We have passed the half way point of the 2018 General
Assembly session. It has been an interesting month to say the least. I am sad to report that that the VEA initiated bill on Tax
Credits (HB624) and changes to the SOL Innovation Committee Voting (HB1501)
both died before crossover. Sadly our House bill requiring a school climate
survey (HB1119) died in the House Appropriations Committee unexpectedly on Friday.
It was looking like it was going to pass and we were going to get the funding
in the budget to make it happen, but the K-12 Appropriations Sub took it down.
We do still have the Senate version of that bill (SB456) that passed 38-0, but
it has been assigned to the Appropriations Committee in the House, so I fear it
is being sent there to die. All is not lost, as there may still be an
appropriation in the Senate budget for the survey and we can fight for that in
budget conference.
The House and Senate will announce their budgets on Sunday,
so we will know soon. We will also see what the House and Senate will do for
teacher salaries. We expect something in the first year, but we will have to
wait and see what they do and how they do it (I believe the House will look at using lottery revenues again, which is a terrible idea). We do have a cyber lobby alert out on increasing the At-Risk Add
On Funding in the budget. You can click this link to take action.
There are 4 main bills we are watching closely. Two are the
teacher licensure bills (HB1125/SB349). The VEA worked closely with the House
patron (with Delegate Bulova doing our work) to make that a good bill. The
Senate patron was not as willing to listen, but the bill isn’t terrible. Our
main worry of allowing a local superintendent to waive license requirements if
someone has “content knowledge” is no longer in either bill. That was our
focus, frankly. Below you can see a side-by-side of the two bills so you can see
the differences. The House bill puts a study component onto ABTEL (the BOE’s
Advisory Board on Teacher Education and Licensure) which is great. In case you
didn’t know, the VEA has about 8-10 members on ABTEL and I serve as the VA PTA
representative, so we have ABTEL stacked!!! These two bills will go to
conference and I believe the House version will be the vehicle, but I will keep
you updated.
The next bill that has gotten a lot of action and attention
is SB261, the librarian bill. There is a whole lot of confusion about this bill
and, from my perspective, it is getting more attention than any other bill
right now. In its original form, SB261 would add permissive language to the SOQ
staffing standard for school librarians. The current staffing standard requires
two librarians for each 1,000 students in a middle or high school. The original
bill would allow a school divisions to employ one librarian and one media
specialist, resource teacher, instructional coach, personalized learning, lab
facilitator, or content coordinator to satisfy the 2 for every 1,000 staffing
requirement. The VEA opposed this bill. The patron, Senator Sutterlein, didn’t
have the votes to get the bill off of the Senate floor, so he amended it to
move it along. The amended bill still offers permissive flexibility on the 2
librarian for each 1,000 students in middle and high schools, but only allows
for one librarian and either one media specialist or one resource teacher. The
VEA still opposes this bill. The VEA supports the staffing standards in the
SOQs and we know that when we offer flexibility to those standards, inequities
develop for our students. For some reason there is a rumor that the VEA
supports this bill. Please help me by sharing that we OPPOSE the bill. I have
written about it at length in the Daily Reports, but that doesn’t seem to be
getting the message out. This bill is on the Governor’s radar. His office is
getting bombarded with calls from folks who oppose this bill.
The other troubling bill is SB969. This bill puts into law
that every public school student must earn a verified credit in Social Studies
to graduate. This verified credit is earned ONLY by passing an end-of-course
SOL test. No division my use a performance based assessment (which is what the
Board of Education established in their revised Standards of Accreditation on
graduation requirements). The patron, Senator Steve Newman, did add some
flexibility for students who can’t pass an SOL (special education and ELL)
after he realized the issues with requiring the SOL as the only means to earn a
verified credit and to graduate from high school for these student populations.
What is very troubling in this bill is the overreach of the General Assembly to
1. Set graduation requirements and testing standards into law and 2. To
undermine the Board of Education’s authority to set the Standards of
Accreditation. Our concern isn’t about Social Studies, it is about the General
Assembly using their authority to write laws to override the BOE. The bill
passed the Senate overwhelmingly which really shows the power of Senator Newman
in the K-12 world. We are hoping to kill it in the House. This one is going to
take some work and some Republican friends to support our position. BTW all of
the education groups oppose this bill. It is also on the Governor’s radar.
Teacher
Licensure Comprehensive Bills - Comparison
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HB 1125 (Landes)
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SB 349 (Peake)
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|
Regulations
Governing Licensure:
·
Eliminates
initial license technology proficiency requirement and for those seeking
initial license or for any renewal eliminates PD in instructional methods to
support SOL achievement
·
Local
Superintendent may waive any applicable requirements in C or D new 2, 4, or 6
for person they seek to hire as a CTE teacher.
·
Increases
the on-line teacher license from 5 years to 10 years
·
Provisional
license grace period of one year to meet requirements in D new 1 (child abuse
recognition), new 3 (CPR), new 6 (dyslexia)
|
Regulations Governing Licensure:
·
Eliminates
initial license technology proficiency requirement and for those seeking
initial license or for any renewal eliminates PD in instructional methods to
support SOL achievement
·
Local
Superintendent may waive any applicable requirements in C or D new 2, 4, or 6
for person they seek to hire as a CTE teacher.
·
Allows
local superintendent to waive any requirements in C and D for a provisionally
licensed teacher and they are eligible for renewable 5-year license so long
as other requirements are met (no timeframes)
|
|
Reciprocity:
·
Full
Reciprocity - individuals must establish a file at VA DOE; no testing
requirements, no service requirements
|
Reciprocity:
·
Full
Reciprocity - individuals must establish a file at VA DOE; no testing
requirements, no service requirements
|
|
Alternative Routes to
Licensure:
·
Board
to establish alternative route for PK-6 and special ed general K-12. Must
complete all assessments, and alternative program certification as
established by the BOE
|
Alternative Routes to
Licensure:
·
Board
to establish alternative route for PK-6 and special ed general K-12. Must complete
all assessments, and alternative program certification as established by the
BOE
|
|
Licenses of teachers;
provisional licenses; exceptions:
·
Provisional
license extended for military deployed
·
Extension
of provisional license by the BOE for at least one year, but up to two so
long as certain requirements are met
|
Licenses of teachers; provisional
licenses; exceptions:
·
Provisional
license extended for military deployed
·
Extension
of provisional license by the BOE for at least one year, but up to two so
long as certain requirements are met
|
|
Waiver of Licensure CTE:
|
Waiver of Licensure CTE:
·
Increases
local superintendent waiver from 1 to 3 years
|
|
Regulations governing
education programs:
·
Establishes
a 4-year Bachelor’s degree teacher education program
|
Regulations governing education programs:
|
|
Career and technical
education; three-year licenses:
·
Issue
3-year license to those qualified to teach- increases from part-time to
full-time
·
Mentor
assigned increased from one year to two
|
Career and technical
education; three-year licenses:
·
Moves
hours of experience to a separate section, but maintains 4,000 hours of
recent or relevant work experience, but lowers the years from 4 to 2
·
Virginia
Communications and Literacy Assessment (VCLA) is optional
|
|
Renewable License Duration:
·
Increases
current 5-year renewable license to 10 years with a requirement of 360 Professional
Development (PD) points (which simply doubles the number to match the
doubling of length of license).
|
Renewable License Duration:
|
|
ABTEL Study/Report:
·
Adds
language tasking the Advisory Board on Teacher Education and Licensure (ABTEL)
to study multiple components of the relationship between teacher licensure
and teacher shortages and report to all by June 1, 2019.
|
ABTEL Study/Report:
|
