2009 General Assembly
Approved Legislation
FINANCE
HB 2269 (Poindexter) requires the annual report of expenditures provided by the school board to the local governing body to also be made available to the public.
SB 1285 (Newman) requires local governing bodies and school divisions to publish the estimated required local match in the school budget.
GOVERNANCE and OPERATIONS
HB 1844 (Lingamfelter) makes several changes to the existing charter school statutes, including removing the cap on the maximum number of charter schools that can be established in a school division.
HB 1923 (Tata) allows local school boards to assess a reasonable fee or charge for the loss of or damage to a textbook, so long as such textbook has been provided to the student free of charge.
HB 1942 (Peace) provides that school boards may establish a single-sex class or school in the school division; participation must be voluntary and the school division must provide a substantially equal coeducational school or class.
HB 2070 (E.T. Scott) requires local school board policies that allow a parent of twins (or higher order multiples) in the same grade level to request, within the first three days of the school year, that their children be placed in the same classroom or in separate classrooms if they are at the same elementary school.
HB 2166 (Lohr) delays for one year, the implementation of new requirements related to the accreditation of schools, passing rates and graduation.
HB 2474 (Hugo) requires school boards to ensure that all elementary school teachers are provided an average of 30 minutes/day of planning time.
HB 2589 (Englin) requires school divisions, for the 2009-10 school year, to administer a locally-developed or selected Limited English Proficiency assessment mandated for students pursuant to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, as long as such assessment has been approved by the Board of Education.
INSTRUCTION
HB 1746 (Pogge) and SB 827 (Smith) broaden the topics to be covered by the family life education curriculum to include instruction on the benefits, challenges, responsibilities and value of marriage for men, women, children and communities.
HB 1980 (McClellan) requires local school boards to distribute a summary of the family life education curriculum to the parents or guardians of students participating in the program. The summary shall include notice of parental right to review the family life education program and to excuse their child from all or part of family life education instruction.
HB 2112 (Spruill) directs local school boards to establish educational objectives in financial literacy for middle and high school grades.
HB 2619 (Barlow) provides that course credits earned for online courses taken in the Department of Education's Virtual Virginia program will transfer to Virginia public schools.
PERSONELL
HB 2089 (Fralin) provides that the grievance procedure prescribed by the Board of Education, except in the case of dismissal, suspension, or other disciplinary action, shall apply to all full-time employees of a school board, except supervisory employees.
HB 2224 (Knight) requires the Advisory Board on Teacher Education and Licensure, in consultation with the Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired, to make recommendations regarding the certification of Braille instructors.
SB 919 (Reynolds) extends the July 1, 2010, sunset date to July 1, 2015, for provisions allowing retirees to be hired as teachers or administrative personnel without interruption of retirement benefits.
STUDENTS
HB 1624 (Englin) directs the Board of Education to include in its guidelines and model policies for codes of student conduct standards, provisions that address the use of electronic means for purposes of bullying, harassment and intimidation.
HB 1794 (Brink) provides that the sufficient cause necessary to suspend a student cannot rest solely on instances of truancy.
HB 1945 (Peace) provides that a school division may, with proper notice to the student and parents, administratively assign a student to a regional alternative education program if space is available, or a parent may request it with the consent of the school division superintendent.
HB 2341 (Amundson) provides that a school board may adopt regulations authorizing a principal to impose a short-term suspension, when a student has been charged with an offense involving intentional injury to another student in the same school, pending a decision about the offending student attending an alternative education program. It also provides that a school board may require a student charged with certain juvenile offenses to attend an alternative education program.
HB 2513 (Marsden) adds "act of violence by a mob" to the listing of offenses to be reported by a juvenile intake officer to a school superintendent when a petition is filed alleging a student committed such an offense.
SB 1218 (Obenshain) requires the Director of the Department of Juvenile Justice to notify school division superintendents of juveniles to be enrolled upon release from a juvenile facility, if the director believes the release will pose a credible danger of serious bodily injury or death to students, school personnel or others on school property. The bill also allows school superintendents to disclose this information to principals to ensure physical safety of the juvenile, other students or school personnel within the division.
MISCELLANEOUS
HB 1679 (Orrock) provides that the Department of Social Services maintain a database of central child abuse and neglect registries in other states that provide access to out-of-state school boards (took effect February 25, 2009).
HB 1727 (Cole) establishes the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children to remove barriers to educational success imposed on children of military families because of frequent moves and deployment of their parents.
HB 1767 (Dance) adds veterans of the Vietnam War to the list of veterans of the United States Armed Services eligible to receive an honorary high school diploma. Currently, only veterans of World War II and the Korean War are eligible for such diplomas.
HB 1826 (Fralin) allows courts to suspend the driver's license of any minor who has 10 or more unexcused absences from public school on consecutive school days.
HB 1836 (Toscano) directs the Department of Education to provide information to school boards on integrated pest management programs. School boards will be required to maintain documentation of any pesticide application. The bill also directs the Virginia Cooperative Extension to develop guidelines for integrated pest management.
HB 2132 (J.H. Miller) allows a locality, in cooperation with its local school division, to offer residential housing assistance grants and to enter into public-private partnerships and other arrangements to provide affordable workforce housing alternatives to school division personnel.
HB 2304 (Griffith) provides that any party aggrieved by a decision made in a due process hearing may appeal to a circuit court for a period of 180 days.
HB 2406 (Bulova) expands the types of school records that may be admissible in cases involving custody of the student or termination of parental rights to all school records, provided that they are authenticated as true and accurate copies.
HB 2409 (Hall) requires i) the Department of Education to select and distribute a
teachers manual emphasizing the causes and ramifications of the Holocaust and genocide, and ii) each local school division to provide the grade-appropriate portions of the manual to history and literature teachers
HB 2426 (May) and SB 1318 (Houck) extend from July 1, 2009, to July 1, 2010, the implementation of the prohibition on collecting an individual's social security number unless (i) authorized or required by state or federal law, and (ii) essential for the performance of an agency's duties.
HB 2517 (Lohr) directs the Board of Education, in prescribing Standards of Learning assessments, to provide the option of industry certification and state licensure examinations in lieu of administering tests to assess student progress.
HB 2537 (Toscano) provides definitions of "parent" for the purposes of special education identification, evaluation, and placement, to include biological, adoptive and foster parents, as well as guardians, of a child.
SB 1453 (Peterson) moves the Commission on Civics Education to the legislative branch and gives the Commission fund-raising authority.
STUDIES and RESOLUTIONS
HJR 651 (Cosgrove) requests local school divisions to consider launching a Project Lead the Way program in their high schools.
HJR 652 (Cosgrove) requests local school divisions to consider using existing intervention, remediation and at-risk funding to hire K-8 Mathematics Specialists as an effective means to improve the performance of low-achieving students.
HJR 678 (Tata) requests the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and the Virginia Community College System to study the shortage of classroom teachers in Virginia.
HJR 775 (Tata) and SJR 385 (Houck) commend homeschoolers in Virginia on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of homeschooling in the state.
HJR 816 (Brink) commends the Arlington County Public Schools on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of public school desegregation in Virginia and recognizes the state’s public schools for their dedication to providing the highest quality education for all Virginia students.
SJR 392 (Whipple) designates the week of the first Sunday in March, in 2009, and in each succeeding year, as National School Breakfast Week in Virginia.
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