked out in a conference committee of legislators.

The Senate Education and Health Committee has shot down an attempt to require the posting of the phrase “In God We Trust” in each public school. After nearly an hour of discussion and an amendment allowing the bill to take effect only if Congress approves legislation to require display of the motto in federal buildings, the committee referred the bill (HB 1613) to the Senate Finance Committee, effectively defeating it for the year.

The Education and Health Committee also referred the final “multiple criteria” bill, HB 2163, to the Board of Education (BOE). Earlier, a trio of bills related to student graduation requirements were referred to the BOE.

In the session’s final week, the House again endorsed provisions that would provide for a formula that allows the classwork grade of a student who has narrowly failed the relevant Standards of Learning (SOL) test twice to be considered in order to receive a verified unit of credit. The House voted overwhelmingly to amend a Senate bill dealing with the SOL tests and career and technical education. However, after the Senate rejected the amendments, they were removed from the bill.

There are some slight differences in several bills that would allow retired teachers to return to work following a short break in service, without losing retirement benefits. HB 252, HB 1689 and SB 954 contain different provisions concerning the length of the service break (the House is pushing a 90-day break, while the Senate seeks a one-year break). Under these measures, the State Superintendent must certify that a shortage exists in a particular school division or subject or geographic area. These bills also are being worked out in a conference committee.

The Senate has defeated a bill (HB 1654) that proposed to eliminate the requirement that temporarily employed teachers hired to fill a teacher vacancy serve no longer than 90 days. The defeat came after amendments were approved to require such teachers to hold a college degree or have comparable work experience. Supporters of the original bill stated that school divisions needed flexibility to fill vacancies where critical teacher shortages existed.

The Senate also gave final approval to HB 1691, which requires filtering software on Internet-capable computers in public schools. This comes on the heels of a provision in the federal budget that requires such software as a condition of receiving federal technology dollars.

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