A busy, busy day was this 26th day of the 2009 session of the Georgia General Assembly. Both the House and Senate tackled bills of interest to the education community, and committee work continued on bills that legislators are trying to move through the process.
In the House of Representatives, passage was given to HB 280, Governor Perdue’s plan to compensate math and science teachers at a higher rate as an incentive to draw more of these “critical needs” teachers to Georgia’s public schools. That bill now moves to the Senate for consideration. Not so lucky in the House was SB 83, the bill calling for the statewide homestead exemption to be doubled from $2,000 to $4,000. The legislation was hotly debated, and in the end, concerns about the effect of the bill on local governments and school systems seemed to have prevailed. The bill received a majority of “yes” votes, but failed to receive the 2/3 majority needed to pass. It will be “reconsidered” on the next legislative day.
The Senate addressed a much shorter calendar on this day, ending their session shortly after noon. The one bill on their calendar that is of interest to educators was SB 178, which merely extends the sunset dates on the state’s school capital outlay program. This is the second year that legislation of this type has been needed (since, in spite of indications that there was interest in doing so, no work has been done to alter or improve the capital outlay program), and it was approved by the Senate with no discussion and no dissenting votes. It now moves to the House.
Senator Dan Weber (R-Dunwoody) chaired a two-hour-long meeting of the Senate Education and Youth Committee on this afternoon, taking up a duke’s mixture of Senate and House bills. Receiving “do pass” recommendations from the committee were:
- SB 160 – would require that schools be closed on Veteran’s Day [Editor’s note: This bill is identical to HB 3 and is sponsored by another Brunswick-area legislator. Apparently, having Glynn County Schools closed on Veteran’s Day is not sufficient, as there seems to be a desire to have all 179 other school systems join them.]
- SB 210 – would make home schoolers eligible for the Governor’s Honors Program
- SB 239 – makes some changes to attendance and truancy protocol procedures and passed with four amendments
- SR 465 – urges partnerships between local school systems and colleges/universities
- SR 466 – calls for a “design team” to create performance-based training and certification for principals
- SR 464 – urges colleges and universities to prepare more teachers
- HB 229 – Representative Brooks Coleman’s physical education bill
HB 251, Representative Alisha Thomas-Morgan’s (D-Austell) school choice bill, was given a hearing by the committee, but no action was taken. Education observers wonder if this bill, having already passed the House, is being held as some sort of potential “vehicle” for more elaborate choice legislation, much of which has been discussed on this site.
Later on this afternoon, after the House of Representatives had finally adjourned for the day, two subcommittees of the House Education Committee held meetings to discuss still-pending legislation. The Academic Achievement Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. David Casas (R-Lilburn) considered substitutes to both HB 208 (Rep. Alisha Thomas-Morgan’s bill calling for a “bilingual endorsement” for students) and HB 281 (Rep. Len Walker’s bill seeking eligibility for virtual school students to participate in public school extracurricular activities). Both bills were discussed extensively, and in the end, HB 208 was tabled until the first subcommittee meeting of the 2010 legislative session, and HB 281 was withdrawn by the author (after an amendment to which he objected was approved by the subcommittee).
At the conclusion of this meeting, Rep. Ed Setzler (R-Acworth) convened the Charter Schools Subcommittee of the House Education Committee, this time to hear testimony on a revised version of HB555. The “hang up” over the bill, as expected, was over a section that sought to mandate (with virtually no restrictions) that school systems make available to local charter schools facilities that were no longer being used by those systems. After extensive testimony, no action was taken on the bill, and interested parties were urged to work with the sponsor (Rep. Casas) to seek compromise language that would make the bill both workable and palatable for all concerned. It was well after 6:30 p.m. when this meeting finally adjourned.
The General Assembly will gather on Thursday, March 5, for day twenty-seven of the 2009 session.
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