With apologies to our faithful readers, we haven’t published an update in a while, which is not like us here at ASBA. We’ve gone through some staff changes which impacted our publishing (more on that below). But we are now resuming bringing you the news on education related bills on a regular basis. Onward!
Today is the Deadline…Kind Of
By Legislative rule, today is the deadline for all bills to have cleared their primary committees in the opposite house to be eligible for further consideration. So any bill that has not received all required hearings as of today is effectively dead. With one caveat—Appropriations committee.
Both House and Senate Appropriations have meetings on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, and those meetings are the true last stop for members hoping to get their bills passed. As you would expect, bill sponsors scramble to get their bills on those agendas, get other members to let them use their bills for strike everything amendments, etc. The agendas reflect the chaos nicely.
This week’s committee hearings were equally chaotic across the capitol as everyone worked to get their bills on an agenda. You can read a recap of this week’s committee action courtesy of AZEdNews here.
Bills of Concern on Appropriations Agendas
ASBA is tracking several bills that were held up earlier in the process that have made a return for the last week of appropriations, plus a new proposal that needs close scrutiny.
House Appropriations (Monday, 9:30 a.m.)
SB1211 Now: materials; activities; posting; review (Barto) — This bill was held in House Education committee last week, but it was withdrawn and assigned to appropriations so it gets another chance. Rep. Joel John is a supporter of our position on this bill, please let him know you appreciate him opposing this bill! (ASBA is opposed)
SB1269 S/E: school finance (Leach)— This bill is a large school finance overhaul that defies short description in an email. We will provide a summary via our Bill Tracking Sheet when it is complete. Essentially, it repeals the teacher experience index (TEI) and the 1.25% teacher compensation increase, and increases the base level by 2.25%. It also adds an additional per-student transportation amount for charter schools, and repealse the transportation revenue control limit, while adding a 30% increase in transportation reimbursement per mile (TSL). School districts could opt into the charter formula, including the per-student transportation, but would forego access to bonds, overrides, deseg funding, and adjacent ways. Opting in would require voter approval of a 0.70 increase in the district’s primary property tax rate. ASBA is curently oppposed.
SB1412 S/E: prohibited courses; classes; instruction (Mesnard)—SB1412 currently deals with substitute teacher qualifications, but the contents of the strike everything amendment to be offered are familiar—they are essentially HB2112, which did not receive a committee hearing in the Senate. HB2112 seeks to ban certain instruction and discussion regarding, race, ethnicity, and/or gender, and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” generally. ASBA remains opposed on the grounds that curriculum and instructional content are the exclusive purview of the elected governing board.
SB1649 S/E: live, remote instruction; dual enrollment (Boyer)—The S/E amendment to SB1649 inserts the provisions of HB2039, which never received a hearing in the Senate.
Senate Appropriations (Tuesday, 9:00 a.m.)
Note: amendments for Senate Appropriations will not be posted until 5p on Friday. We will do our best to provide updates on these bills prior to Tuesday’s meeting.
HB2123 S/E: charter schools; CTE (Kaiser)— rumored to be a bill to allow charters to obtain enrollment greater than 1.0 ADM without partnering w/ a CTED.
HB2278 S/E: student tuition organizations (Fillmore)
HB2284 S/E: operation; improvements; schools (Fillmore) — substantially similar to HB2808 relating to the takeover of struggling district schools. ASBA is opposed.
HB2588 S/E: online instruction; hours (Grantham)
Housekeeping
Remember you can see all bills ASBA is tracking, along with adopted positions, using our Bill Sheet at BillTrack50. New and updated summaries for bills and amendments are also posted there as they are completed. Over the next week, we will be removing those bills that are truly dead for the session and only those that are still viable will remain.
Jensen, We Hardly Knew Ye
One of the biggest changes for us here at ASBA GR over the past few weeks has been the departure of our esteemed colleague Leigh Jensen for an opportunity at Arizona State University. Leigh is now working at ASU’s Morrison Institute on their Policy Academy program. Part of the reason the daily update has been paused is because we’re temporarily down one person and we didn’t want to give you incomplete info. But now that we’ve caught up on all the updates, we’re back on track. We will miss Leigh, but are excited for this opportunity for her career advancement. Congratulations, Leigh!