The House Public Education Committee will meet at 8 a.m., Tuesday, March 14, on the following bills:
- HB 579 (Burns) relates to procedures for the alternative assessment of certain public school students who receive special education services and alternative accountability plans for certain campuses serving students who receive special education services.
- HB 890 (Keith Bell) relates to school district hearings regarding complaints.
- HB 920 (Klick) would make a variety of changes to the law governing administration of medications for respiratory distress on public and private school campuses.
- HB 1002 (Price) relates to the membership of a public school concussion oversight team and the removal of a public school student from an interscholastic athletic activity on the basis of a suspected concussion.
- HB 1067 (VanDeaver) relates to the detachment and annexation of school district territory by petition.
- HB 1212 (Jetton, et al.) relates to verification of excused absences from public school for the purpose of observing religious holy days.
- HB 1225 (Metcalf) relates to the administration of certain required assessment instruments in paper format.
- HB 1297 (Dutton) would require that students be screened using an electronic eye chart as a substitute for a printed eye chart to assess visual acuity. Currently, vision screening in public and private schools must be done using photo screening to detect vision disorders.
- HB 1416 (Keith Bell) makes changes to the laws governing accelerated instruction and supplemental instruction for students who do not perform satisfactorily on certain assessments. The bill strikes the requirement that school districts establish accelerated learning committees for each student who does not perform satisfactorily on reading or mathematics assessments in 3rd, fifth, or eighth grades. Instead, students who fail to perform satisfactorily on either assessments that test essential knowledge and skills, or on end-of-course assessments are to be provided accelerated instruction in the applicable subject area during the following summer or school year. See a full summary by searching for HB 1416 on TASA’s Bill Tracker.
- HB 1789 (Buckley) relates to the application of nepotism prohibitions to a person appointed or employed by a school district as a bus driver. Currently, school districts (with a few exceptions for sparsely populated areas) are not permitted to employ an individual as a bus driver who is related to the public official responsible for hiring. This would permit school districts to hire these individuals so long as the board of trustees of the school district approves the appointment and/or employment.
- HB 1883 (Bhojani, et al.) relates to the administration of assessment instruments on religious holy days.
- HB 1955 (Buckley) relates to establishing residency for purposes of admission into public schools. Currently, families who are members of the armed forces (including state military forces or the reserves) are permitted to establish residency by providing a copy of a military order requiring the parent or guardian’s transfer to a military installation in or adjacent to the district’s attendance zone. Proof is required to be provided no later than 10 days after the arrival. HB 1955 would change that timeline to permit proof of residence to be provided to the school district no later than 90 days after the arrival date.
Public testimony will be limited to three minutes.
