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On Friday night, following the writing of our Update, the House and
Senate continued to meet and took action on a few education-related
bills. The House adopted these education-related bills:
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HB 3129
– College credit. The bill would direct OSPI to compile and post on
its Web site information about online learning programs for high
school students to earn college credit. Additionally, high schools
would be required to parents, students, teachers, and counselors
have information about online learning programs, including the
opportunity to enroll in the Running Start program online.
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HB 3291
– Community schools. The bill would enact the Community Schools Act
of 2008, providing assistance and incentives for school districts to
use surplus facilities for coordinated services for children and
families, rather than to let the facilities sit unused — or be
forced to sell the property. OSPI would provide an enhancement to
the Area Cost Allowance for school districts that had a
comprehensive plan for cooperative partnerships that include the
joint use of school facilities for multiple qualified services for
the facility being proposed for state assistance.
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HB 2884
– Student discipline policies. This is the House’s version of the
so-called “handcuff bill.” The bill would establish rules related
to student discipline and the use of restraints in public K-12
schools. It would require school districts to have policies on the
use of mechanical, chemical and physical restraint of students with
the intent of limiting (if not eliminating) restraint of students.
Additionally, school districts would be required to annually report
incidents in which physical, mechanical, or chemical restraints were
used. Several amendments were introduced to try and make the bill
more palatable; however, the issue continues to be very emotional
for supporters and each amendment was summarily rejected. The Senate
version of the bill, SB 6418, remains on the Senate Floor Calendar
and could be acted upon at any time.
On Friday night, the Senate adopted the following bills of interest:
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SB 6743
and SB 6742 – Students with autism. SB 6743 would require
training policy guidelines to be created for schools to ensure
teachers responsible for children with autism are well prepared and
up-to-date on the most effective methods of teaching children with
autism. The Professional Educator Standards Board and OSPI would be
required to develop and submit recommendations for autism awareness
instruction to the Governor, the Legislature and school districts.
School districts would be required to use the guidelines to develop
and adopt district policies. SB 6743 would require OSPI to develop
guidelines for an autism specific supplement to be used in
conjunction with an IEP.OSPI would also be required to develop and
submit the recommendations for the guidelines to the Governor, the
Legislature and school districts. School districts would be required
to use the guidelines to develop local policies to address the needs
of students within its district.
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SB 6453
– Education records. Currently, in order to serve students who are
the subject of child dependency cases, school districts are required
to release the students’ educational records to the Department of
Social and Health Services (DSHS) upon request. This bill would
clarify that education records of students who are the subject of
child dependency cases must be transmitted to DSHS within two days
after receiving a request from DSHS.
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SB 6486
– Career and technical education. In 2007, the Legislature created
an advisory committee to identify career and technical education
curricula that will assist in preparing students to meet the state
standard on the WASL and achieve a Certificate of Academic
Achievement. The Committee was not to extend beyond December 15,
2008. This bill would extend the life of the Committee and require,
by December 2009, a report to the Governor and the Legislature on
the status of the Committee's original recommendations and any
additional recommendations the Committee finds necessary to
accomplish the goals of the initial report.
The House of Representatives worked until past midnight on Friday, so
its planned floor activities on Saturday and Sunday were cancelled.
The Senate worked, as scheduled, on Saturday; no education-related
bills were acted upon, however.
On Monday, the House and Senate continued to meet in their respective
chambers and behind-closed-doors in their respective political
caucuses. Both bodies continue to have lengthy Floor Calendars. At the
time this Update was being prepared, however, few education bills of
interest had been acted upon today. Both the House and Senate are
expected to work late tonight; we’ll report on any pertinent activity
in tomorrow’s Update. Earlier today, the Senate adopted SB 5100
and SB 6892. SB 5100, a bill from last session, would
originally have required public schools to ask whether students had
health insurance, and to provide information about health insurance
programs to parents and guardians of students for whom such coverage
was not indicated. The bill was amended on the floor of the Senate,
however, to turn the program into a pilot. If ultimately adopted — and
funded — six school districts would be selected to implement the
requirements of the previous bill. SB 6892, recommended by the Joint
Legislative Task Force on School Construction Funding, would modify
the current expenditure provisions for school district impact fees.
Currently, school impact fees must be expended or encumbered within
six years of receipt. SB 6892 would extend this deadline to ten years,
unless there exists an extraordinary or compelling reason for fees to
be held longer than ten years.
An mentioned earlier in this Update, numerous bills remain on the
House and Senate Floor Calendars, including many education-related
bills. One bill of interest — and concern — that remains on the House
Floor Calendar is HB 3292, which would require executive
sessions of local governing bodies to be recorded. When we last
reported on this bill (Thursday, Feb. 14 Update), 14 amendments had
been prepared for introduction if the bill is brought up for
discussion. Amendments continue to be prepared and, at last count, 19
amendments are “sitting on the bar” in the House ready to be
introduced. Our hope is that leadership in the House will determine
the bill is not worth the time and effort to go through at least 19
amendments, each with lengthy debate and potential recorded roll call
votes, and they’ll set the bill down and let it die a silent death.
Our concern is that House leaders — along with the Attorney General
and the State Auditor — continue to put pressure on members in the
House and they will be prepared to fight for this bill. If that is the
case, it is likely that HB 3292 will be the last bill acted upon when
Tuesday night’s 5:00 pm cut-off arrives. Any bill (excepting
budget-related bills) that has not passed out of its house of origin
by 5:00 pm tomorrow night will be considered dead. However, there is a
procedure to declare one bill (usually a controversial bill that will
garner lengthy debate) as the “5 o’clock bill,” allowing the debate on
that one bill to continue beyond the 5:00 pm deadline. We’ll continue
to keep you apprised. |
