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2007 General Assembly
APPROVED LEGISLATION
FINANCE AND RETIREMENT
FINANCE:
HB 1674 (E. T. Scott) and SB 999 (Houck) extend from July 1, 2008, to July 1, 2012, the sunset date of the current sales tax exemption for textbooks and educational materials distributed by publishers to educators at no cost.
HB 2311(Lingamfelter) establishes the Public Charter School Fund to assist in establishing or supporting charter schools that stimulate the development of alternative public education programs, to be funded from gifts, grants or donations from both public and private sources. The Board of Education (BOE) must establish criteria for making distributions from the Fund.
HB 2371(Tata) authorizes participating school boards of a joint school to select the fiscal agent for the school from among the treasurers of the participating localities. The participating school boards must agree and the respective local governing bodies must approve any such selection. The measure also stipulates that the same entities can agree that the title to property acquired for a joint school be vested in the governing body of such school. The bill took effect February 19.
HB 2834 (Waddell) increases from $5,000 to $25,000 the amount that localities may provide for home ownership grants to county, school board and constitutional office employees, to purchase their primary residences within the county. SB 1292 (Norment) deletes the requirement that a separate ordinance be passed for each grant.
RETIREMENT:
HB 2095 (Tata) requires the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) to provide each participating locality with the information necessary for the locality to determine specific assumptions that are driving its VRS costs.
HB 2370 (Tata) and SB 1218 (Hanger) increase the health insurance credit for retired teachers from the current $2.50 per month for each year of service to $4 per month. In addition, the bills remove the cap (currently $75) on the maximum size of the monthly credit a teacher can receive. Localities will no longer have the option of providing an additional $1 health insurance credit to retired teachers, as the maximum monthly credit amount is $4.
SB 789 (Stosch) allows localities to establish local trusts or equivalent arrangements to fund post-employment benefits. New standards issued by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board require that governments recognize benefit costs for retirees during the time the employee is on the payroll, as opposed to when the employee actually retires.
GOVERNANCE AND OPERATIONS
HB 1707 (Lingamfelter) and SB 1346 (Newman) require school boards to obtain certification from a contractor that employees who will be providing a service that results in direct contact with students during school or school activities have not been convicted of a felony or any sexual-related offense involving children. The bills also provide that the requirement be waived in an emergency or exceptional situation when it is reasonably anticipated there will be no direct contact with students.
HB 1810 (Dance) authorizes any elected school board to appoint a qualified voter residing in the locality to cast the deciding vote in case of a tie vote of the school board. Current law allows tiebreakers only when there is an even number of board members.
HB 1862 (Wittman) amends current provisions applicable to local governments, to require that severance benefits provided to any departing school board official be publicly announced by the school board prior to the employee’s departure.
HB 1920 (Peace) allows local school boards to display decals on school buses about school division bus safety hotlines.
HB 1978 (Lohr) and SB 1148 (Wagner) require school boards to include in their annual report to the BOE, the number of graduated career and technical education completers.
HB 2216 (Amundson) allows the BOE to authorize a local school board to assess a surcharge to recover program costs that exceed state funds distributed through basic aid to school divisions offering driver education programs.
HB 2271 (Ebbin) requires school boards to annually review the school crisis, emergency management and medical emergency response plans required to be developed by each school in the division.
HB 2302 (Cole) permits school boards to enter into agreements with nonpublic schools in the school division to provide student transportation for a fee to and from the nonpublic schools.
HB 2350 (Tata) provides that both the school board and the local governing body must authorize a school board’s application to the BOE for a Literary Fund loan. Prior to disbursing proceeds of any approved loan, the BOE must receive an acceptable opinion of bond counsel obtained by the local governing body as to the validity of the loan.
INSTRUCTION
STANDARDS OF QUALITY, STANDARDS OF LEARNING, STANDARDS OF ACCREDITATION:
SB 795 (Potts) makes numerous technical changes to the Standards of Quality. These include phasing-out of the eighth grade cumulative history test in the 2007-2008 school year and implementing two U. S. History, and Civics and Economics tests the following year. The bill adds effective classroom management to the list of professional development programs to be provided to teachers and principals. It also requires local school divisions to post a current copy of the school division policies, including the Student Conduct Policy, on the division's website, while ensuring that printed copies of such policies also are available.
OTHER:
HB 1916 (Ward) requires the BOE to include instruction on dating violence and the characteristics of abusive relationships into curriculum guidelines for family life education.
HB 2039 (Hamilton) and SB 1147 (Wagner) direct the BOE to establish requirements for a technical diploma, which must meet or exceed the requirements of a standard diploma and include a concentration in career and technical education.
HB 2601 (Plum) requires the Department of Education (DOE) to make available to local school divisions information regarding the commemoration of Veterans Day.
HB 2837 (Amundson) requires the DOE to make available to local school divisions information regarding the commemoration of George Washington's birthday.
SB 751 (Williams) modifies the criteria for awarding a diploma seal for excellence in civics education to include the types of activities qualifying as community service and the number of hours required.
PERSONNEL
HB 1913 (Ward) revises and reorganizes Teaching Scholarship Loan Program provisions to make them consistent with language in the appropriation act. It would also eliminate the Diversity in Teaching Initiative within the program, as it has not been funded.
HB 2631 (Reid) and SB 915 (Lambert) provide that school personnel are authorized to disclose identifying information from a student's education records to assist the juvenile justice system to effectively serve the student prior to adjudication.
STUDENTS
SCHOOL SAFETY:
HB 2344 (Bell) and SB 927 (Norment) prohibit any adult convicted of a sexually violent offense from entering any elementary or secondary school or child day center during school hours, unless he is legally voting on such property, is a student enrolled at the school, or has received an order from a circuit court allowing him to enter such property.
HB 2410 (Athey), for purposes of the Amber Alert Program, amends the definition of an "abducted child" to include a person who is enrolled in a Virginia secondary school regardless of age, while HB 2752 (Hurt) requires the State Police, where appropriate, to use automatic dialing announcing device technology to alert residents in a particular geographic area of an Amber Alert.
OTHER:
HB 2092 (Tata) eliminates the requirement that a student must have been attending a Virginia public school while residing with a custodial parent prior to the parent's deployment outside the U.S. in order to attend school without paying tuition. The bill clarifies that children of parents deployed may continue to attend school, without paying tuition, in the school division they attended immediately prior to such deployment.
HB 2214 (Armstrong) and SB 974 (Edwards) require the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Health Commissioner to work together to combat childhood obesity and other chronic health conditions affecting school-age children.
HB 2893 (Phillips) authorizes public schools and public institutions of higher education in Virginia to retain certified copies of enrolled students' birth certificates as part of the student records.
SB 1039 (O’Brien) prohibits the use of wireless telecommunication devices for drivers under the age of 18 while operating a motor vehicle, except in an emergency or when parked or stopped.
MISCELLANEOUS
HB 1673 (R. G. Marshall) creates the Virginia Commission on Immigration to study and make recommendations to address the costs and benefits of immigration on the state, including the impact on education, health care, law enforcement, local demands for services and the economy, and the effect of federal immigration and funding policies.
HB 1729 (Lohr) increases the maximum speed limit from 55 to 60 miles per hour for school buses traveling on interstates and highways where the speed limit is greater than 55 miles per hour.
HB 1962 (O’Bannon) and SB 847 (Lambert) require testimony under oath during special education due process procedures.
HB 2035 (Hamilton) and SB 1230 (Howell) will require females to receive three doses of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. HPV has been linked to cervical cancer. The first dose shall be administered before the child enters the sixth grade. A parent or guardian may choose for his or her child not to receive the vaccine. The bills take effect October 1, 2008.
HB 2040 (Hamilton) extends the sunset date for the Advisory Council on Career and Technical Education until July 1, 2012.
HB 2381 (May) specifies that the Virginia Public-Private Education Facilities and Infrastructure Act can be used for projects related to the technology and infrastructure needed to deploy wireless broadband services to schools, businesses and residential areas.
HB 2542 (Landes) and SB 1212 (Hanger) require the BOE to request waivers from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act provisions that not an integral part of the state’s accountability system, and if such waivers are not approved or the federal law revised to accommodate the requests, to advise the General Assembly on continued state implementation of NCLB.
HB 3084 (Peace) requires that any new bus placed into service after July 1, 2007, be equipped with warning devices that include a system of red traffic warning lights, a warning sign with flashing lights and a crossing control arm that all are capable of operating simultaneously.
SB 797 (Potts) requires the Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services to establish a website to facilitate and promote Virginia farm products to educational institutions, while SJ 347 (Potts) requests the Secretaries of Agriculture and Forestry and of Education to establish a farm-to-school task force to develop a plan for implementing a Farm-to-School Program in Virginia.
SB 1332 (Devolites Davis) would increase the mandated population served under the Comprehensive Services Act to include children with mental health conditions whose private insurance has been capped, or who lack private insurance and are not Medicaid-eligible. In addition, the parents/guardian would have to be considering a foster care placement in order to obtain publicly funded services. The bill must be approved again by the 2008 General Assembly in order to take effect.
FOIA:
HB 1791 (Griffith) adds an additional, possible response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for records, to address situations when requested records cannot be found or do not exist. The public body receiving such requests must state that fact affirmatively in its response, and if the records are known to held by another public entity, to redirect the requester to that source.
SB 1001 (Houck) allows regional public bodies limited authority to conduct meetings at which some members participate by telephone or video link. It also allows members of all public bodies to participate in a meeting electronically in certain cases of illness, disability or emergency.
SB 1111 (Houck) adds a closed meeting exemption to FOIA for discussion of reports or plans related to the security of any governmental facility or the safety of persons using such facility. Currently, such plans and reports are exempt from disclosure but no provision exists for closed meetings to discuss them.
2007 STUDIES AND RESOLUTIONS
HJR 587 (Fralin) designates the month of September as Internet Safety Month in Virginia.
HJR 622 (Hamilton) requests the BOE to establish and regularly convene a Commonwealth Educational Roundtable to facilitate the implementation and continuation of efforts to improve and sustain quality educational leadership in Virginia schools.
HJR 627 (Tata) and SJR 343 (Reynolds) designate the third week in September as Civics Education Week in Virginia.
HJR 637 (O’Bannon) establishes a joint subcommittee to study childhood obesity in Virginia’s public schools.
HJR 726 (Tyler) designates the third week in September as Health Virginians/Healthy Students Week in Virginia.
HJ 729 (Cox) directs JLARC to study the Virginia Preschool Initiative, particularly its authorization, funding, cost and effectiveness.
SJ 329 (Locke) requests the BOE to study high school dropout and graduation rates, with a goal of recommending policy, statutory, fiscal or regulatory changes to increase graduation rates, particularly among student populations with high dropout rates.
SJR 372 (Norment) establishes a legislative subcommittee to study the feasibility of a statewide health insurance experience pool for educators and local government employees.
SJ 378 (O’Brien) establishes a joint subcommittee to study revision of the curriculum for driver training programs.
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