By Senator Alice Nitka, Windsor County, February 3, 2012
Education is always a topic that has House and Senate members expressing divergent views while all want the best for the children of our state. The same is true of the general public and this week I heard from those on both sides of the aisle with regard to school choice. On the radar this week was Senate bill 201, An Act Relating to Expanding Public School Choice for Elementary and High School Students. Many of our smaller towns in VT have school choice when they don’t have their own schools and aren’t members of a union. There is also limited public high school choice, up to ten students via agreements between high schools. The money from the state doesn’t follow the student and stays with the sending school. The Senate Ed Committee took testimony on S-201 and heard from residents from Kirby to Barnard to Berkshire to Chester. Principal Craig Hutt Vater of the Mount Holly School also testified and the information he presented was valued by the committee. A measured approach for some expansion of the law seems like it might have some traction but full blown school choice won’t have the votes. It’s hard to tell at this point what this bill will look like after the committee works on it.
Some other bills in the Senate Ed Committee that you might want to check out are: #120, Freedom of expression for students; #194, Consolidation of supervisory unions; #219, A statewide public school teachers contract; #233, (a bill I sponsored), Gradually increasing the mandatory age of school attendance; and #245, Cardiovascular care instruction for secondary students. The cardiovascular bill or CPR bill originally proposed making CPR a high school graduation requirement along with training on difibulators. The committee dropped the graduation requirement but did send the bill to the full Senate for a vote with a requirement in it that high schools “shall” offer the training to every student. The bill had a very strong lobbying effort behind it by the American Heart Association and no one doubted that it would be beneficial for more people to learn CPR and to be familiar with difibulators. However the word “shall” triggered a firestorm of questions from Senators mainly about costs and mandates. The school representatives who spoke to the committee apparently felt the bill should go forward and would not be a burden on schools. A majority of Senators felt differently and viewed it as an unfunded mandate on schools who were already struggling with budgets and mandates. On a voice vote, over the objection of the supporters of the bill, it was ordered, “to lie”. This means that it could be resurrected if supporters thought they had the votes to pass it, or the committee could take it back and make changes to it or it could be dead for the session. Such is the life of someone’s favorite bill.
Contact me at home at 228-8432, the State House at 1-800-322-5616 or at [email protected] or P.O. Box 136, Ludlow, VT 05149 Find schedules and bills at www.leg.state.vt.us.
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