- Senate Passes Filter First Bill
- Committee Approves Changing New Hire Retirement System Default
- House Education Begins Hearings on Environmental Literacy Curriculum
- Changes to Work-Based Learning Discussed in Senate Appropriations
Senate Passes Filter First Bill
On Wednesday, the Senate passed House Bill 4341 to create the Clean Drinking Water Access Act. The act would require each school to develop a drinking water safety plan and make the plan available to the state government. However, while making a change to the bill on the Senate Floor, the date to require hydration stations and other water filters to be placed in schools was inadvertently changed to the end of the 2024-2025 school year. MASB has been in touch with legislative staff and this should be corrected next week and returned to the 2025-2026 school year deadline.
The bill also creates the clean drinking water fund in the Department of Treasury, and previous budgets have appropriated money for this purpose. However, it also states that schools will not be held to this new law unless the Legislature makes an appropriation.
Committee Approves Changing New Hire Retirement System Default
On Tuesday, the House Education Committee approved House Bill 5021 which would amend the Public School Employees Retirement Act to set the default retirement plan to Tier 1, the pension hybrid plan. A new hire to a school district is required to choose a retirement plan within 75 days of their hire date. If the teacher has not selected a plan within that window, currently they default to a 401k, or the Tier 2 elective.
This bill switches it so that if a new staff person does not choose a retirement plan in the time allotted, they will default to the pension system or the Tier 1 elective. It was approved on a party-line vote and now goes to the full House for consideration.
House Education Begins Hearings on Environmental Literacy Curriculum
The House Education Committee also began hearings on House Bill 4961 which would establish an Environmental Literacy Task Force. This Task Force would be made up of 13 people and charged with developing an environmental literacy model curriculum. It would have one year to complete its work and offer a 30-day public comment period on the model curriculum. The Task Force would also have to make recommendations on how the curriculum would fit in with current high school graduation requirements.
The Committee did not take action on the bill and further hearings are expected.
Changes to Work-Based Learning Discussed in Senate Appropriations
On Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee began hearings on Senate Bill 23, which would make changes to the Revised School Code around work-based learning experiences. Under current law, a student can be counted up to .5 FTE for work-based learning purposes, this bill would increase that to .75. However, a student could not be counted as more than 1 FTE, and a district could count them as less than .75 to ensure that the student would meet the district’s graduation requirements on time.
The supporters of the bill stated that this would open up more work-based learning opportunities for more students and create more meaningful experiences, especially in the skilled trades. Further hearings are expected.