This coming weekend, the Virginia PTA will be meeting to prepare for their annual legislative advocacy conference. Arlington SEPTA would like to make you aware of the legislative topic they will focus on. Additionally, we would like you to be award of bills related to Special Education. Please let your elected representative know how you view these bills and how they will impact your family. This link will help you find contact information for the Virginia legislature.
VAPTA 2019 Legislative Positions
POSITION STATEMENT #1:
Virginia PTA supports legislation that implements and fully funds resources to support students’ mental health needs.
POSITION STATEMENT #2:
Virginia PTA supports legislation that implements and funds school safety measures and the effective use of Threat Assessment Teams to improve the learning environments of our public schools.
POSITION STATEMENT #3:
Virginia PTA supports legislation and policies that incorporate career and technical education (CTE) into K-12 classrooms, paying special attention to real-life career options and opportunities for training.
POSITION STATEMENT #4:
Virginia PTA supports legislation and policies that seek to recruit and retain effective educators, especially in high-poverty areas, remote locations and hard to fill positions. 2
Special Education Related Bills
- HOUSE BILL 2463 (Kathy Tran and Patrick Hope): IDEA due process hearings; burden of proof.
- Full bill and status: https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?ses=191&typ=bil&val=HB2463&submit=GO
- This bill aims to address the imbalance of power that currently favors school districts in special education due process proceedings. Following the precedent of other areas of law where the burden of proof is shifted to the party that has the resources, data, and experts, the bill would level the playing field by placing the burden of proof in special education due process cases upon the school district, regardless of who initiates the proceeding.
- HOUSE BILL 2463 (Kathy Tran and Patrick Hope): IDEA due process hearings; burden of proof.
- Full bill and status: https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?ses=191&typ=bil&val=HB2463&submit=GO
- This bill aims to address the imbalance of power that currently favors school districts in special education due process proceedings. Following the precedent of other areas of law where the burden of proof is shifted to the party that has the resources, data, and experts, the bill would level the playing field by placing the burden of proof in special education due process cases upon the school district, regardless of who initiates the proceeding.
- HOUSE BILL 2599 (John Bell and David Reid): Use of seclusion and restraint in public schools.
- Full bill and status: http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?191+sum+HB2599
- This bill would prohibit (i) any public school employee from restraining a student at school in a prone or facedown position and (ii) any student from being placed in seclusion at school unless the room or space in which he is secluded is free from all potentially dangerous or harmful materials or the student is continuously monitored in-person or with live video monitoring. The bill requires the principal or his designee to notify the parent of any student who is restrained or secluded at school of such incident on the day on which the incident occurs or as soon as practical after the incident occurs. The bill also requires each incident of seclusion or restraint to be documented in a manner that describes the incident with sufficient detail, including the employee’s rationale for restraining or secluding the student and the methods employed, and such documentation to be provided to the school board, the principal, and the student’s parent.
- Background: Restraint and seclusion is used in many schools for the most minor of infractions. It is disproportionately performed on non verbal children, other students with disabilities, and racial minorities. At present, prone restraint in schools is legal, and schools are not required to report incidents of restraint or seclusion to parents within a certain period of time.
- SENATE BILL 1718 (Richard Black): Reading diagnostic tests.
- Full bill and status: https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?ses=191&typ=bil&val=sb1718&submit=GO
- This bill would requires that the first reading diagnostic test administered in the school year to a student in kindergarten through grade three include a rapid automatized naming (RAN) component and that local school divisions report the results of reading diagnostic tests, including subset scores, to parents.
- Background: In fall 2018, eight elementary schools in Arlington Public Schools piloted a RAN assessment in 1st grade classes. Approximately 756 1st graders took both the current required reading assessment (PALS) and the RAN. Fifteen percent (15%) of them (108 students) passed the PALS but failed the Rapid Naming in Letters. Twenty-one percent (21%) (150 students) passed the PALS but failed the Rapid Naming in Numbers. These results indicate that a sizable number of students are falling through the cracks based solely on their performance on the PALS assessment. Decoding Dyslexia Virginia strongly supports this bill.
- SENATE BILL 1741 (John Edwards): Relating to language development for children who are deaf or hard of hearing; assessment resources for parents and educators; advisory committee; report.
- Full bill and status: http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?191+ful+SB1741
- This bill seeks to ensure that deaf and hard of hearing children are properly diagnosed for and provided instruction in the most effective communication skills. It would requires the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, in coordination with the Department of Education and the Department for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing, to (i) select, with input from an advisory committee that the bill establishes, language development milestones and include such milestones in a resource for use by parents of a child from birth to age five who is identified as deaf or hard of hearing to monitor and track their child’s expressive and receptive language acquisition and developmental stages toward English literacy; (ii) disseminate such resource to such parents; (iii) select existing tools or assessments for educators for use in assessing the language and literacy development of children from birth to age five who are deaf or hard of hearing; (iv) disseminate such tools or assessments to local educational agencies and provide materials and training on their use; and (v) annually produce a report that compares the language and literacy development of children from birth to age five who are deaf or hard of hearing with the language and literacy development of their peers who are not deaf or hard of hearing and make such report available to the public on its website.
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