A year after major disappointment as a school discipline bill made it to the legislative finish line but did not cross, Senate Education Chairwoman Amy Nichole Grady is feeling better.
“When this bill didn’t pass last year, I was really upset, because I worked really hard on it and I pushed it and pushed it and pushed it and I pushed it,” Grady, R-Mason, said today.
Grady said she continued to work on the legislation over the summer and up until now, discussing the policy with mental health providers and state education officials.
Now the bill is getting another chance.
The House of Delegates passed a version of the school discipline bill, HB2515, overwhelmingly on Monday.
Today, the Senate Education Committee that Grady leads passed its own version of the policies, S.B. 199. The bill next goes to the full Senate. With two-thirds of the legislative session still remaining, there’s a good chance of ironing out any differences between the House and Senate versions before time expires.
Grady told the committee that she had nearly put the bill on the Senate Education agenda three times in a row but pulled it back because she felt like it wasn’t perfect.
“And I realized it’s not going to be perfect,” she said.
The bill outlines specific actions for teachers of grades K-6 when a student exhibits violent, threatening, or disruptive behavior: immediate removal of the student, parental notification, potential suspension, evaluation and a possible alternative learning environment.
First, the student would be subject to a behavior plan. If adequate progress is being made after two weeks then that plan would continue.
If the student is not making progress, then the behavioral plan could be changed and followed for another two weeks.
If another two weeks pass without adequate progress, then the student would be placed in a behavioral intervention program or with a licensed behavioral health agency where the county has access.
If the county has no behavioral intervention program, the student would be immediately removed from the classroom, parents would be notified to pick up the child, and the student would be suspended for one to three days while alternative accommodations are made.
The student would not return to school until a risk assessment is done. After the risk assessment, the student could return to school provisionally for five to 10 days. If another incident occurs, the student would be placed in an alternative learning environment for the rest of the semester or school year.
That alternative learning environment could, in some cases, be virtual school.
Senator Joey Garcia, D-Marion, said he’s still considering the potential effects of the bill. He has reservations about whether behavioral intervention programs receive enough financial support to be as effective as they need to be.
“I really appreciate the work that’s been done on this bill, and I appreciate some things have been pointed out to try to ease some of the concerns about a child that might be sent home or sort of left behind without those interventions. I’m still going to struggle with this, but I’ll take a couple more days to deliberate on it,” he said.
Senator Robbie Morris, R-Randolph, said “a small number of students that exhibit these behaviors and cause these problems, but yet, the impact on the other students, staff and everyone else is just is is way too high. And so I think this bill attempts to to address that.”
Senator Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia, said the policies would help teachers maintain order in classrooms and ensure that learning is not disrupted.
He said relatively few students are exhibiting violent, threatening and intimidating behavior and that the bill would still provide learning and structure for those students. But Oliverio said the far greater number of students would be protected from having their learning disrupted.
“I want to commend our committee chair for her stubborn persistence on working through this issue. I think this bill will empower our educators and our principals and our public schools across West Virginia, and I’m hopeful that in two or three years from now, we’ll receive positive input for what we did today,” Oliverio said.