EDUCATION
LEGISLATION REPORT
April 18, 2011 - Issue #9
Rumors circulating in the
Statehouse hallways suggest that the 2011 Legislative will adjourn sometime in
the next three to four weeks, although the exact date is always difficult to
predict. Also unpredictable is the final
rundown of bills that will be enacted and those that will be left “on the
wall.” Although this Legislative Report is relatively thin,
there are a handful of other bills and provisions within bills that may
suddenly move as committees wrap up their work.
We will do our best to update our members during these fast-moving final
weeks, but we also urge you to contact your representatives and your
association if you are unsure of the prospects for a particular piece of legislation. To that end, at the conclusion of this report
we have listed education-related bills that are still under active
consideration in the Legislature, although that does not mean that we expect that
all of the bills listed will pass this session.
H.430,
a bill that would require school districts to provide mentoring services for
new principals and technical center directors, has been approved by the Senate
Education Committee by a unanimous vote.
H.430 would also direct a study to be completed on mentoring services
for new teachers.
H.430 would require that
when a school district hires a principal or technical center director who has
not previously worked in that capacity in his or her career, that the
superintendent ensure that the person receives mentoring support for at least
two years. (The bill would neither
prohibit nor require mentoring for experienced school administrators.) Appropriate mentoring services would be
defined as being research based, best practices, or another model identified
jointly by the VPA and the VSA. The
district would be required to allocate sufficient funds for mentoring from
professional development funds, grant funds, or other sources. The bill would be applicable beginning with employment
contracts for the 2012-2013 academic year.
The second part of H.430
would require a new committee to study how Vermont “inducts and mentors” new
teachers and to recommend legislative changes that would increase teacher
skills and improve retention within the profession. The committee would be comprised of members
of the Vermont Standards Board for Professional Educators, the Vermont-NEA, our
Associations, and persons working in educator preparation programs. The Commissioner of Education would convene
the committee’s first meeting no later than August 1, 2011 and the committee
would be directed to submit a report to the Legislature by January 1, 2012.
The VPA and VSA testified
in support of the bill. H.430 is
scheduled to be considered by the Senate this week. An earlier version of the bill has already
been approved by the House, so if the bill is approved by the Senate, the
discrepancies between the House- and Senate-passed versions would be resolved
in a Committee of Conference.
H.440,
a bill that would replace the Commissioner and Department of Education with a
Secretary and Agency of Education, respectively, is under active consideration
in the House Government Operations Committee.
The Committee has taken testimony from our Associations and many other
interested parties. As can be expected
from such a sweeping bill, testimony has varied both its subject matter (i.e.,
gubernatorial appointment, configuration of the State Board, term length, etc.)
and perspective on the issues. As of
this writing, it is unclear what the outcome of the Committee’s deliberation
will be. Government Operations is scheduled to meet with the House Education
Committee on Tuesday afternoon, the originators of the bill, and, later in the
week, to continue its hearings and discussion.
We expect to be able to report more definitively on the outcome of these
deliberations in our next Report.
For a detailed
description of H.440 as it passed the House Education Committee, see our Education Legislative Report
Issue 8.
H.46,
a bill that related to identification and management of concussions afflicting
school sports team athletes, has been amended and approved by the Senate
Education Committee. It is scheduled to
be considered on the Senate floor this week.
Sen. Sears, chair of the Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Mullin, chair of
the Education Committee, are jointly expected to offer an amendment to the bill
on the floor of the Senate.
H.46 is a bill that
would require K-12 school athletic team coaches to be trained in recognizing
the symptoms of concussions, and would require coaches to remove a student
athlete from any practice or game if the student has likely suffered a
concussion or head injury. The student
would have to be evaluated and cleared by a licensed healthcare provider prior
to returning to school-sponsored sports activities. The bill is only applicable to school-sponsored
athletic teams; non-school teams that use school property are excluded from the
requirements of H.46.
H.46 would also instruct
the Commissioner of Education, in consultation with the VPA, to develop concussion-symptom
training materials. Schools would be
responsible for distributing the materials to coaches, youth athletes, and
parents.
The Senate Education
Committee amended the bill to include chiropractors within the definition of
“licensed healthcare provider.” The
definition now can include physicians, advanced practice registered nurses,
physician’s assistants, athletic trainers, physical therapists, or
chiropractors as a class; individually, these professionals must also be
“trained in the evaluation and management of concussions and other head
injuries.”
The amendment to be
offered by Senators Sears and Mullin would amend the standard for when coaches
must remove an athlete from play.
Currently, H.46 says that a coach must act if he has “reason to believe”
the student suffered a concussion or head injury; the amendment would change
the standard to “clear and convincing evidence” that the student suffered a
concussion or head injury.
The VPA has testified in
support of the bill. Last fall, the VPA adopted
the major tenets of this legislation as policy, so H.46 would be codifying
rules that are already applicable to VPA member schools. However, H.46 would also be applicable to
many elementary and middle school teams that are not currently under the
jurisdiction of VPA athletic policies.
The House Education
Committee has been examining the Senate-passed version of S.100,
a bill making miscellaneous changes to education law. As of this writing, it is unclear what
precise form the bill will take, but it appears likely that S.100 will pass out
of the Committee in some form. In
particular, the Committee is hearing testimony on the dual enrollment provision
of S.100. In the bill, dual enrollment
is defined and a statement is made that Vermont should continue to “encourage
and support” dual enrollment opportunities.
The bill states that secondary schools would be required to accept
credit for students who successfully complete dual enrollment courses, but that
the nature and scope of these credits would be defined by each school.
The House Education
Committee is also in the midst of taking testimony on S.92,
the “green” cleaning bill for public schools and approved independent schools. The Senate-passed bill would require schools
to use only environmentally preferable cleaning products when they are
available (disinfectants and floor finishers being notable exceptions to the
requirements). The VSA and VPA are
scheduled to testify on the bill later this week; we expect to testify that we
are generally supportive of green cleaning practices but have a few procedural
comments regarding language in the bill.
H.73,
a bill that would make amendments to Vermont’s public records law, has passed
the House and is under consideration in the Senate Government Operations
Committee. We reported on the details of
the House-passed version of H.73 in our prior Education Legislative Report.
VSBA testified in
conjunction with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, and the two entities
made three suggested changes to the bill.
1) Allow local municipalities to continue charging the public for costs
associated with complying with public records requests after 30 minutes of
staff time (the current law standard), not two hours as proposed in the
bill. 2) Allow courts to continue to
decide whether municipalities must pay attorney’s fees after losing public
records-related suits (H.73 would mandate that municipalities always pay). 3) Allow for the mandate that each
municipality appoint a public records officer to become permissive (whether a
records officer is appointed or not, public records statutes will apply to all
municipalities).
Testimony on the bill is
ongoing; some advocates of government transparency believe the bill as written
does not go far enough. Look for an
update on any action the Committee might take in our next Report.
S.67, a bill that would
amend Vermont’s open meeting law, has passed the Senate and is currently under
consideration in the House Government Operations Committee. We described the bill in detail in our prior Education Legislative Report.
Testimony on the bill is ongoing and we will monitor and report on any
developments.
A number of
education-related bills that we have previously reported on have not seen
significant formal action since our last Report
but are under consideration in various committees and could be acted on during
these final weeks of the session. What
follows is a brief description of the location of these bills; however, inclusion
on this list should not be interpreted as indicating that the bill is likely or
unlikely to pass this year.
H.38 Accommodating Children of Active-duty
Military Personnel: Senate Education
Committee.
H.41 Mandatory 30-minute Work Break: Senate Economic Development, Housing, and
General Affairs Committee.
H.45 Exemptions from the Excess Spending
Threshold for Tuitioning School Districts: Senate
Finance Committee.
H.170 Obligations of Approved Independent
Schools: House Education Committee.
H.299 Repeal of the “Two-vote” School
Budget Provision: Senate Education
Committee.
H.412 Bullying and Harassment Off-campus: House Education Committee.
H.428 Delaying the Implementation Date for
Sections of Act 153 of 2010: Senate
Education Committee.
H.436 Miscellaneous Tax Bill: Senate Finance Committee.
H.446 Capital Bill: Senate Institutions Committee.
H.450 Immunity for Certain “Job
Performance” Disclosures: Senate Rules
Committee.
S.53 Prekindergarten ADM Cap Repeal: House Education Committee.
END