Wow, what a roll-a- coaster ride on the last day of the session. The dust has settled and the acrimony between the two chambers was alive and well on the 40th day.  This usually works out well for those of us who call Georgia our home.  At least for education, it worked out fairly well.

Here are the latests results:

HB60 A new version of the gun bill passed both chambers with a few amendments.  It does contain the authorization for school boards to adopt a policy to allow selected personnel to carry or possess a weapon to provide school security after explicit requirements are meet.

HB826The guns and school safety zone bill will require a school district to develop a policy on handling/defining weapons in a school zone.  Guns remain a weapon by definition. (no change there) Knives with blade of 2" or more is decriminalized along with throwing stars, razor blades, bats, nun chuks etc.  which allows schools some discretion in dealing each case.

SB167The embattled Common Core bill was struck down several times in committee meetings and on the floor of the Senate.  

HB897Another troubled bill that met its match with the Chairman of the Senate Education Committee Sen. Lindsey Tippins.  This bill falsely claimed to be the Title 20 clean-up bill by Rep. Mike Dudgeon who did not explain or respond to the whole story. There were many new charter friendly provisions in the bill to create new policy for charter schools and not many of them were vetted appropriately with the Senate side of the chamber as viewed by Sen. Tippins. They were not public school friendly which makes one think there were others behind this portion of the bill.  HB 897 It did not pass in any form or version.  It essentially died in the cross-up between chambers. Going down with HB897was the Merry Christmas bill, the Georgians of Great Character Month, and America's Founding Principles bills.  Not a bad thing in the world of politics.

On the other hand, GHSA bills SB288 and SB343 both ultimately passed after some gyrations.

Back from the dead came HR550 Stripped of its electing superintendent language and replaced with forming a House study committee to review the common core and its origin along with other federal intrusions in K-12 Education.  Three superintendents will be tapped to serve on this committee.  We will follow this very closely and see what becomes of the committee.

Other bills that passed:

HB405 The training of governing boards of charter schools to be required.  Attached to this was SB372 an unnecessary bill requiring schools to provide their HOPE grade point average to 9th, 10, 11th graders.  This is already done by College411.

755 This bill further delays forestland protection provisions and tax digest processes amazingly was passed.  This will cause tax digest slowdowns if appeals go beyond the capacity of the local tax office's ability to satisfy appeals in a timely manner.

HB933 The annual tax holiday dates passed.

So all in all, education escaped with minor scrapes.  The Governor now has 40 days to sign, veto, or allow that to lapse and the bills will become law.  We will report the key results as they occur.