EDUCATION LEGISLATIVE
REPORT
March 16, 2011 - Issue #7
“Crossover” in the
Legislature was this past Friday.
Crossover is the date by which most bills are expected to be approved by
the committees that develop the legislation. There are exceptions to crossover, and indeed both
the Senate and House Education Committees are still completing their work on
one bill each this week. Nevertheless,
crossover is a soft deadline that represents the midpoint of the Legislative
session. The chambers will be busy
considering committee-approved bills on the floors of the Senate and House this
week and then Senate committees will examine House-approved bills and vice
versa. Legislation that has not yet been
approved by any committee is unlikely to be considered this year, although
experience has shown that surprising amendments can and will continue to emerge
until the final fall of the gavel, which is expected sometime in May.
The House Education
Committee is developing a bill that would transition the position of
commissioner of education to a secretary of education appointed by the
Governor. The bill would also transition
the department of education into an agency of education. Finally, the bill would modify the
composition of the State Board of Education.
The bill would set an effective date for the first two changes of July
1, 2012, and would set a schedule for transitioning the State Board as members’
terms expire. The intent of the
legislation would be to increase accountability and connectivity to state and
local institutions for the commissioner, department, and State Board.
The secretary and agency
of education would assume all duties now assigned to the commissioner and
department. The secretary would be
appointed by the Governor with the consent of the Senate and would be a member
of the Governor’s cabinet. The state’s
Legislative Council would be tasked with preparing a draft bill for 2012 that
would make technical amendments to Title 16 and elsewhere that would prepare
for the transition.
The composition of the
State Board of Education would be modified under this bill. The most recent draft would have the Board
chaired by the secretary of education.
The number of at-large members would be reduced from eight to four, and
five members would be added that would be nominated by specific
organizations. The Governor would continue
to appoint all members of the Board. The
five organizations that would nominate potential Board members for the
Governor’s selection would be VSA, VSBA, VPA, Vermont-NEA, and the Vermont
Business Roundtable; any qualified Vermonter would be eligible to be nominated
by these organizations, not only their current or former members. Two students would remain members of the
Board, as is current law (a senior voting member and a junior nonvoting
member). The term length of appointed
Board members may also change in this bill; current law specifies that non-student
members receive six-year terms.
The Education Committee
and the House Government Operations Committee held a hearing on this topic last
Wednesday. Most of the 15 or so people
who spoke favored the State Board appointing a commissioner of education, as is
current law. In other hearings on the
topic last week, Commissioner of Education Armando Vilaseca noted that his
independence from the Governor has allowed him to speak freely on matters of
state policy, while former commissioner of education David Wolk
testified in favor of a gubernatorial appointment. Fewer people at the public hearing had
opinions on reconfiguring the State Board of Education, although several school
board members who testified did favor this change, as did Wolk. Commissioner Vilaseca and State Board chair Fayneese Miller stated their preference for the current
State Board makeup.
The Senate Committee on
Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs had been considering legislation
that would have made certain non-instructional employees of school districts
eligible for unemployment benefits during summer months between school
years. The Committee decided to remove
that provision of the legislation prior to acting on the bill. Instead, the Committee’s bill would direct
the Commissioner of Labor, in consultation with the VSBA, to study costs and
benefits of making those employees eligible for unemployment during the summer.
The Commissioner would
be required to report to the Committee by January 15, 2012.
Our Associations oppose
the expansion of unemployment eligibility because it would add millions of
dollars of new costs to school districts annually during a time when districts
are being asked to reduce costs.
The Committee has also
introduced legislation that would direct the Commissioner of Education to study
whether schools should be required to maintain carbon monoxide detectors and
whether they detectors should be hardwired to emergency service providers. We will report on additional details
regarding this legislation as they become available.
The House Education
Committee developed and approved a bill that would ensure that novice principals
and technical center directors receive mentoring supports from an experienced
colleague. H.430
states that the district superintendent shall consult with the VPA to ensure
that a “principal or technical center director who has not been employed
previously in that capacity” receives mentoring supports “consistent with best
practices, research-based approaches, or other successful models identified
jointly by the [VPA and VSA].” The bill
specifies that the district shall expend up to $2,000 each of the employee’s
first two years toward the cost of providing the mentoring, and that this bill
would be effective for new contracts beginning with the 2012-2013 academic
year. The House is scheduled to consider
the bill this week.
Our Associations have
testified in favor of a principal mentoring bill that provides appropriate
support while allowing for local flexibility in the process.
The Senate Education
Committee developed and approved S.92,
a bill that would require public and approved independent schools to use environmentally
preferable cleaning products when they are available. Products would be considered environmentally
preferable either when they are approved as such by an independent third party
or are products utilized by the Department for Buildings and General Services. S.92 also contains the following provisions:
The bill’s effective
date would be July 1, 2011. The Senate
is scheduled to consider the bill this week.
Although we support green cleaning practices in schools, we will work to
minimize local process requirements associated with the bill such as the annual
online certification.
The House approved H.428,
a bill that would make two changes to Act 153 of 2010. The bill will now go to the Senate for
consideration.
The first change would
alter the deadline by which supervisory unions must fully implement the duties
granted to them in Act 153 including provision of special education, provision
of transportation, and establishing a supervisory union-wide curriculum, among
others. This date, July 1, 2013, would
be one year later than was required in the original law. Act 153 would continue to allow supervisory
unions to implement the changes prior to the deadline.
The second change to Act
153 would require that any supervisory union assuming the provision of
transportation services from its member districts must recognize transportation-employee
bargaining units, if any existed among the member district’s employees. The recognition must include an agreement
that would address issues of seniority, reduction in force, layoff and recall
for organized transportation employees.
For more information regarding
the new mandatory duties of supervisory unions approved last year as part of
Act 153, see page
2 of our final Education Legislative
Report of 2010.
On Friday, the Senate
Finance Committee approved S.53,
a bill that would remove the existing caps on the number of prekindergarten
children a district may count in its average daily membership. The bill is now under consideration in the
Senate Appropriations Committee
The Senate Education
Committee is developing a bill that would contain a handful of miscellaneous
education-related provisions. The bill
is expected to be a “committee bill” and therefore will be one of the
exceptions to the crossover deadline referenced on page one of this Report.
As of this writing, the Committee discussion is fluid it is too early to
say what provisions the Committee bill will ultimately contain. It appears likely that the Committee will
make decisions regarding what to include in the bill this week and we will
detail the outcome in our next Education
Legislative Report.
The Senate Government
Operations Committee approved S.67,
a bill that would make modifications to Vermont’s open meeting law. The bill would:
S.67 has been sent to
the Senate for consideration.
The House is scheduled
to consider H.41
this week, a bill that would require employers to offer employees a break of no
less than 30 minutes during each six hours of work. The break may be paid or unpaid, and there
are exceptions allowed if the break would “pose a threat to property, life,
public safety or public health.” The
bill specifies that collective bargaining agreements could not override this
requirement, and that employers could be fined up to $1,000 per month for
violating its provisions. The bill was
approved by the House Committee on General, Housing, and Military Affairs on a
vote of 5-3.
Last week, the House
approved H.38,
a bill that would direct schools to swiftly serve and accommodate children of
military personnel when deployments and relocations would disrupt educational
continuity. For additional details
regarding the bill’s provisions, see our Education Legislative Report Issue #6. H.38 has now moved to the Senate Education
Committee for consideration.
In our prior Education Legislative Report, we
indicated that the Department of Education had estimated that education
spending was decreasing 0.9 percent in FY 2012 as compared to FY 2011. The latest figures available from the
Department indicate the estimated figure is a reduction of 0.64 percent year
over year. This figure is a projection;
final approved budgeted numbers will not be available until every school
district approves an FY 2012 budget in May or June.
The only
education-related new bills that have been introduced since our prior Report have each been detailed
above. Those bills are H.428
(supervisory union duties), H.430 (principal mentoring), and S.92 (“green”
cleaning).
END