The 2008 General Assembly is now in session
Week 4 Update—February 1, 2008
“Cross-over day,” the last day for each house to act on its own bills, is February 12. House and Senate versions of the two-year budget for fiscal years 2009 and 2010 will be released on February 17.
The House Education Committee is scheduled to meet on Mondays at 9:00 a.m. in House Room C and Wednesdays at 8:30 a.m. in the Appropriations Room. The Senate Education and Health Committee meets on Thursdays at 8:30 a.m. in Senate Room B. Sub-committees will meet periodically throughout the session.
Click here for a schedule of weekly meetings.
The Budget
Public education funding received a lot of attention this past week. The House Education Committee discussed the rebenchmarking of education costs that is being considered by the money committees, with some members expressing frustration over the state eventually having to recognize and pay a portion of the costs borne by local governments who have funded teacher salaries and education programs well above the amounts required by the state. Meanwhile, the Public Education subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee discussed the Virginia Preschool Initiative (VPI) as well as state and local funding of school construction. The governor, in his introduced budget, has proposed to expand VPI to serve an additional 7,000 children; the proposal increases the maximum per pupil amount, caps the local match at 50% and requires more cooperation with private providers in creating preschool slots.
Budget amendments submitted by legislators were being heard in subcommittees this past week, though the Elementary and Secondary Education subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee plans to hear lawmakers’ proposals this coming Tuesday. The House and Senate money committees have about two weeks to prepare their respective versions of the next two-year state spending plan, and will being doing so with fewer dollars to work with once they receive a revised revenue forecast in the next 10 days or so. The budget introduced by the governor for the next biennium contains more than $1 billion more for public education over the two-year period, much of which ($890 million) is to update state costs of the Standards of Quality (SOQ). Click here for additional information about Governor Kaine's proposed education budget for 2008-2010.
Legislation
Both the House and Senate Courts of Justice Committees are considering bills that would require notification be made to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction of conviction on certain offenses of individuals holding a Board of Education (BOE) license. The Code presently does not require school divisions, courts or social services to make such reports of misconduct by school employees. HB 1067, HB 1439 and SB 241 are expected to be considered next week. The bills also call for local school board policies and procedures to address complaints of sexual abuse of students by school employees. The introduced budget contains an increase in teacher licensure fees to support the BOE processing license denial, suspension and revocation cases.
Identical bills in the House and Senate would direct the BOE to develop a plan to withdraw from participation in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, unless waivers that allow Virginia's existing educational accountability system to meet NCLB requirements are granted by the U.S. Department of Education. HB 1425 was reported by House Education and is on the House floor for a vote next week, while SB 490 was re-referred to the Senate Finance Committee.
The House Education Committee this past week defeated a bill that would have allowed nonpublic school students to play on public school sports teams. HB 375 had been defeated at a previous meeting, but was reconsidered and discussed again before being passed by indefinitely (defeated) on a voice vote. The House Finance Committee endorsed HB 1164, which creates income tax credits for business entities and taxpayers who make contributions to eligible public school foundations and scholarship foundations (which distribute dollars primarily to certain public, private, or home-schooled students). However, the bill was re-referred from the floor of the House back to the House Appropriations Committee this past week.
In the Senate, SB 124 directs the State Superintendent to develop disseminate guidelines for school divisions, based on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s standards for trans fats, with the goal of eliminating foods containing trans fatty acids from public schools. It has passed the Senate, as has SB 136, which prohibits use of wireless telecommunications devices by persons while driving school buses.
Two other bills of note await action on the Senate floor. SB 267 expresses a state goal that public school teachers be compensated at a rate that is competitive with the national average teacher salary. SB 640 adds mental health education and awareness, in order to reduce the stigma of mental illness, to the list of topics to be covered in family life education curricula.
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