Major bill update

The bills below, with a couple of exceptions, are still making their way through the legislative process, but that doesn't mean they will all become law.

Noteworthy deadlines:

A House bill returning from the Senate with Senate amendments must be taken up by midnight today (Friday). The House can either accept the Senate amendments or reject them; typically the latter would result in the appointment of a conference committee to resolve the House/Senate differences.

A conference committee report (agreed-upon bill) must be taken up in the House by midnight Sunday.

We will be providing more details about the education bills that survived the session in an upcoming eUpdate.

• HB 1, state budget: agreement has been negotiated, awaiting final vote from both House and Senate.
• HB 3, school safety: in conference committee
• HB 11, teacher bill including recommendations from the Teacher Vacancy Task force such as expansion of the Teacher Incentive Allotment: died in Senate.
• HB 63, prohibiting anonymous child abuse reports: sent to governor
• HB 100, currently includes modest teacher pay raise via restructured minimum salary schedule and requirement that districts spend 50% of new funding on teacher raises; plus ESA/voucher plan: heading to conference committee
• HB 900, regulation of materials containing sexual content in school libraries: headed to governor
• HB 1416, providing relief from some of the requirements of last session’s HB 4545 regarding supplemental instruction for struggling students: sent to governor
• HB 1605, incentivizing the use of “high quality instructional materials” including pre-written lesson plans: headed to governor
• HJR 2, constitutional amendment for voters to approve limitations on future TRS benefit increases and authorizing $3.3 billion to fund a cost-of-living adjustment (more details are included in separate legislation, SB 10): headed to governor
• SB 10, TRS benefit increase details: in conference committee
• SB 763, allowing districts to employ, or accept as volunteers, chaplains to provide support, services and programs: headed to governor
• SB 798, removing the requirement that school counselors have teaching experience: sent to governor
• SB 1515, requiring that classrooms display a poster of the Ten Commandments, if such posters were donated to the school: died in House (not taken up before a key deadline Tuesday)