General Assembly activity
The General Assembly sent the following bills to Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature:

  • House Bill (HB) 583 — 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;
    • 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;
    • makes other changes that can be viewed in last week’s update.
       
  • HB 99 — The bill would expressly state that its intent is to overrule the decision of the Ohio Supreme Court in Gabbard v. Madison Local School Dist. Bd. Of Edn. Earlier in the week, the bill was amended in the Senate Veterans and Public Safety Committee to incorporate provisions of Senate Bill (SB) 168. Shaker Heights City provided opponent testimony. HB 99 now would do the following:
    • establishes the Ohio Mobile Training Team;
    • creates the Ohio School Safety and Crisis Center (Center) within the Ohio Department of Public Safety to be operated by the Ohio Mobile Training Team;
    • requires the Mobile Training Team to develop curriculum and provide instruction and training, including firearms training, that individuals may complete to be permitted to convey deadly weapons or dangerous ordnance into a school safety zone;
    • permits a school district board to adopt alternate curriculum, instruction and training, with Center approval, that individuals may complete to be permitted to convey deadly weapons or dangerous ordnance into a school safety zone;
    • requires each school district to provide to the center a current list of the qualified personnel authorized to convey deadly weapons or dangerous ordnance into a school safety zone who have completed training through the center or an alternate training adopted by the district;
    • requires the director of public safety to appoint a chief mobile training officer and appoint 16 regional mobile training officers that provide services regarding school and campus safety and security to primary and secondary schools;
    • requires a person a school board authorizes to have weapons in such a zone to successfully complete no more than 24 hours of initial training established under the bill, or the person has received a certificate of satisfactory completion of an approved basic peace officer training program or is a law enforcement officer;
    • requires a person a school board authorizes to complete no more than eight hours of annual requalification training;
    • allows school boards to require additional training to those authorized;
    • requires a school board that authorizes a person to require that person to submit to an annual criminal records check;
    • requires the school board to notify the public in a specified manner that the board has authorized one or more persons to go armed within a school it operates.
       
  • HB 140 — The bill would modify the form of election notices and ballot language for property tax levies. The Senate Ways and Means Committee held a hearing in which OSBA and others jointly provided opponent testimony. Click here to the read testimony. Testifying in opposition to the bill were:
  • HB 687 — The bill makes capital appropriations for fiscal years 2023 and 2024, including $600 million for Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC) and $100 million of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds for school safety grants, among other provisions. Click here to read the fiscal analysis.

House activity
The House passed HB 497 by an 80-10 vote. The bill would modify the English language arts assessment to be administered once in the third grade and eliminate retention under the Third Grade Reading Guarantee.

The House passed HB 151 by a 56-28 vote. The bill would revise the Ohio Resident Educator Program (RESA) to allow mentoring to occur online or in person and prohibits the State Board of Education from limiting the number of attempts participants must successfully complete the RESA. The bill also requires districts to provide one day of professional development leave for classroom teachers each year to observe a veteran teacher. The bill was amended on the House floor to include provisions of HB 61, which would enact the Save Women’s Sports Act to require schools and public and private colleges to designate separate single-sex teams and sports for each sex.

The House passed HB 492 by a 50-35 vote. The bill 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 House passed HB 501 by an 86-2 vote. The bill would extend to townships the use of the municipal tax increment financing laws and allow townships to create a redevelopment tax increment equivalent fund for payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT), both of which may have an impact on school district local revenue.

The House also unanimously passed HB 578, which would create the Revere Local (Summit) Schools license plate and make an appropriation on revenues received from the purchase of the license plate. Additionally, the bill creates the Stephen T. Badin High School license plate and would make a similar appropriation.

Finally, the House passed HB 203 by a 54-33 vote. The bill 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.

Senate activity
The Senate unanimously passed SB 131. The bill 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. Additionally, the bill clarifies that a person seeking a license through an already preapproved licensure compact to use the compact method.

Senate Finance Committee
The committee amended SB 343, sponsored by Sen. Matt Dolan (R-Chagrin Falls), which makes capital appropriations for fiscal years 2023 and 2024, including $600 million for OFCC. The amendment includes $100 million of ARPA funds for school safety grants, among other changes. Click here to read the fiscal analysis.

House State and Local Government Committee
The committee held sponsor testimony on HB 616, sponsored by Reps. Mike Loychik (R-Bazetta) and Jean Schmidt (R-Miami Township), which would prohibit a board of education from teaching certain divisive or inherently racist concepts in public schools and would prohibit a board of education from training or administering professional development to employees that promote or endorse divisive or inherently racist concepts. The bill also would prohibit K-three students from being provided any instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity and prohibits four-12 students from being provided any instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in any manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate in accordance with state standards. Finally, the bill would allow complaints to be filed with the State Board and allow the withholding of funding for noncompliance with the bill’s provisions.

House Agriculture and Conservation Committee
The committee held a second hearing 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 6-18 who live in an urban area and to appropriate $250,000 each in fiscal years 2022 and 2023 to support the program.

House Families, Aging and Human Services Committee
The committee held a fourth 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 Act.

House Insurance Committee
The committee accepted a substitute version of HB 499, which would allow a board of education member of a school district or educational service center to continue to receive a disability benefit during the term of office. The substitute bill limits the proposed continuation to a disability benefit recipient who begins receiving a disability benefit on or after the bill’s effective date. Additionally, the substitute bill adds city legislative authority and county board of elections to the list of offices to which a recipient may become a member and includes income limits on how much the recipient can receive from an office before the disability benefit can be altered.

Senate Judiciary Committee
The committee held a second hearing on SB 226, sponsored by Sens. Stephanie Kunze (R-Hilliard) and Nickie J. Antonio (D-Lakewood), which would extend, from the age of majority (18) to 26, the tolling of the period of limitation for offenses involving a wound, injury, disability, or condition that indicates abuse or neglect of a child.

Dyslexia funding
ODE provided guidance for districts and schools about how to use specific funding to implement Ohio’s Dyslexia Support Laws. Click here to read that resource.

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

  • OAC 3301-69-02 Excuses from school attendance.
  • OAC 3301-16-02 Establishing criteria for awarding the diploma with honors.

Click here to view the rules open for public comment.

Posted by Nicole Piscitani on 6/3/2022