The West Virginia Legislature’s annual common legislative session ended Saturday night time.
Lawmakers thought of a number of training payments this yr, and solely the stroke of midnight revealed which of them had handed or failed. This is what occurred to some the Gazette-Mail had been following:
Handed, awaiting governor’s approval or veto
Senate Invoice 246: Water bottle filling stations — This may require water bottle filling stations in each new public college.
Colleges must have at the very least one filling station per 200 occupants, one per ground, one per wing, one per meals service space and “one close to gymnasiums and outside studying and exercise areas, together with playgrounds and athletic services.”
The filling stations must present filtered water and be touchless. They may very well be built-in into water fountains.
Additionally, if a faculty underwent a “main enchancment,” the invoice would require changing or retrofitting at the very least half of the water coolers — which cool water at consuming fountains — to accommodate bottle filling.
The invoice defines a “main enchancment” as growing sq. footage by greater than 5,000 sq. toes or renovations “with a value better than $500,000 the place plumbing work constitutes greater than 20% of the undertaking’s development value.”
The Home handed it 83-10 Friday with seven delegates absent. The Senate then accepted the Home’s modifications Saturday, and handed it 33-0 with Sen. Robert Plymale, R-Wayne, absent.
Senate Invoice 268: ‘Microschools’ and ‘studying pods’ — This may put into regulation “microschools” and “studying pods” of limitless measurement.
These can be sparsely regulated colleges or teams of scholars that would mix ideas from homeschooling, non-public education and on-line education.
A studying pod can be outlined as “a voluntary affiliation of oldsters selecting to group their kids collectively” for a prekindergarten-Twelfth grade college as a substitute for different education.
A microschool can be outlined as “a faculty initiated by a number of academics or an entity created to function a faculty that fees tuition.”
Public {dollars} will have the ability to go towards these pods and microschools if the 2021 personal college vouchers regulation survives a present authorized problem.
The vouchers program, referred to as the Hope Scholarship, supplies households public cash for each little one they take away from public colleges. Households can then use this cash on a virtually limitless vary of public college alternate options, together with conventional non-public education, conventional homeschooling, on-line education and these pods or microschools.
The Home handed the invoice 56-41 Friday with three delegates absent, after the Home earlier eliminated the Senate’s 100-student enrollment cap for every pod or microschool. The Senate accepted that change minutes earlier than the tip of the session Saturday, and handed the invoice 20-12.
All 9 current Democrats voted no, joined by Republican Sens. Eric Nelson, R-Kanawha; Charles Trump, R-Morgan; and Ryan Weld, R-Brooke.
Home Invoice 4600: Particular protections for teenagers with disabilities — This may set up particular penalties for mistreating kids with psychological or bodily disabilities; failing to report mistreatment of a kid with disabilities; impeding somebody from reporting such mistreatment; or retaliating towards somebody who experiences such mistreatment.
It will additionally require the state departments of Schooling and Well being and Human Assets to finish a number of research, together with one on a doable “program for public colleges and authorities operated packages” permitting mother and father to remotely view school rooms and different areas the place kids with disabilities are taught, housed or cared for. It will additionally create a database figuring out “college workers who’re below lively investigation for misconduct in direction of kids.”
The Senate handed this considerably amended model 33-0 Saturday, with Sen. Robert Plymale, D-Wayne, absent. The Home then handed it 97-0, with three delegates absent.
Home Invoice 4642: Contracts benefiting county officers — This may permit county commissioners, county officers, county college system leaders, principals and academics to have monetary pursuits in items or provides contracts they might affect or management.
Present regulation bans the next public officers and workers from having direct or oblique monetary pursuits in contracts they “might have any voice, affect or management” over: county commissioners, county officers, county board of training members, members of some other county or district boards, colleges superintendents, “district college officers,” principals and academics.
The Home’s authentic model of the invoice would have made that authorized if the contract was for “items or provides when the contract has been put out for aggressive bid and the contract is awarded based mostly upon lowest value.”
The Senate added a requirement that workers should have a written advisory opinion from the state Ethics Fee giving the OK. Additionally, the Senate required those that are “in a voting or different decision-making place as to the contract” to recuse themselves from voting or decision-making.
The Senate handed its amended model 33-0 Saturday, with solely Sen. Robert Plymale, D-Wayne, absent. The Home then accepted the Senate modifications, and handed the invoice 73-20, with seven delegates absent.
Died
Home Joint Decision 106: Partisan college board elections — This may have allowed county board of training candidates to position their political social gathering, if any, on the poll.
Presently, native college board races are nonpartisan.
The Home Schooling Committee handed this, however the Home Judiciary Committee by no means took it up. It was a proposed state constitutional modification, so voters would have nonetheless needed to approve it on a poll if it handed the Legislature.
Senate Invoice 493: Requiring college boards to livestream — This may have required county boards of training to broadcast their conferences stay on-line and archive these movies for the general public.
It additionally would have barred these college boards from having online-only or teleconference-only conferences. In-person attendance must be allowed.
Whereas governing our bodies like college boards are required to maintain information of actions at their conferences, these typed “minutes” could be bare-bones. They’ll omit displays, deliberation and dialogue that an archived video would offer.
The Senate put the video archiving requirement again into the invoice, after the Home eliminated it, after which handed the invoice again to the Home 31-0 Saturday. Sens. Bob Seaside, D-Monongalia; Robert Plymale, D-Wayne; and Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, have been absent.
The Home by no means took up or handed that model of the invoice.
Senate Invoice 586: Highschool athlete switch — This may have allowed a one-time college switch for highschool college students with out a yr of athletic ineligibility.
There’s presently already a course of the place college students can enchantment to the West Virginia Secondary Faculty Actions Fee for speedy eligibility.
The Senate handed this 31-3 Feb. 23, with Senate Majority Chief Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier; Sen. Mike Caputo, D-Marion; and Sen. Mike Romano, D-Harrison, voting no.
However the Home Schooling Committee by no means took it up. The Senate then shoved the provisions of the invoice into one other invoice, however the Home refused to simply accept that on a 71-26 vote, with three delegates absent.
Senate Invoice 645: Licensing particular training non-public colleges — This may have established a course of for the state Division of Schooling to license non-public colleges for youngsters with autism or disabilities.
Amongst different issues, it will have made it a misdemeanor offense to open or function such colleges with out a license from the state colleges superintendent.
However the invoice stated the state couldn’t be held legally responsible for these non-public colleges or their workers.
A lobbyist for New York-based Gersh Autism, which is looking for to open an autism boarding college on the positioning of the previous Sugar Grove U.S. Navy base in Pendleton County, requested the invoice. The lobbyist, Mark Drennan, stated the corporate needed a “stamp of approval on our particular ed program, in order that different states would really feel comfy sending their kids.”
The Senate handed it March 2, with Senate Minority Chief Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier, the one no vote. Sen. David Stover, R-Wyoming, was absent.
The Home by no means took it up.
Senate Invoice 653: Transferring Pierpont program to Fairmont — This initially would have made Pierpont Neighborhood and Technical Faculty a part of Fairmont State College, however the Home amended it to only switch one Pierpont program to Fairmont State.
Those that testified to delegates stated Pierpont’s Aviation Upkeep Know-how program is in a Fairmont State constructing and is presently required to relocate — similar to different Pierpont packages should depart Fairmont State services below a previous settlement.
However that individual relocation would trigger points with Federal Aviation Administration certification, stated Thomas O’Neill, govt director of the West Virginia Aerospace Alliance business group.
The Home handed its amended model 90-3 Saturday, with seven delegates absent. The three no votes have been from Delegates Jason Barrett, R-Berkeley; Ty Nestor, R-Randolph; and Tony Paynter, R-Wyoming.
The Senate by no means took up or handed that model of the invoice.
Home Invoice 2364: Armed educators — This may have let academics and principals convey hid weapons into public colleges, if their county board of training accepted it — or if the state Homeland Safety secretary overruled the varsity board.
These armed educators, referred to as “college safety officers,” would have been required to undergo a coaching program designed by the state Division of Homeland Safety. That coaching would have included “use of drive” coaching. This system would have been just like that for “prevention useful resource officers,” or PROs. These are law enforcement officials who work in colleges.
Moreover, these educators would have needed to take a minimal 8-hour, in-person “lively shooter coaching program that features tactical firearms abilities, and weapon {qualifications} to be developed and supplied by” their county sheriff’s workplace.
The educator additionally would have been required to qualify on a variety with the gun they deliberate to hold, plus have a West Virginia concealed-carry allow.
The faculties the place these educators are positioned and their names would have been hidden from public information requests.
The Home Schooling Committee superior this, however the Home Judiciary Committee by no means took it up.
Home Invoice 4011: Required posting of race curricula — This may have required public and constitution colleges to put up on-line all curricula or worker coaching supplies regarding “nondiscrimination, variety, fairness, inclusion, race, ethnicity, intercourse, or bias, or any mixture of those ideas with different ideas.”
It additionally would have prohibited colleges from, amongst different issues, requiring or compelling college students or workers to affirm that “a person, by advantage of his or her race, intercourse, ethnicity, faith, or nationwide origin needs to be blamed for actions dedicated prior to now by different members of the identical race, intercourse, ethnicity, faith, or nationwide origin.”
The Home Schooling Committee superior this, however the Home Judiciary Committee by no means did. The Legislature did move at the very least one different, narrower invoice in regards to the “important race concept” controversy.
Home Invoice 4071: Banning public college masks mandates — This may have ended face masks necessities in public colleges.
It will have additionally banned these colleges from requiring COVID-19 testing of scholars or workers who are usually not displaying signs, and banned colleges from requiring them to quarantine with out a optimistic take a look at consequence.
This invoice, dubbed “the Public Faculty Well being Rights Act,” handed the Home 80-16 March 1, with solely Democrats voting no.
4 Republicans have been absent, and 6 Democrats voted with the GOP: Jim Barach, D-Kanawha; Brent Boggs, D-Braxton; Nathan Brown, D-Mingo; Phillip Diserio, D-Brooke; Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio; and Kayla Younger, D-Kanawha.
The Senate Schooling Committee then superior it, however the Senate Judiciary Committee by no means took it up.
Home Invoice 4467: Including assist to early grade school rooms — This may have added “early childhood classroom assistant academics” to 300 first-grade public college school rooms for a three-year pilot program.
Home Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, referred to as it his “prime private precedence.”
The Home handed it 90-3 March 2, with seven delegates absent. The three no votes have been from Delegates Geoff Foster, R-Putnam; Joe Jeffries, R-Putnam; and Shannon Kimes, R-Wooden.
The Senate Schooling Committee superior it, however the Senate Finance Committee by no means took it up. That was regardless of the Home decreasing the price of Hanshaw’s launched model from an estimated $60.2 million yearly to $12.5 million yearly, by solely including the 300 new workers as an alternative of the initially proposed 1,600 to each first- and second-grade school rooms.