The House Public Education Committee called a formal meeting Friday to vote out the following bills, which will go to the full House for consideration:
- SB 68 (Zaffirini) would permit a school district to excuse a student who is a junior or senior in high school from school for a “career investigation day” that involves visiting a professional at their workplace for the purpose of determining the student’s interest in pursuing a career in the professional’s field. Districts would be required to adopt a policy to determine when an absence could be excused for this purpose and provide a procedure to verify the student’s visit at the workplace. Districts could only excuse up to two absences in the student’s junior year and two absences in the student’s senior year for this purpose. HB 131 (Murr) is identical.
- SB 798 (Middleton) would prohibit school counselor candidates from being required to have experience as a classroom teacher in order to qualify for certification.
- SB 2032 (Creighton) would allow entities to create adult charter schools like the Goodwill Excel Center pilot. It sets a limit of 10 charter schools that can be created (in addition to those existing) to serve this purpose. It was heard in the Senate Education Committee March 15.
- CSHB 2615 (Gates) would establish a new vocational education program in schools to provide public education to high school students whose educational needs are better served by tailored vocational education and training, and for whom a P-TECH program is not academically appropriate or would not provide adequate vocational opportunities. It was heard in committee April 20.
- HB 3127 (Ashby) relates to the study of school district property values conducted by the comptroller of public accounts.
- HB 4116 (Rogers) requires a school district or open-enrollment charter school to post information regarding parental rights on the district’s or school’s website.
- CSHB 4944 (Buckley) relates to public school cybersecurity controls and requirements and technical assistance and cybersecurity risk assessments for public schools provided by the Department of Information Resources.
