Day thirty-five of this penultimate week of the 2009 session of the Georgia General Assembly was another short and relatively quiet one, at least as far as education legislation is concerned.  Neither the House nor the Senate tackled an education bill as part of their general calendars.  Committee meetings are the order of the day, though, as both chambers are heavily involved in listening to testimony on bills that have cleared the opposite chamber and trying to determine which ones will make it all the way through the process this year.

Early on this day, Rep. Ed Setzler (R-Acworth) convened the Charter Schools Subcommittee of the House Education Committee to continue hearing testimony on and answering questions about SR 153, Senator Dan Weber's (R-Dunwoody) bill seeking to amend the Georgia Constitution for the purpose of authorizing "education improvement districts."  This new concept, meant to allow these districts to fund facility needs that local systems simply cannot fund, continued to generate question after question after question.  Several amendments were made to the bill, and it ultimately received a unanimous "do pass" recommendation from this subcommittee and will now move to the full House Education Committee for their consideration.  [Editor's note:  This bill is so complex (and, so different) that it seems unlikely that it will come to the House floor for debate and action this legislative session.  Since it is a proposed constitutional amendment and could not be placed on a ballot before November of 2010 anyway, the bill's author may seek to delay any further action on it until the 2010 session of the General Assembly.]

On this afternoon, the aforementioned Senator Weber convened his Senate Education and Youth Committee for what turned out to be a 2 1/2 hour meeting.  During this meeting, the committee took the following actions:

• Gave a unanimous "do pass" recommendation to HB 280 (extra compensation for math and science teachers beginning in 2010);
• Approved a "do pass" recommendation by a 5-3 vote to HB 243, the much-debated bill dealing with teachers who have earned National Board certification;  [Editor's note:  This bill was amended by the committee so as to continue the practice of providing two paid days of leave, subject to funding by the General Assembly, for teachers to prepare their portfolios for this certification procedure.]
• Gave a unanimous "do pass" to SR 244, a condolence resolution;
• Debated at length HB 493, a bill seeking to take advantage of some federal stimulus funds available for "weatherizing" homes and planning to use the Youth Conservation Corps to do the work.  After much discussion, the bill was assigned to a subcommittee to try to resolve concerns before coming before this committee again on Wednesday of this week;
• By a 7-2 vote, gave a "do pass" recommendation to an again-revised version of HB 455, the bill seeking to extend the teacher contract issuance deadline to May 15 (this year only, in this version of the bill).  Because of the delay in handling this bill (and, because of Senate procedures), the absolute earliest it could be passed by the full Senate would be Monday, March 30, after which it would still have to be considered by the Governor.  The time is rapidly approaching where this bill will be of little or no use to local systems who had hoped to have it available as they considered teacher contracts for 2009-10; and
• Heard lengthy testimony from the author (and, the answers to a number of questions posed by the Lieutenant Governor's office) on HB 400, the BRIDGE bill.  By the time the final questions had been answered on this bill (several amendments to be considered), the committee no longer had a quorum, so any action on this bill was, of necessity, delayed until the Wednesday meeting of this committee.

The General Assembly will be in recess on Tuesday, March 24, and back "in action" on Wednesday and Thursday of this week for days 36 and 37.