Legislative Update for Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023
House Floor Action:
The following bills were finally read a third time today and passed the House. They now move to the Senate for consideration.
- HB 2607 – Clarify that vehicles with a capacity larger than 10 passengers may be used to transport students provided that no more than 10 passengers may be transported at one time
- HB 3376 – Relating to changing the term teacher in residence to clinical teacher of record
HB 3547 – Increasing the number of personal leave days that county board of education employees may use from 4 or 5.- HB 3548 – Relating to teacher duty-free lunch and daily planning periods, including:
A uniform method for notifying teachers of the duties at the school for which a teacher may voluntarily exchange his or her lunch recess to perform, and the process for volunteering to make the exchange; 2) A uniform prohibition on direct, in-person contact by administrators to request, coerce or order a teacher to exchange his or her lunch recess to perform the duties; (3) A uniform form for documenting the terms of the agreement between a teacher and the superintendent or his or her agent for the exchange of the teacher’s lunch recess to perform the duties; and (4) A uniform benefit for the exchange of the lunch recess by a teacher to perform the duties. Verbiage concerns in the bill originally passed from the education committee were amended to ensure the “shall” language was left intact.
- HB 3549 will prohibit regular classroom teachers and special education classroom teachers who are required to participate an individualized education program committee from also being required to prepare or reduce to writing the individualized education program plan unless no other professional educator with the knowledge is available.
Senate Education Committee
SB 422- Requiring public schools to publish curriculum online at beginning of each new school year. SB 422 states: (a) Each school shall ensure that adopted, up-to-date, classroom curriculum is posted on the school’s publicly accessible internet website at the beginning of each school year, or no later than 30 business days after new or revised curriculum is adopted: Provided, that if the public school has no publicly accessible website, the information shall be posted on the website of the appropriate county board of education. The bill advanced from the committee and moves to the Senate floor.
SB 688- Allowing BOE to hire retired teachers to assist with tutoring. This bill will allow county boards of education to contract with retired teachers to provide tutoring services in reading and math to support the need of one-on-one intervention for students. The bill advanced from the committee and moves to the Senate floor.
HB 2005- Establishing the dual enrollment pilot program to be administered by the Higher Education Policy Commission and the Council for Community and Technical College Education in conjunction with the State Board of Education. The bill advanced from the committee and moves to Senate Finance for consideration.
HB 3218- Relating to requiring suicide prevention resources be printed on student identification cards. The purpose of this bill is to require suicide prevention resources be printed on student identification cards at any school that issues identification cards for students in grades 6 to 12 in public schools and for students in a public or private institution of higher education. The bill advanced from the committee and moves to the Senate floor.
Senate Floor Action
Third Reading
Eng. Com. Sub. for Com. Sub. for SB 195 - Glucagon for Schools Act creates a program to permit prescriptions for undesignated glucagon in the name of a school district or school and allows a school to maintain a supply of undesignated glucagon to be administered by trained school personnel. The bill has passed the Senate and moves to the House for consideration.
Second Reading
Com Sub for SB 268 was on second reading today. This bill makes modifications to PEIA including coverage changes for employee spouses. AFT-WV and other AFL-CIO unions oppose this bill and are working together in hopes of stopping it. Union leaders have also expressed their shock and disappointment in numerous news articles at the lack of discussion the Senate Finance Committee gave to a bill that affects so many working West Virginians.