The Latest from VEA

Monday, the Senate passed by a narrow vote of 20-19, HB585, sponsored by Delegate Schuyler VanValkenburg. The House of Delegates then approved the measure by a unanimous vote of 97-0. The bill now heads to the Governor’s desk for his signature.

The bill requires:

• each student in middle and high school to take only those end-of-course Standards of Learning assessments necessary to meet federal accountability requirements and Virginia high school graduation requirements.
• the Standards of Learning assessments for Virginia Studies, Civics and Economics, Virginia and U.S. history, and biology to include items that require the student to apply knowledge and skills in preparing a response. Such items shall include open-ended questions, long-form writing, and other tasks, with student responses scored by the Department of Education according to statewide scoring rubrics.
• student performance on the Virginia and U.S. history and biology end-of-course assessments to account for 10 percent of the student’s final grade in each such course.
• the Department of Education to convene and consult a workgroup of stakeholders to develop a plan for the implementation of such assessment items no later than the beginning of the 2027–2028 school year. In addition, the Department of Education shall submit its initial plan to the Chairmen of the House Committee on Education, the Senate Committee on Education and Health, the House Committee on Appropriations, and the Senate Committee on Finance and Appropriations no later than November 1, 2022, and provide updates on the implementation of such plan no later than November 1 of each year thereafter through 2027.

Both Senator Ghazala Hashmi and Jennifer McClellan both spoke in support of HB585.  Watch their testimony, HERE.

Budget Conference Underway and What You Can Do to Take Action

House and Senate conferees have begun meeting to hash out the conference budget. As Senate Democrats and House Republicans meet to hash out their differences, the word on the street is that the top items up for discussion will be the standard deduction, education, and health priorities. 

VEA members and other coalition partners have been meeting with lawmakers and pushing hard to include the full At-Risk Add-On amount included in the introduced and Senate budgets. On school construction, we noted room for compromise by adopting the House selection criteria, which includes a share of students living in poverty and school infrastructure conditions, instead of using the Local Composite Index as suggested by the Senate.  See TCI side-by-side budget comparison to better understand budget details described below. 

The Fund Our Schools Coalition, of which VEA is a coordinating member, has updated its Take Action page with rotating emails going to budget conferees asking them to prioritize K-12 funding in the final budget. Feel free to share this link or reshare social media messages going out via FOS Twitter, Instagram and Facebook asking folks to take action. 

The VEA has also been reaching out to members to call key conferees, asking them to prioritize K-12 funding over more tax cuts and to hold the line on key priorities. VEA has also been having members send emails to conferees if they are constituents. (see a list of budget conferees and contact information below)

Robert S. Bloxom Jr.        R            100        (804) 698-1000             DelRBloxom@house.virginia.gov

Luke E. Torian                   D            52          (804) 698-1052              DelLTorian@house.virginia.gov

Emily M. Brewer               R            64          (804) 698-1064              DelEBrewer@house.virginia.gov

Mark D. Sickles                 D            43          (804) 698-1043              DelMSickles@house.virginia.gov

Terry L. Austin                  R            19          (804) 698-1019               DelTAustin@house.virginia.gov

Barry D. Knight                 R            81          (804) 698-1081              DelBKnight@house.virginia.gov

Emmett W. Hanger, Jr.   R            24          (804) 698-7524              district24@senate.virginia.gov

George L. Barker               D            39          (804) 698-7539              district39@senate.virginia.gov

Janet D. Howell                 D            32          (804) 698-7532              district32@senate.virginia.gov

Louise Lucas                       D            18          (804) 698-7518              district18@senate.virginia.gov

Mamie E. Locke                 D            2            (804) 698-7502              district02@senate.virginia.gov

Richard L. Saslaw              D            35          (804) 698-7535              district35@senate.virginia.gov

Stephen D. Newman         R            23          (804) 698-7523              district23@senate.virginia.gov

Thomas K. Norment, Jr.  R            3            (804) 698-7503              district03@senate.virginia.gov

What can you do on budget advocacy?

1. Share the FOS Take Action page with your contacts and via social media.
2. Get in touch with conferees to ask them to prioritize key K-12 budget investments, including the 5% teacher/staff salary increase, the full $269m increase for the At-Risk Add-On, partially lifting the support cap (as proposed by the Senate), funding the behavioral health positions in SB490, increasing full-time principals and vice-principal positions (as proposed by the House), including the ARPA funding this school year for teacher/staff bonuses (as proposed by the Senate), and not doubling the standard deduction since we have too many long-promised K-12 priorities we need to make progress on this budget cycle. 
3. Share information with friends and colleagues on VEA budget priorities.

Thanks to all of the members here for your incredible advocacy this session working to advance good school funding bills and killing many (many!) bills that would have redirected public school funding or restricted teaching of honest history.