Week of May 23, 2022

House activity
The House unanimously passed House Bill (HB) 554. The bill would require the State Board of Education to issue two-year temporary educator licenses to applicants with expired professional teacher's certificates and professional educator licenses as long as certain requirements are met.

The House passed HB 606 by a 93-1 vote. The bill would require public and chartered nonpublic schools to create an individualized seizure action plan for each enrolled student who has an active seizure disorder diagnosis. The bill also would require each school to have at least one employee trained in implementing seizure action plans and would require students to receive age-appropriate instruction on seizure disorders.

Senate activity
The Senate passed HB 583 by a 24-6 vote, returning the bill to the House for a concurrence vote. The bill would extend the current temporary flexibility for school districts regarding the educational requirements of substitute teachers until June 30, 2024, among the following additional provisions:

• includes Senate Bill (SB) 306, which would establish a voluntary tutoring and remedial instruction program that public schools and chartered nonpublic schools could choose to participate in by notifying the coordinating educational service center;
• establishes a study committee to examine the substitute teacher shortage;
• makes technical corrections to the school-funding formula that was implemented in HB 110;
• makes a technical correction to SB 166 to allow the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) to request personally identifiable student information from a school district to award a tax credit to an employer who provides work-based learning experiences to career-technical education students;
• delays until the 2023-24 school year the screening of all students in grades K-three and serving students identified as having dyslexia or dyslexic tendencies but allows districts to start screening students earlier;
• specifies that art, music and physical education teachers are not required to receive professional development in dyslexia intervention but authorizes school districts to require their employees to go through additional professional development if so desired;
• designates the 18-hour required professional development for K-three teachers and four-12 intervention specialists as “training” instead of a “course”;
• removes the word “multi-sensory” from the term “structured literacy program”;
• clarifies that districts must only comply with provisions in the Dyslexia Guidebook that are statutorily required;
• allows for unexpended funds in Educational Savings Accounts set up by parents through a $125 million appropriation of federal funds in HB 110 to roll over from fiscal year 2022-23, and remain in those parents’ accounts until expended or until the student has graduated;
• eliminates the proration of scholarships and income caps awarded under the EdChoice expansion program and qualifies siblings to receive the scholarship for the same school;
• prohibits the State Board from limiting the subject areas for which an individual may receive an alternative resident educator license;
• allows students who reside in the Cleveland Municipal School District to attend St. Thomas More School using the Cleveland Scholarship Program;
• prohibits ODE from assigning an overall rating of ineffective or lower to a community school sponsor solely because the sponsor received a zero on any of the three components on the sponsor evaluation;
• requires that a community school first designated as a Community School of Quality in the 2019-20 school year maintain that designation for the 2022-23 school year and permits the school to renew the designation for subsequent school years;
• provides state funding for certain community schools;
• creates a safe harbor for the 2021-22 school year from penalties and sanctions for community school sponsors;
• requires ODE to compile a list of tutoring programs that it determines to be of high quality through use of a request for qualifications;
• permits community schools, otherwise subject to Section 3314.034 of the Ohio Revised Code, to enter into a contract with a new sponsor without first having to get approval from ODE; and
• designates the month of October as Ohio School Safety Month.

Click here to read the bill analysis and click here to read the fiscal note.

House Primary and Secondary Education Committee
The committee held a second hearing on HB 529, sponsored by Reps. Brett Hudson Hillyer (R-Uhrichsville) and Bill Roemer (R-Richfield), which would require public and nonpublic schools to post on a publicly accessible website course curricula, including a course syllabus that includes a list of all instructional materials, activities and textbooks; a written summary; and state academic standards. The bill also would require public colleges to post on a publicly accessible website course curricula for each course a secondary student who participates in the College Credit Plus program is enrolled. Testifying as proponents of the bill were:

• Thomas Hach, board member, Riverside Local (Lake);
• Amy Kissinger, board member, Cambridge City.

The committee passed HB 497, which would modify the English language arts assessment to be administered once in the third grade and to eliminate retention under the Third Grade Reading Guarantee.

The committee amended and passed HB 151, which would revise the Ohio Resident Educator Program. The bill also allows mentoring to occur online or in person and would make changes to the performance-based assessment. The amendment requires ODE to provide online professional development resources; requires program participants who choose to meet with instructional coaches to select a coach from an online pool of trained, ODE-approved instructional coaches; removes a duplicative requirement regarding professional development; and changes the submission window for the Resident Educator Summative Assessment, among other changes.

Finally, the committee amended and passed HB 492, which would require school athletic coaches to complete mental health training each time they apply for or renew a pupil-activity program permit and provide evidence of completed training to the State Board. The amendment removes the requirement that the student mental health training be certified but maintains the requirement that the training be approved by ODE.

House Finance Committee
The committee heard testimony from Office of Budget and Management (OBM) Director Kimberly Murnieks on HB 687, which makes capital appropriations for fiscal years 2023 and 2024, including $607 million for the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC).

Senate Finance Committee
The committee heard testimony from OBM Director Murnieks on SB 343, sponsored by Sen. Matt Dolan (R-Chagrin Falls), which makes capital appropriations for fiscal years 2023 and 2024, including $607 million for OFCC.

House Ways and Means Committee
The committee held a third hearing on HB 234, which would repeal the commercial activity tax with a five-year phase out.

The committee held a second hearing on HB 614, sponsored by Rep. Sarah Fowler Arthur (R-Ashtabula), which would allow property used for commercial timber production to receive the 10% nonbusiness property tax rollback.

The committee held sponsor testimony on HB 677, sponsored by Rep. Tom Young (R-Washington Township), which would require the county auditor to send each taxpayer certain minimum information about a levy that proposes a property tax or income tax, by either electronic means or mail, and requires the entity proposing the levy to reimburse the auditor for the notice expenses.

House Agriculture and Conservation Committee
The committee held sponsor testimony on HB 592, sponsored by Rep. Paula Hicks-Hudson (D-Toledo), which would establish the Urban Farmer Youth Initiative Pilot Program to provide relevant programming and support with regard to farming and agriculture for students ages six-18 who live in an urban area and to appropriate $250,000 each in fiscal years 2022 and 2023 to support the program.

House Public Utilities Committee
The committee amended HB 450, which would allow for the development of community solar projects. Click here to read a comparative analysis of the bill changes.

Senate Workforce and Higher Education Committee
The committee amended and passed SB 131, which would require an occupational licensing authority to issue a license or government certification to an applicant who holds a license, government certification or private certification or has satisfactory work experience in another state under certain circumstances. The amendment moved the effective date, provides a person seeking a license through an already preapproved licensure compact to use the compact method, clarifies language regarding licensure requirements that impact federal funds and makes several technical corrections.

House Civil Justice Committee
The committee held a sixth hearing on HB 508, which would revise the allocation of parental rights and responsibilities to grant equal time and responsibility for a child.

House Families, Aging and Human Services Committee
The committee held a third hearing on HB 454, which would prohibit certain procedures to alter a minor child’s sex. The bill also would prohibit all school personnel from encouraging or coercing a student to withhold from his or her parent the fact that the minor’s perception of his or her gender is inconsistent with his or her sex and prohibit all school personnel from withholding information related to the minor’s perception of his or her gender if inconsistent with his or her sex. Additionally, the bill would designate this act as the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act.

House Insurance Committee
The committee held sponsor testimony on HB 540, sponsored by Reps. Brigid Kelly (D-Cincinnati) and Haraz N. Ghanbari (R-Perrysburg), which would require the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) and the School Employees Retirement System (SERS), among others, to disclose certain financial information regarding alternative investments.

The committee held sponsor testimony on HB 541, sponsored by Kelly and Ghanbari, which would prohibit STRS the SERS, among others, from doing business with a former state retirement system employee, officer or board member.

Ohio Department of Education
ODE has the following proposed rules open for public comment:

• OAC 3301-69-02 Excuses from school attendance.
• OAC 3301-51-11 Preschool children eligible for special education.

Click here to view the rules open for public comment.