House Public Education Committee approves mentor bill

The House Public Education Committee met following Monday’s floor session to vote out a handful of bills. The committee approved the following bills unanimously:

• CSHB 515, which would eliminate writing and social studies assessments and require only end-of-course assessments in reading, math and science as required by federal law under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
• CSHB 539, which would allow the children of military service members to enroll full-time in the state virtual school network.
• CSHB 816, which would create a mentor program for new teachers in Texas.
• HB 1918, which would create a grant program to provide online professional development courses for new teachers, those teaching out of their certification or those teaching at underperforming schools.

[caption id="attachment_14773" align="alignnone" width="225"] House Public Education Committee meeting on the House floor, April 24, 2017.[/caption] CSHB 2185 failed on a tie vote, with five members voting for and five voting against the measure. The bill would have specified that immunity from liability and suit of an open-enrollment charter school is not waived unless immunity is expressly waived in statute. It would have treated open-enrollment charters the same as traditional public schools for purposes of zoning, permitting, code compliance and development. HB 2185 would also have exempted open-enrollment charter schools from the requirement to pay impact fees. Voting against the committee substitute, state Rep. Linda Koop (R-Dallas) explained it would negatively impact Dallas ISD. The committee will meet at 8:00 a.m. Tuesday to consider more than two dozen bills on the agenda.