Last week I detailed several of the bills that I had filed to meet the January 15th deadline of bill filing. This week I will complete the synopsis of the bills that I have filed for this session.
Two bills that I filed deal with common education. One bill will provide an exception clause to the 10 day rule. This rule only allows a student to miss 10 days or less during a school year. For schools that must travel long distances for extra-curricular activities this puts their students at a disadvantage.
Many school board members and superintendents have talked to me about this rule and its new application that penalizes schools in the panhandle. My bill would allow time traveling on a bus to be used as study hall time if certain criteria are met. That time in study hall would not count against the 10 day rule.
This bill will also allow alternate forms of End of Instruction (EOI testing) exams for students. It will empower the local school board to determine alternate tests beside the state mandated tests. My goal is to save schools valuable teaching time and money through this process.
Another bill I have dealing with common education would not allow a school to be sued if it can’t meet every need of an autistic child. This would protect small schools from being closed in a case of constant litigation. This is the actual scenario facing a school close to Oklahoma City. It has spent $400,000 in legal costs and $200,000 in compliance costs in the last three years for a set of twins in first grade. The annual budget is less than 2 million. This bill would protect them and allow the money to go to education.
I will be amending this bill in committee to also include teacher liability protection in the classroom. If a teacher or administrator is doing their job then they can’t be sued either for the normal performance of their duties.
Last year I tried to streamline government by combining agencies. These bills passed the House, but were not heard in the Senate. I will continue this year to end the Sentencing Commission and merge the Criminal Justice Resource Center with another agency. In a year when money will be extremely tight, it only makes sense to cut extraneous spending. There are some other agencies, boards, and commissions that I will try to eliminate or reduce during this budget year.
Session will begin officially next week on February 2nd with the State of the State address by the Governor. This week I will be meeting in pre-session committee meetings at the Capitol. Call me if you have some input on the bills that I have filed.
