House Education Committee
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Transcript
Bills discussed (6)
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HB1231
· 4 mentions in chapter, transcript
Matched: “HB1231”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1310
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1310”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1410
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1410”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1469
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1469”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1485
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1485”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1489
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1489”
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Pre-2017 bill |
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make sure if you're if you're standing please make yourselves at home if you can find a seat we want everybody to be comfortable today we do have a active agenda no one is presenting today so we will be going right into our agenda and i believe that the first bill we will be taking up is house bill 1231 representative linderman will be presenting this bill
Speaker 2
0:30
And, Representative Linderman, if you are prepared to run your bill, sir,
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
0:41
Chair and committee. I would like to ask Director
Steve Schultz to join me at the table. He is the director of the Police Training Academy at Pocahontas. I'll let him introduce himself in a minute. it. House Bill 1231 is the piece of legislation that I've worked on harder than I've ever worked on any. Everybody in this room is concerned about the safety of our school children.
That's not even a question. We all are. Our job today is to determine if this document right here, House Bill 1231, is the best way to address safety in our schools. Mark is passing out a handout that would be a curriculum guide for the training that is required in this bill. Before I start this, I hear lots of things that people say that things are becoming more violent and things like that. The first mass murder that took place in schools was in 1764.
There were either nine or ten children killed and a school teacher. The largest mass murder that took place in a school system was in 1927 at Bath, Michigan. Depends on where you read the accounts, from 42 to 45 people were killed. That wasn't even done with a gun. It was done with dynamite. I want to share just a few things. November the 1st, 1991, University of Iowa, five killed, one wounded, and a gunman died. October 2006, BART Township, Pennsylvania, an Amish schoolhouse.
Five little girls were killed. The gunman died. Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, February 14, 2008. Five dead, 16 wounded, plus the gunman was dead. January 17, 1989, Stockton, California. Five students dead, 29 injured, plus one teacher, and a gunman was dead. July 12, 1976, seven killed, two injured, Fullerton, California University.
March 21, 2005, Red Lake, Minnesota, ten dead, five injured, the gunman dead. April 20, 1999, Columbine. Everybody remembers that one. 23 injured, 12 students, and one teacher dead, two gunmen dead. March, this is going to be the last one, March the 24th. I don't have to look for that one. 1998, Jonesboro, Arkansas.
I'm from Crankhead County. Four kids, a teacher, ten people wounded, some of who I knew. Law enforcement officers I knew showed up there and saw kids laying dead on the ground. So we do have a problem. There's no question about that. We have created gun-free zones, we say. That's not true. I have four schools in my district, two of which have shooting sports. I have two children that are teachers. One of them is a shooting sports coach, and those students bring firearms on their campus.
My other child is an archery, or was the archery coach. I can think of nothing more devastating than a 300-grain broad tip. I can't think of anything
more devastating. We have
in place now a policy where a security guard with 12 hours of training can become a licensed security guard to carry a weapon, and they can perform those duties on school campuses.
So why is this bill necessary? A licensed security guard would take care of security issues normally. That's all they would do. They would concentrate on that. My bill today would allow current school employees, and this is the gist of the bill, current school employees to be selected by the administration and the board. If they were selected to serve as a school security officer, they would undergo a medical evaluation.
They would undergo the same psychological evaluation that our police officers undergo right now. They would be required to complete 40 hours of intensive incident-specific training at a certified police academy in Arkansas. They must also be a certified concealed carry permit holder prior to that, so they would get 46 hours of training prior to being allowed to do this.
They would enter into a contract with the school district They would then be allowed to carry if that's what the school chose. If not, they could have a firearm in a secure place. And people have talked to me about what equipment they need. They need three things. They need a radio. At the school where I taught for 30 years, every janitor, every maintenance man, and most administrators had a radio. So they need a radio.
They need to contact those people. They need a vest. They don't need to wear that vest all the time. That vest may sit beside their desk, be in a closet, but it needs to be where they can get it. A vest does two things. A vest protects them from fire. A vest also identifies them as a good guy. It says security or police or whatever that school chooses to have on there. But it does two things. It protects them and identifies them as the good guys. They need one other thing, and they need a firearm.
At Sandy Hook, pardon me, teachers shielded their children with their bodies. I don't know that the death loss could have been lower, but I think it could have been. Under this bill, there are people, you're going to hear friends of mine today testify in opposition to this bill because of concerns they have. That's not going to change anything with me and them.
I would be devastated if somebody hurt a child under this. I would be equally devastated if a gunman goes into a school and the police arrives six minutes later. These people will be trained, and I have to believe that our law enforcement academy, If they certify them, I have to believe that they can give them the adequate training to go out there and perform their responsibilities and protect our children. I have to believe that.
You hear all kinds of cliches. I don't want this to be a partisan issue. I don't
want it to be an emotional issue. I want it to be an issue of we want to protect our children. Is this bill the right way to do that? And is this training sufficient to teach and train selected individuals within those school districts to be able to perform those responsibilities? There is an option in there where the school can opt out of this immediately
in case of, heaven forbid, I had a friend that had his wife killed on the way home. He was a teacher. If he was certified under this, he probably doesn't need to be carrying the next week at school. They can opt out, turn in their equipment immediately that does not affect their employment in any other way. I've had some people say, you need to add this or that as an amendment. I amended it five times before I filed it one week. I've amended it three times afterwards.
I have tried very hard to meet with law enforcement agencies, sheriffs, superintendents, school resource officers all over the state. a great deal of time and effort went into this
I am going to go ahead and tell you all this we get two shots at passing a bill if this bill does not pass this
committee today I'm going to send this to interim study we're all concerned with school security Missy Irvin has a bill that requires everyone in a school
system to receive eight hours of defensive training I think it's great I'm supporting that every teacher needs to know how to do that they need to know how to react people say you're wanting to give the guns give a teacher a gun half the people in the school district
are not teachers half of them are maintenance men administrators people that may or may not have a direct number
children under their direction at that time. We had a crisis response at Brooklyn when I was there in case of a bomb. I walked my students straight across the hall and gave them to a teacher. I left and went and got a bus and went to another place on campus and loaded people up to evacuate them out. We had to do that a time or two. It worked. because we were trained and we were prepared I believe that Missy Irvin's bill is going to help train and prepare all the teachers how to react I believe
Steve Schultz
Unverified
10:20
that this bill will train people how to stop the carnage Steve
Speaker 21
10:30
my name is Steve Schultz I'm the director
Speaker 23
10:34
of the law enforcement training Academy. My background is pretty much law enforcement since I was 20 years old, which adds up to about 39 years now. I've worked as a city policeman, a county sheriff, and I retired from the Arkansas State Police. Worked with Representative Catlett on the highways,
and we went to a lot of different meetings together. The active shooter situation is of concern to everyone. The staff at Black River Technical College is uniquely qualified in that we already teach active shooter training. We also have two staff members that assisted in the West Side incident, so they have hands-on experience with this, and the West Side has probably as good a response plan as anyone now because they've certainly been involved in it. The one thing that
is a given in an active shooter situation is the shooter has to be stopped and stopped as quickly as possible. Law enforcement response time, depending on the location of a school in a county, can be five minutes. It could be 20 minutes or more. Five minutes is much too long because a lot of bad things can happen in five minutes in an active shooter situation because it's an ongoing situation. If there's a given, it is that someone has to be there on the spot,
ready to act immediately if something happens. Many schools have some SROs, and that's great. Not all do, but even if you do, what happens if that one SRO is targeted because any active shooter that has any common sense would know that if he can eliminate that one threat immediately, then he's good to go. And if a school has an SRO, and that's great. We think they need to go through this training also.
But if a school has an SRO, what if they have a campus with six or eight buildings, six or eight complexes? Something could happen in another building, and it could be many minutes before anyone knew what could happen. What got us started on this train of thought on using on-site personnel was that we discovered that most schools actually have people with skills on board. I know the school in which Representative Linderman has extensive experience
has an individual on campus that is a certified military ranger. He and two other people could probably take over a small country. He already has existing skills. With very little training, this person could be adapted to deal with the situation quite efficiently. We also live in a state where many people who, whether they've had military experience or not, has some extensive abilities and experience with firearms.
So if we can identify just a handful of people with preexisting skills and put them through a comprehensive class, a 40-hour class, to perform one single individual task, then this is good. Active shooter training involves some unsettling issues. If a responding officer sees wounded people, you know, in the movies you stop and assist those wounded people immediately,
but in an active shooter situation, you pass them up, you go and eliminate the threat before you do anything else. And it's things like this that are done. We also have some specialized equipment in place to do this. We use simunition training, which is live training with live fire. It's not a real ballistic round. It's kind of like a paintball gun. It's far more sophisticated than a paintball gun, but it's a live round that fits in a standard pistol such as a Glock that would fire this round, and it stings a little bit, but it also leaves a paint spot so you know how accurate the response was.
So you can do live situation training, and we have all the protective gear and everything that goes with that. We also have a firearm simulator system, which is one of the best in the country, and we have school shooting scenarios on that. The person has a, again, you have a weapon just like a real Glock. Actually, it is a real Glock that's been converted over, and this handgun actually has Bluetooth technology. The computer can talk to the gun. You can sit behind the computer. You can tell the gun how many rounds it has. You can tell it, uh-oh, it needs to jam.
You can make the gun jam so you can teach them how to clear the malfunction, on and on. And you stand in front of a rather large screen. it's very realistic because we actually had a group come and look at this when we first began this process and you could just see their eyes, you know, the shock of what they were seeing in front of them. So you can engage in a number of situations on video and learn to deal with them
correctly and you can go back through the video and you can look at mistakes they've made and and coach them and show them how they could have done it better. So the training that we've come up with as you look through this, it's very good. It's very comprehensive, and we use similar training in the Law Enforcement Training Academy. But, again, this would be geared specifically just for this one task, and we believe we could do it efficiently. And there's concerns about weapon retention. We would school, no pun intended, school the teachers on getting the proper equipment with weapons retention holsters
where someone just couldn't grab the weapon and take off with it, as is a concern for many. A good weapons retention holster, that can't be accomplished. You can maintain possession of the weapon without any difficulty at all. So Representative Lenderman has put a lot of thought into this, and we've talked back and forth, I know he's talked with a lot of other people. There is no perfect answer to everything, but this would give us the best shot at being responsive in solving a problem.
The thing is we do believe that once this system is in place and everyone knows it, we think we won't have any problems because the knowledge that a response team is there and it's not an easy target anymore should solve the problem. I have a couple of extra comments I
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
17:13
want to throw in there. I was lucky that I was one of those that got to go through the training and knew one of the instructors, and so they kind of gave me a little bit more of an
in-depth study of that. I've heard people say, well, some kid will be taking the gun away from the teacher.
This bill does not address teachers. It addresses school employees. A teacher may not ever be the one to do this. This gentleman he refers to is a very good friend of mine
that was an Army Ranger. I would not want to try to take his weapon away. If I lived over the experience, I'd probably
be hospitalized. There was a workshop regarding school safety done in an adjacent county, and I'm sorry I didn't bring that here with me. It's in the briefcase, but I believe there were over 90% of the teachers that were asked,
what do you do in case of a crisis? They said lock the door and call 911. one. That, unfortunately, is probably not going to deter a shooter. If he has a firearm, he's going to be able to destroy that lock. We are doing more about training, locking doors, and doing those kind of things. A couple of things that I overlooked. One of them is this is permissive. It does not require a school to do this. It is permissive if a school chose to have one person in every building. If they want one on their campus
it doesn't matter. I have a school district in my district that has three SROs, and that superintendent said, this is a good bill. If you pass this, I've already identified three or four people in my district that I want to go through this training. There are obviously people there that may have a military background. They simply may be a very fit individual that has the necessary physical capabilities to do this. One other thing, this bill requires an eight-hour annual
recertification. They would have to go every year and go through another eight hours of recertification. I think that is critically important because our bodies do change. Sometimes our physical abilities change, and that may be needed. I think it is needed. I've had people tell me this is not enough training. Certified law enforcement go through training for several weeks. That's true, but they go through a lot of different kinds of training that is
not incident-specific to an armed shooter in a school situation. We're taking individuals and doing incident-specific. They're not going to be out controlling traffic. They're not going to be out investigating crime scenes. They're not going to be doing those things. They're going to be working primarily, well, four things they're going to do. They're going to be training the other teachers how to respond defensively. They would be working a possible bomb threat. They would be trained to work a hostage situation and an active shooter.
I agree with something that Director Schultz said, that we believe that if we put this in place, this could be and can be a deterrent to violence in our schools in Arkansas. I assure you, Westside School is about 15 miles down the road, and it came home to us that day. Nothing is perfect. Nothing is given. Is there potential for anyone with a firearm on a campus injuring or killing a child? Absolutely. There's no question
about that. When I started teaching, we had guns hanging up in the back window of the truck. Went to school on a regular basis with them there. Principal, go out there at the truck and look at your gun. But Westside, Columbine, Virginia Tech, those things happened and we became more aware of some of the dangers that we have. I've had people complain that this bill right here requires too much training you
can't have too much training not with a loaded
firearm in your hand not around a school building full of children you can't have too much training
you can't again i will answer any questions and then we'll let those people who wish to testify thank
you thank you very much representative linderman before we get
into the questions I just want to recognize quickly, we do have some students, some career and technical students from all across the state,
and they're here February as National Career and Technical Education Month.
And these are the kids that are here today. We thank you all for being here at the House Education Committee, and we appreciate what you're doing. Thank you very much. Representative Linderman, I just
have a couple of questions. I'm a big proponent of the school resource officers, and I see this program as a complement to that.
I don't necessarily see it as a program. I'm not comfortable with it supplanting the school resource officer program. And when the Sandy Hook shooting occurred, I have an eight-year-old, and I had a visceral reaction to that. But I knew my kid was okay because Billy Meeks, who was an Independence County deputy, commissioned through Independence County, was at that school.
And no one was going to get in that school. No one is going to get in that school because Billy Meeks is a, for lack of a better term, a super cop. There's nothing he hasn't done. High risk warrants, pulling people over at night, training, training, training, and then practicing for active shooter situations, busting down people's doors. If someone with bad intentions was crossing the parking lot to get to that school, my My concern is if someone in your program, they would be the first person to be shot.
If they did that with Billy Meeks, they'd be the first person to be shot. So this program, as a compliment to the school resource officers, I like it. I'm a little concerned about it being a stand-alone deterrent for school safety, and if you could just elaborate on that, please. Okay. I
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
23:49
want to, and I think it is wonderful you have that
kind of confidence in him. I spend a lot of time around law enforcement officers,
and I had a law enforcement trainer tell me that when they sent trainers in or trainees in,
they told them, one person in this group is going to try to kill you. They're going to shoot you. Your job is to keep it from happening. And he told me in every case the trainee got shot because they were distracted, because other people interfered, because that person did not appear to have a threat.
They usually would go up to, I understand, they would go in to three people and they'd tell them, one of these three is going to shoot you. And with all due respect to Mr. Meeks, who sounds like the guy you'd want on your side no matter what, the Westside School shooting took place in about 100 yards. The first thing that happened was a child got shot in the head. If Mr. Meeks is shot in the head first, somebody throws a smoke bomb at the door or whatever
and he goes to look, he would probably be the first target. And in the case of Sandy Hook, that student that did the shooting had been at that school, and he knew where to go and how to get into the school. You mentioned you have an eight-year-old. I have a seven-year-old grandson. If any of y'all have been around me very much, you've heard about old Cash. His birthday, there were children older and younger than him that were killed. I thought about bringing a picture of him today and showing you all
and telling you why I wanted to do
this. I was afraid I'd make you a target. Well, we all feel that way. Your gut reaction is my gut reaction. And that's why this is worthy of discussion. This is worthy of important, heavy debate. But, again, you know, as a compliment to the school resource officers, yes, I'm a little
concerned about having someone with just 40 hours a year of training. I mean, these are very specific circumstances, and there's usually two. And I think Mr. Schultz will probably elaborate on this a little bit more. but if you're coming to a school, you are either there to kill as many people as possible and yourself, or you're there to kill one specific person, i.e. a spouse.
I'm worried that a teacher or non-classified personnel, whoever that may be, a maintenance person, can they police officers they can tell who's coming they can tell who has bad intentions they have experience, they develop this sixth sense and they know people who are coming in or out of the school and they have the relationships with people do you feel
that the folks involved in your bill who would have the specific training who would have permission to have a gun are they going to have that with the 40 hour a year training is that going to give them enough experience to really kind of cinch trouble coming in that door
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
27:36
okay to answer that question these would be specific people in that
school district this wouldn't be a teacher walked in and tells a superintendent hey I'm gonna go do this and I'm gonna carry that's not true they would be selected by the
school district to perform those. That person may have been deployed in the military. The school I'm at, we have a gentleman that was in the Air Force. We have one that's six years in the Marine Corps. We have one that I believe was a trainer for the National Guard. And, you know, there is a lot of training. We have a small school district in my district, two campuses, does not have an sro they don't have one at all last year there was an incident where a parent felt like
his child was being picked on entered the school found the kids in a classroom if you're a teacher you say well they shouldn't have left them unattended well my understanding is the teacher had them after a break and they were getting a drink of water and so they let the ones that had got the drink go on to the classroom you go on down to the classroom you get stuff out Now, that parent was waiting down there and attacked some children in that classroom. This happened in my district. Thankfully, they got by with bruises and scrapes.
Thankfully, he did not have a knife or a gun. But, again, the 40 hours of training for incident-specific, good cops do. They have an instinct. I've been around a lot of them, and they can tell you, you know, this is a guy we really watch. You know, we give our lives or we actually place our lives in the hands of our security here. With it being the selection of people that they feel like that can perform these actions,
With them having to pass a physical evaluation, with them having to pass the mental evaluation, I think yes. But I would like Director Schultz to respond to that from his standpoint as far as the training. Yes, sir. Go right ahead, Ms. Schultz. Thank you.
Speaker 23
29:53
At the Law Enforcement Training Academy, we do not get to pick who comes there. We get who the chiefs and sheriffs send to us to train. Some of these chiefs and sheriffs are paying these people salaries that very few in this room would work for.
They are not the highest quality members of the workforce that's out there. Those people are making more money and have better jobs. We go 13 weeks at the academy at Pocahontas. Camden goes 12. The national average is 19. We should increase the length of our academies. The firearms training that they receive at our academy is a week and a day. Six days total, and this includes everything. The plan that we have for these individuals who will be hand-selected that probably will have as good or better skills than most of the people we get on day one will be held to the same standards.
They will have to qualify. They'll have to do the same things. If they can't cut it, they go home. We will hold them to a high standard, and I submit that you probably, will see a more qualified person who is trained to conduct one specific task than what we generally see in
the Law Enforcement Academy. Well, I appreciate your comments. Representative
Linderman, excellent presentation. My point is that as someone who on this committee has a child and who's in school every day,
you know, it's easy for us to come to the legislature and say, well, we're just going to pass a law and we're going to let someone have a gun in school and everything's okay. But I just think it takes the ultimate professional who has had years and years of training. When someone points a gun at that person or at children, they instinctively don't have to think about it. They know what to do. And to me, that's the school resource officers. And with that, do we have any questions from the committee?
Representative Catlett, you're recognized for
Representative John Catlett
Unverified
32:04
a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Steve, welcome. Members, colleagues, I can attest
for Steve Schultz's professionalism, his dedication to duty. And we've been in some stressful situations that I admire this man at the end of the table. A couple questions. I've heard a lot of the pros and cons in this, but a lot of people talk to me because of my background.
One thing that's concerning to a lot of professionals in the education field is the fact that how will they interact with police officers responding to a scene when the scenario is you have an active duty situation. And because of this training, these educators are trained somewhat to the same specifics is an active shooter incident that police officers are trained under.
Is that correct? Yes. Okay, so they can identify probably better if they're trained under this active duties curriculum, active shooter training to interact with the law enforcement. Can you elaborate on that? Yes. We would suggest
Speaker 23
33:20
that after this training, there should be an on-site training session, which would get into Misty Irvin's bill somewhat, where the teachers or whoever,
the school personnel that's trained in this, would train with law enforcement. They would work alongside with them. But in a real active shooter situation, as soon as law enforcement does arrive, if this incident's ongoing, then that person should just back out and let the police officers take over. Yeah,
Representative John Catlett
Unverified
33:47
but the point that I'm trying to get you to make, And the point I'm making is they actually flow better with responding law enforcement officers. Is that correct? Well, yes. And
Speaker 23
33:58
another thing, they would be a good source of information for the law enforcement officer
because if a police officer shows up at a scene, an active shooter, they may not know which building to go in. They may not know which hallway to go down. They may not know how many people there is, how many shots have been fired. They won't know anything much except the hysteria that's been called in on the phone. So this person would be also a good
Representative John Catlett
Unverified
34:25
source of information if the target hadn't been eliminated. Okay, with your experience and my experience, would you agree that probably the main obstacle that we face
when we're faced with this terrible situation is chaos, an organization chaos, and not knowing where to go, what to go. I mean, it's just terrible that the time lapse between the time you can actually respond to know what you have is sometimes overwhelming, wouldn't you say? Yes, and that's one of the mistakes that's been made in a
Speaker 23
34:56
lot of school shootings because law enforcement arrives, they huddle up out front, they wait on SWAT, they get their plans together, and all the time they're doing this, bad things are happening.
Representative John Catlett
Unverified
35:07
That's true. And, of course, this active shooter term came from law enforcement training. law enforcement training that's been training in previous years, can you maybe elaborate on how long that active law enforcement officer spends in active duty training, active shooter training? Active shooter training is about two days,
Speaker 23
35:24
typically. Okay. So you're actually giving these about the
Representative John Catlett
Unverified
35:27
same? Yes, and it's the alert system, which I
Speaker 23
35:30
think Governor Beebe touted for everyone in the state to be familiar with, and that's the system we use. All right.
Speaker 46
35:37
Thank you, Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Representative Catlett. Representative Lampkin, do you
Representative Sheilla E. Lampkin
Unverified
35:45
have a question, ma'am? Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. One thing that concerns me about this is liability. If someone is shot, who is liable? Have we checked with the Attorney General about liability if we start this? I
understand it is an opt-out program if they want to, but who would be liable if such
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
36:09
an occasion arose? from everyone i have talked to the
uh liability issues are the same as a coach
uh there are 20 children killed every year in america and in athletic events uh the most dangerous thing that
those children do every day is get on a school bus you know so uh that is an issue that i understand that uh that maybe we have a school board's attorney that's signed up to testify that can probably do a better job answering that but my understanding is they would
be given the same immunity as a person if we've got a i was agri teacher mr ratliff was an agri teacher i carried a highly flammable volatile uh propellant around It's called gasoline. If I put it in the wrong place, in the wrong container at the wrong
time, very dangerous. We used sharp instruments. We used acetylene torches. We used nail guns. We used a lot of things that were dangerous.
You cannot eliminate all the danger. This is, again, incident-specific retention of weapon as part of the training.
I've heard somebody say, well, the first thing that happens, some teacher would lay their gun on the bathroom floor and walk off and leave it. If they do, they need to be fired. If
I had carried a five-gallon bucket of gas over and set it in the middle of the high school and walked off and left it, I should have been fired because I need to be trained to be responsible
Representative Sheilla E. Lampkin
Unverified
37:47
for that. But my question specifically referred to what's the Attorney General's opinion.
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
37:51
Okay, I'm sorry. I do not have an Attorney
Representative Sheilla E. Lampkin
Unverified
37:54
General's opinion. I'm sorry. Okay, I would be interested in his input. You did say that, Matt, with your indulgence, I have a few more questions. Absolutely, ma'am. I'll try to be brief. I'd like to know his opinion. I'd also like to clarify for myself, you
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
38:09
did say this is opt-out. Yes, ma'am. It is
Representative Sheilla E. Lampkin
Unverified
38:12
permissible. No school is required to do this. Well, I have to tell you that I share Chairman McLean's concerns, and I am concerned about what would you do. It's sort of like what Representative Catlett was getting to about friendly fire.
If there is a situation and you have teachers running around with guns and the cops come in, how are they going to know the good guy? Immediately reaction, the good guy from the shooter,
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
38:37
for example. That's one of the things, the equipment. I said they need the vest on. They need the vest or Velcro on the side. I think I was told it takes four seconds to put one on. It may say security or police. If you see any crime scene being investigated, you see those officers with that. Okay, so they have to...
Speaker 23
38:56
Director, would you respond to that? Yes, that's correct. They have to be properly identified so anyone would recognize who they are. And as a liability issue, what's the liability issue of not handling it and not taking care of the problem?
Representative Sheilla E. Lampkin
Unverified
39:09
So it goes both ways. Another thing, this equipment that you're saying, now they're not going to wear this all the time. Just when an incident
comes... Yes, ma'am. Then they've got to go to wherever they've got this equipment supposedly locked up and get the equipment and put it
Speaker 23
39:25
on and then run to the incident? At Black River Technical College, the training department at the Law Enforcement Academy
is the response team for an active shooter situation on our campus. We all have vests. They just remain next to our desks. We never wear them. If something occurred, we would reach down, we would put them on, and we would respond immediately. And that's a similar situation that this would be. Not
Representative Sheilla E. Lampkin
Unverified
39:48
my biggest concern. Well, not my biggest concern. My problem with that is smaller children. You know, we don't want to make them scared to death of us. And the other question I had, if I can get my own notes straight here, you talked about you did have a fiscal impact,
and you did say it would cost with the training and
all these different equipments. Do you have an estimate of how much this is going to cost the school district? Is this an unfunded mandate type thing that I also taught school 30 years, and I know how schools
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
40:23
feel about unfunded mandates. Okay. It is not a mandate in a school. It is permissible for the school. There's an estimate, and there was another sheet that we chose not to give you all, that the training would be $750 to $800 a week for the 40 hours of training.
My best estimate would be for the equipment would be about $1,500, dollars, which is a one-time purchase. It could be handled a stipend or whatever. This bill allows the school district to contract with the folks, and it allows them to set their salary. If they wanted to contract with somebody for $10 a month or $300 a month or whatever, it allows them to do that. I personally believe that they deserve some compensation. One of the things that we look at
and we're concerned about having guns around the kids, roughly one in ten adults in Arkansas are licensed concealed carry permit holders. And therefore, I say that the firearms are there. I don't know how many of you all watched the news Monday, found a handgun in a hoodie at Little Rock, Arkansas, at a public school. The guns are there. Oh, I don't doubt that. And so anyhow, you know, we'll never answer all questions, and we can what-if a lot.
Representative Sheilla E. Lampkin
Unverified
41:51
That's true on both sides. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I would like to make, can I make a little statement? Yes, ma'am. I was just a little piqued about the inference that sometimes the people that actually, The professional policemen might not be of the highest quality because they don't get paid well. We all know they don't get paid well enough, nor do public school teachers. But I'm sure a lot of them, like a lot of public school teachers, didn't go into it for the money.
And I just don't want to in any way say that the professional police people are in any way inferior as a rule. And that's all I have to
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
42:33
say. I want to respond to that. But when you look at any profession, I
think what Director Schultz, and I'll let him address it also, was speaking to, I wouldn't need to be one of these officers. Fifty-six-year-old, I've got high blood pressure, and I know
this all looks like muscle up here,
but some of this is fat. I
don't need to be the one. And the Army Ranger that he
referred to is in extremely good physical condition. And what he was referring to in this is that
they would be specifically selected individuals. The school district that I referred to, they have about 250 employees. And the superintendent said I've identified three or four that I would like to see. He's talking about one, two percent of the total population of his employees being selected.
So he would be selecting or they would be selecting those individuals that are of greater physical capabilities, in my opinion. Well,
I just want to make clear that, you know, I don't think
Director Schultz or Representative Linderman would ever do that. In the course of debate, I think things kind of are said, but, I mean, on a personal basis, you know, I'll take the Independence County Sheriff's Department, the Arkansas State Police, the Capitol Police,
these guys train, train, train, and then they practice. So they're good at what they do statewide. Representative Carnine, do you have
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
44:15
a question? Thank you, Mr. Chair. As most of you probably know, I give Representative Linderman a bad time most of the time, and we have a good time about that, but this is serious business today, and I really want to, again, echo your comments that this certainly, as we all know, is a very important question.
In fact, even though I think obviously opt-out is an appropriate way to approach this with most issues, but I would hesitate to be the only school or only school district that opted out with everybody else, suggesting that they needed to obviously take care of their kids with additional security. all of that, I would say to you that my question really is, as I read it originally, I think
we were thinking school districts, but as I've listened to you, you're really talking about every school district building. Is that not correct? So in other words, we're talking about multiple individuals being trained and also individuals because not everybody's there every day in other words you have backups also so this is a this is really a big big program is that correct certainly that
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
45:42
could be and I like to
echo what representative McLean said the the school district I referred to they got three SROs and they want to keep those but he would like to add some more and again it would be up to the local school district to determine if they had people that were qualified, if they passed the criteria, if they passed the training, and if they were certified. A school district might choose to have one on campus. They might choose to have one in each building, but it would allow certified, trained, and equipped individuals to respond in incident-specific situations.
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
46:21
Noting that we probably approach well over 1,000 school district individual units, then we're talking about a couple thousand people being trained in this state. And again, the only reason I'm wanting clarification is I guess impress upon all of us that this is a big program. If we walk down this path, and I'm not saying this isn't the way we should go, but we're We're talking about a fairly significant change in how we do business.
Now you would also, I'm guessing you're shaking your head yes, so I guess as I look at it, you're also aware that this is a national discussion. This is not limited
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
47:10
simply to Arkansas. That is correct, and I have, I don't, the co-sponsors that I've got on here, almost Almost all of them came to me. I don't go out and actively try to coerce people into co-sponsoring or to try to get
them to do certain things or to help my bill. I want this bill to stand on its own. If it's not the right way to do this, I don't want to do it. But I have sent this to one of our congressmen from Arkansas. I got a very positive response from him. He is looking at it. I believe that there will be some parts of this that will be looked at. I know there will be parts of it that will be looked at on a national level
because everyone in this room will agree that they have concerns, but everyone in this room will agree that there are some safeguards and there are some good things in this bill. I sent it to the NRA, which is concerned with firearms rights, And the one response I got was they really felt like that my training was excessive. I will not agree with anybody that my training is excessive. As Representative McLean said, the law enforcement officers train, train, train, and they do.
This bill and those schools that choose to do this would be allowed to select certain individuals that were capable, that were qualified, that were trained and equipped to respond. Steve, you want to expand
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
48:49
on that? If I might, Mr. Chair, I've got one or two follow-up questions. And, again, it comes back to the anticipation that this is a major program that we're going to embark on.
And this, I'm not sure if you want to answer the question or the training officer. If we're going to talk about a couple thousand people being trained, how fast do you think we can train these people, and do we have the staff that could do this and be ready for the next school year? Or is this going to take longer to, in other words, how many people can we handle right now in a training session? And thinking about the fact that we're talking probably between 1,500 to 2,000,
do we have the capabilities of doing this
Speaker 23
49:41
now not with our existing staff we sort of we foresaw adding maybe two staff members and you could only do this during the summertime because that's the only time teachers are available and staff is available so i would say it'd probably take two or three years to get up to speed in
Speaker 47
49:58
other words we're talking about maybe to
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
50:01
roll this out of three years is that I would that would be in rough estimate yes well and again
I I really want to laud representative Linderman and yourself for bringing it and putting it on the table but I'll have to say that just listening and looking at it the background that I I bring to it I I really think this is something that that we need to take a little bit more time with and get everybody into the discussion I think if I obviously I don't know how everybody will vote but if it goes to interim study it looks like to me that if we
have a major plan for the state of Arkansas that there would be no hesitancy of this body putting it in the fiscal session voting on it but I am concern that it were rolling so fast that we're missing the fact that really seriously, I don't think there's a school district board that would look at it and say, I've got to opt out. How are you going to do that? If we're talking about the safety of our children, we're not going to opt out. We're going to want to make sure we've got the best security plan in place for all kids
in all parts of our state. And that's my concern is that we're running so fast. if we do this, that we have not thought through all of the issues. And then my last piece that I want to get on my little pulpit about, and that is most of the individuals that have, in fact, planned, carried out, all are people that are severely disturbed.
We have left out of this discussion serious mental health issues that we ought to have on the table at the same time. And I think until we do that, that any plan that we put forth is going to be incomplete for the safety of our
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
52:14
want to respond to one small part of that. I spent 30 years teaching at Brooklyn High School, and the last principal
I worked for was a good friend, Stephen Hovis.
And about two or three years before I retired, I had this discussion with him, and I said, we need to have some people on campus, more people, a greater presence on campus, licensed and able to carry and trained and taught. My
comment to him was, I really didn't care if they were certified law enforcement or if they were highly trained individuals, but
that they needed to be trained. And so this is not a new thought process for me.
Certainly the putting together the legislation is new, absolutely.
And thank you, Mr. Carnine. I'll go ahead and tell the committee. I'll tell Representative Carnine I've had six superintendents that gave me problems, five of them I worked for, and he was the other one. But he is a friend and does seem
to delight in teasing me for some reason. Thank you, Representative Carl Nye. Representative Bibiano,
Speaker 99
53:24
you have a question, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
53:29
Representative Lindeman, SRO officers were brought up earlier.
Do you have any idea how many SRO officers we have across the state of Arkansas? I'll give you an example. In Searcy, we have roughly seven to eight public school campuses, a couple private school campuses. I only know of two that have SRO officers.
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
53:48
Great. Mark, Representative Viviano, I'm sorry, I can't tell you that. Riverside does not have an SRO officer. I have four schools in my district. Brooklyn School has got two separate campuses.
We have one SRO officer. Nettleton, I believe, has three. The other
two school districts I do not believe have an SRO
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
54:06
officer. It would probably be a fair statement to say the majority of school campuses across the state of Arkansas do not have SRO
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
54:14
officers? I think that that would probably be true, especially when we get away from the larger towns and
Speaker 2
54:21
cities because of the cost. Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Representative Viviano. Representative Edwards, you have a question, sir?
Speaker 105
54:31
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, to the freshman members of the committee, One thing
Representative John Charles Edwards
Unverified
54:39
that I'm sure most of you already know it But if you don't know it Is that Representative Linderman Is definitely one of the most thoughtful people In the Arkansas General Assembly He's one of the reasons that I can come into this building some days And still have a smile on my face Because he's a very caring and thoughtful individual
and this is a particular issue that he and I have discussed, and I appreciate him for that. This is one I really struggle with a lot. Director Schultz, I'm not an Army Ranger, but I had the task at one time in my life of being the senior officer for an infantry brigade to train and develop the rules of engagement, rules for use of force, and I've done that
both in foreign settings and in domestic operations here in America. And that is an awesome responsibility when you're talking about preserving the safety of human life, and then making sure you take out the threats that are there. Like I said, I struggle with this because when you ever shoot somebody,
you want to make sure you're shooting who you need to be shooting. You're not hitting the people that you don't need to be. And I'm not trying to get into the what-if game. That's not my point, and I'm going to get to my question. But the concern that I have right now, and you all may be able to help me with the concern, and this is a question that I've already shared with Representative Linderman,
and Representative Lampkin touched upon this. You never know when one of these shooter incidents can occur, unfortunately. They don't call ahead and say, we're coming, more often than not. They just show up. And the identification thing, you know, who's the good guy, who's the bad guy? I've spoken with Representative Lenderman about the vest issue, But I'm almost thinking like if we're going to do this, if you don't have all the stuff you need with you at any moment,
because you're not always going to be where you want to be when one of these things occurs, is there any kind of way that the identification issue could be resolved? Because I'm very concerned about the fact that you don't have someone properly identified. They may have their best back in the classroom. They may be somewhere else, and then one of these situations come down. And, again, I'm not doing this to try to what-if this thing. This is something that it's really important to know who is who.
Speaker 47
58:05
So can you expand upon that? There's a variety of ways that a person could be
Speaker 23
58:14
identified. In smaller communities, if they're training with law enforcement, they might personally know these people anyway. But in larger communities, if the vest wasn't available, there could be a certain color shirt issue. There could be a cap issue. There could be any number of things, a sash they could carry in their pocket and put on or something. There's a lot
Representative John Charles Edwards
Unverified
58:34
of possibilities. What's the most difficult active shooter situation you've been involved in?
Speaker 23
58:39
I've personally not been involved in an active shooter situation. I was working as a state trooper the day Westside occurred, but I was about an hour and a half away. So we listened to the horror on the radio, but outside of responding, I understand there was, as someone previously mentioned, a lot of
Representative John Charles Edwards
Unverified
59:01
chaos. And I know this is a tough subject. Have you talked to people? Can you
give me an example of someone that you visited with, I guess,
either through reading like an after-action report about what were some of the challenges an individual faced who was dealing with an active shooter incident in like a public
building or a setting like this right here? Well, I'm most familiar with
Speaker 23
59:29
Westside, and that's an unusual incident because the shots came from such a large distance. Almost in every other case, it was very close. And that presented a whole different set of challenges than a typical active shooter situation.
Speaker 118
59:47
What is a typical active shooter situation? In most
Speaker 23
59:51
of them, it's very close proximity, almost point-blank range. Okay. Mr.
Representative John Charles Edwards
Unverified
59:56
Chairman, that's all the questions I have at this time, But I would also just, as I close for now, and I may think of some more, but that's another reason I like this committee. I appreciate your comments. Representative Carnine, I definitely appreciate the experience he's had. I've never been a superintendent.
I've mainly been scared of superintendents most of my life. So I appreciate getting to serve finally on a committee with one. So thank you very
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:00:28
much. I'd like to make two small responses. One of them is that
Representative Edwards has got military training, and he's one of the people I hold in the highest esteem down here. Something that law enforcement constantly has told me is you rise or sink to your level of training. No matter what that level of training is, if you have no training,
that's where the people run down the hall screaming. If you are trained to respond, that people, they go to their basic instincts or their basic level of training, and I think that's something that's important in this.
Thank you, sir. Thank you, Representative Edwards. We have about five more questions, Committee, and we also have about five people signed up to speak for and against the bill. We will entertain the questions, but I would just ask if you could be brief in your questions.
And, Representative Linderman, I just want to echo that, you know, you're all heart. And I know where you're coming from, and I respect it, and I respect you. And we're going to give you all the time you need. Thank you. And the committee as well. But with that, we're going to go ahead to Representative Douglas. And just we do have other bills
that we're running today. And just, if you would, please, indulge the committee brief in your
Speaker 122
1:01:54
comments and brief in the responses. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I, as a former school teacher, I would be one to be in great favor of having better
security in the schools and appreciate your efforts of what you've put together here. A couple of questions. The $1,500 per person was that for the equipment that was per person? That was
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:02:23
an estimate, yes. That would include a quality firearm, a
Speaker 122
1:02:27
vest, and a radio. Okay. Also, a big concern of mine is that we have a study that we have approved
to study statewide safety issues. and I wonder, you know, how you are going to coordinate. If we pass legislation before we get the study back, I have, you know, some concern about maybe getting the cart before the horse on that and waiting to see what the issues are. I'd like for you to maybe address that.
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:03:05
I'm very much in favor of the study.
Again, this is not a knee-jerk reaction. is something I thought of several years ago. The thing is, if we wait on a study, it's
going to be at least two years before we enact any legislation. This is a concern that I have at this time. And schools can do
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:03:29
to. They can as a certified security officer, yes, with 12 hours of training, yes. So we would not
Speaker 122
1:03:35
need to legislate this in order for schools to be able to do what,
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:03:40
I mean, they can do that now. They could do certain, yes, ma'am. Okay.
Speaker 122
1:03:48
Not with the level of training that's in this bill. The other question is, I know with some school districts it's as much a facilities problem and, you know, securing, just securing the grounds and not having so many entrances. And I know that we've taken some surveys of teachers, And, you know, the facilities themselves are so dangerous to let people in.
Your bill doesn't really address any facilities needs. No, ma'am. I
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:04:19
really believe that the bill that Missy Irvin has sponsored that I
believe is probably going to pass is the one that addresses that. Okay. That addresses it with the school districts much better. Thank you. This is incident specific.
Speaker 122
1:04:36
And then non-school personnel, could they be used or volunteer for this program and pay for their own training?
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:04:44
They would have to be under contract by
Speaker 122
1:04:46
the school. Okay. And then you had one line in here where you said that one school district could share
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:04:54
personnel with another school district? This is intended to allow if I'm the agri teacher at Brooklyn and I'm going to
go to Riverside for a training situation, It would require written permission if they said, Lenderman's going to be dragging a busload of kids. He is our school security officer. We want him to be allowed to carry on that bus ride.
Then there would have to be written approval from the adjoining school district to allow me to carry on there. I see that as used at ballgames, especially for people traveling long distances at nights and those
much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Representative Douglas. Committee, if you have multiple
questions, pick one. And then that's not a dig at you, Representative Douglas.
Speaker 2
1:05:45
We love you. But if you do have multiple questions, let's pick the best one. Representative Eubanks, you have a question, sir?
Speaker 129
1:05:56
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Linderman, I met with local law enforcement
Representative Jon S. Eubanks
Unverified
1:05:59
in my district after the incident in Connecticut, and we discussed many of the things that are in your bill. But at the end of the meeting, I asked them, okay, what do you think is the best solution? And in their mind, it was that we had a resource officer in each building.
Now, I have a couple of schools in my district that have resource officers, but they have multiple campuses, but they only have one officer, and that's a problem in itself. But I thought, and you may have addressed this before I got to my seat, but did not the state police going to form some sort of study group to address this issue and
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:06:43
make some recommendations? Okay, the state police, I think, coordinated, but if I'm not badly mistaken, the Craighead County Sheriff, who is my sheriff, is, I was thinking, was the chair of that committee.
But there was a period of time there when there was, I don't know, some miscommunication, and to my knowledge, they have not met. Thank you.
Thank you, Representative Eubanks. Representative Ratliff, you have a question, sir. Steve, how many can you
Speaker 23
1:07:13
train at one time, one week? We wouldn't want to do over 10 to negate any loss of quality. Okay. That's the only question I
got. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Ratliff. Representative Dickinson?
Representative Jody Dickinson
Unverified
1:07:26
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've written my questions down because an open microphone tends to make me have amnesia. You know, Representative, you and I have talked a lot about this bill. And if you'll remember, I never have said yes, I think this is really great and I support it. no I don't like this at all
but we've had a lot of discussion but I don't think we've discussed this is there a differentiation between the responsibility of a contracted person when if faced with a person coming on campus specifically to do harm and in a child who was just found with a weapon at school okay The way this bill
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:08:23
is written and envisioned on my part, that this is incident-specific when there is a crisis that happens.
These people are not going to be dealing with somebody that's carving on a desk or a truancy or anything like that. But when there is a hostage situation, an active bomb threat, or
an active shooter, that's when they would be to step up and take charge. Okay. Mr. Chair,
Representative Jody Dickinson
Unverified
1:08:51
that wasn't my real question. Could I ask my real one? Representative Dickinson, you can ask anything
you want. Thank you. She's an edge.
Representative Jody Dickinson
Unverified
1:09:03
She's a sweetheart. My second, my real question is, since you answered
that, do you have a concern for a contracted person with having to deal with a student who may be his or her relative, their neighbor, their friend, their niece, their nephew, immediate family, good friend? Do you have a concern of how they would react if faced with that?
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:09:34
You know, obviously, if you have a law enforcement officer from that area, that could be for any law enforcement officer,
but that certainly could be the case. that would, again, that would be rising or sinking to your level of training. But absolutely, Representative Dickinson, that would be a consideration. Right. Thank
Representative Jody Dickinson
Unverified
1:09:52
you. And thank you. That was my real question. Thank
Speaker 43
1:09:56
you, Representative Dickinson. I think we have one more question. Representative Cozart.
Representative Bruce Cozart
Unverified
1:10:01
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Linderman, you said there's really,
there's no funding to help with any of
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:10:08
these costs to defray the costs. At this time, there's not. I anticipate that there will be some federal dollars, and there's not been any that's been seen, but I understand that the federal government is working on implementing some programs that would allow a
school district to tap into some federal funds that would pay for something like this. But that is correct.
But I do plan to, if we pass this legislation, I
do plan to file a budget bill that hopefully would take care of this for the first year. Thank you. I
Representative Bruce Cozart
Unverified
1:10:44
was just doing some quick figuring on that. In our school, we have between 11 and 12 buildings. We put an officer in each building that could run about $30,000 for that year, not counting salaries. So it could be a pretty good expense to some of the schools. And I do appreciate your diligence and all the work that you've put into this. I think you've done a great job on this, too. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Representative Colzart. Okay.
Committee, do we have any other questions before we go to folks that want to speak for
the bill or against the bill? Okay. If not, we do have several people who have signed up for the bill and against the bill. And we are going to start with Ms. Donna
Morey from the AEA. Ma'am, you are recognized to speak against the
Speaker 152
1:11:34
bill. Good morning. I am Donna Morey, President of the Arkansas Education Association, and I survived Dr.
Carnine being my superintendent for several years. I have 35 years in public education as a high school teacher and coach and Special Olympic coach and board member, so I also got to drive a school bus quite a bit. The Arkansas Education Association opposes House Bill 1231, which authorizes persons to carry a firearm or concealed handgun on school property and provides for a school district board of directors to contract with existing employees as security personnel during
the school day in addition to his or her other job duties. Our duty to every child is to provide a safe and secure public school. That's what we as educators take a vow to do. have no place in our schools. We pledge to do everything we can to reduce the possibility of any gunfire in school and to concentrate on ways to keep all guns off school property and ensure the safety of children and school
employees. The problem is not just about guns. Long-term and sustainable school School safety also requires a commitment to preventative measures. We must continue to do more to prevent bullying in our schools. We must dramatically expand our investment in mental health services. Proper diagnosis can and often starts at the schools.
We should look at our schools funding matrix to increase the resources for school counselors, social workers and school psychologists. AEA supports Senate Bill 93 by Senator Chesterfield to conduct an interim study on school safety, and AEA supports Senate Bill 140 by Senator Irwin to establish a safe school initiative. Greater access to mental health services,
Bullying, prevention, and meaningful action on gun safety and responsibility of gun owners is where we need to focus our efforts. Finally, we recognize and appreciate the passion of Representative Linderman. He has that for safety and security for students and school employees. He's a great friend of public education, and we know that his efforts are sincere. Thank you very much, Ms. Morey.
We have Ms. Kristen Gould, who is here to speak for the bill. Ms. Gould, you
Speaker 157
1:14:29
are recognized. Thank you. My name is Kristen Gould. I'm staff attorney for the Arkansas School Boards Association. We have worked with Representative Linderman on this bill. We believe that this is a good response to a problem. Without this bill, school districts will respond to their perceived need for additional security
by using existing law to have school district employees go through a 12-hour online course to become designated as licensed security guards. This creates an option for people to provide school security in an enriched, resourced, trained environment as opposed to people who have a concealed carry permit and have clicked through a 12-hour online course. For that reason, we support this bill. In addition, if it is the pleasure of the committee, I could address and respond to questions and concerns
concerning liability and tort immunity as would apply to this. Do
we have any questions for Ms. Gould? If not, thank you very much, Ms. Gould. Thank you. I believe Dr. Kimbrell is here, and he will be speaking against the bill. Dr. Kimbrell, you need no introduction, and
Speaker 160
1:15:47
sir. I've been told always, though, Mr. Chair, to state my name, Tom Kimbrell, Commissioner of Education. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak.
I wish Representative Linderman would have talked to me about this before he filed it. That's a joke. Y'all wouldn't believe the e-mails back and forth. We've talked extensively about this, and I think I'm the one person that didn't ask you to amend it, correct? I told him I was against it from the start, didn't think I'd ever get there. And he said, I'm going to try. We've been friends, we're colleagues, and I said, yes, sir, we are, but I can't get there, and I haven't gotten there. I want to just share some concerns that I have, and I'm speaking from three different perspectives.
As Commissioner of Education, I believe that it is within my responsibility to ensure the safety of 460,000 kids. The best way to do that, I don't believe, is to allow individuals from local school boards to make decisions about who carries guns. Now, I'm a firm believer in local school control, But I'm also a realist knowing that we have school boards today making decisions about how they operate schools that are not in the best interest of kids.
I'll just put it that way. Matter of fact, Dr. Carnine, are you still there? You may mention that every school board would jump on this. I can tell you three school districts that won't because we run them. We wouldn't be part of this. One of them already has many resource officers and uses security guards. As a matter of fact, one of the incidents that we've dealt with, two different incidents in Pulaski County that we've dealt with, was a security guard who was carrying and was on contract working a ball game, had an irate parent, pulled the pistol on the parent.
We've removed all firearms from security guards. Only licensed SRL officers carry firearms in schools and at school events. The other we know is Lake Hamilton. And I've talked extensively with the superintendent there about their program. I have concerns. The Little Rock School District, if you read the paper a couple of weeks ago, went through extensive conversation about what they were going to do and whether they were going to put firearms in the hands of security officers.
They chose to ensure that all their high schools had SRO officers and that non-armed security officers were at their other schools. I think we're missing the picture. I think, as Ms. Moray said, Dr. Carnine stole our thunder. It's a bigger issue than putting more guns in the schools. It's an issue of how do we deal with mental health in this country and at our public schools. We need desperately to look at how we address mental health issues.
As we look in our pre-Ks all the way through our high schools, we know at our colleges, and we know that young adults are carrying with them issues that they don't know how to cope with, and we as a society and as a state haven't really dealt with. I just don't believe that more guns on schools is the answer to that particular issue. I did have the unique opportunity last week to actually hear and speak with Dr. Janet Robinson, the superintendent of the Newtown, Connecticut School District. I spoke to her, heard her speak, and you can go out and you can find all kinds of articles.
She said unequivocally, the worst thing we can do is try to put more guns in schools. We have to address the issue of mental health. She's having to deal with these parents who've lost these children. I've got children in public schools. I want the safety of those children, my children as a father, as a commissioner, and as a former superintendent and now as a board member of three different school districts and in reality operating in that capacity. I want our children safe. Representative Linderman has worked harder on this piece of legislation
than I've seen worked on any piece of legislation that I've been a part of and been worked with since I've been coming over here. I think he has the right heart. He's trying to do what he thinks best, and he believes what he's doing is best. I just can't get where he is in this issue. In my conversation, I asked Dr. Robinson, we have a piece of legislation come forward. And she said, please, convince people that more guns is not the answer,
but mental health issues, dealing with those issues, and getting your schools prepared when these do occur to react appropriately. Now, I can tell you that my two children attend the Cabot Public School. Two weeks ago, they had a district-wide exercise in which each school campus had an active shooter exercise. I asked my sixth-grade daughter, how'd it go? And she said it was pretty neat. We knew what the code word was, and it changes every week.
The teachers know what it is, and when it happens, they tell us. We react by going to the Father's Corner. All shades are pulled. They're actually now removing all glass or obscuring all glass in doors and classrooms. They're doing the things that they need to do that we have to do to be proactive in this and not be reactive. The other issue that I had, and I brought these issues to Representative Linderman, is the duality of this work.
I was a chemistry teacher. I was a math teacher. I was a biology teacher. I was a coach. I was a bus driver. I did a lot of things, and probably Mr. Ratliff will tell you I didn't do any of them very well. Representative Ratliff and I worked together. But I have a real fear of us asking people who have a primary responsibility of either being a teacher, being an administrator, being a custodian, being a maintenance person, and being able to focus on a secondary, more intense type of issue
of trying to respond to something that may happen. And I want to just quickly, if you don't will indulge me, I want to read a quote from the superintendent when she talked about this issue of the principal. Because it was said, if the principal had been armed, If the principal had had a gun, maybe less students would have been hurt. Maybe she had not been killed. She said on Capitol Hill during that House hearing,
she felt those remarks in the wake of the shooting suggested that the principal could have killed the shooter had she been armed, or one, very insensitive, and two, she was never at her desk, as no good principal is. So I think there are some issues that we have to talk about. I think the issues are, and I applaud what Representative Linderman is doing because he's making us talk really seriously and deeply about this issue of safety and what we're doing. And there are a couple of other bills out there that we're supporting to make us as a division, an agency, really focus hard,
making schools and school boards focus on the issue of how do we ensure that kids are safe. Mr. Chair, you asked the question about SRO officers. If it's that important that we have people with weapons in our schools, then I think it's important for us as policymakers and agencies to step forward and say, okay, it's time to do this in the right, responsible way. And it's not an issue of funding. It's an issue of is that the right way to do it. I've spoken specifically with SRO officers.
The three that I've talked to that I know personally have told me that they didn't think this was a good idea. They said, do most of these individuals understand what it's like to pull a gun and shoot a human being and the reaction and the aftermath that occurs? One told me he worked in the police force in Little Rock for several years, and he said, I had the unfortunate circumstance of having to kill another individual. The emotional turmoil for the next seven months, he said, almost had him quit the job.
He said the issues that then come as you have to respond, and I think that's where schools and school boards have to understand this issue of liability. And I think, Representative Cutley, you know that when you have one of these incidents in which a law enforcement officer takes the life of an individual or shoots an individual, there are many things and steps that have to occur. and whether you shoot and kill that individual or wound that individual, 90% of the time I think the statistics say that officer, that entity is going to be sued.
School boards need to understand that if this becomes part of the law, and I think we have to make sure that they understand that. I'm going to quickly close with one other thing, and I thank Representative Edwards after understanding your background. Now, I just finished a book that someone, my brother-in-law, gave me that I thought was a really good book. It was an interesting book, and it kind of brought to light some of these issues for me. And it was the book that was written about the life of Pat Tillman, the NFL safety, who then went into the military,
and in an engagement with an elite group of Rangers, was actually killed by his own men. He was less than 100 yards away, and yet this highly trained individual during this intense time made an error in judgment. I don't know, and I've told superintendents and I've told Mr. Linderman, Representative Linderman, there's no way in the world, as much as I care about kids, and I think all of you all know that's my passion, that's my drive,
that I would want to ever be put in a position where I had to fire a gun. And I love guns. I have all kinds of guns. down a hallway at an individual knowing that I may miss and could injure or kill a child. I couldn't live with myself. So I don't know. I'm kind of like him. I get a little bit emotional about this. I want our kids safe, but I also want to do this in the most secure way we can with the best resources and whatever resources it takes
to deal with the safety issues and the mental health issues that we have. So, Mr. Chair, I appreciate that, and I appreciate Representative Linderman's work, and I've known Director Schultz for too many years, too. We're getting
older, Steve. Well, Dr. Kimbrough, thank you very much, and, you know, and once again, I just want to applaud Representative Linderman for getting, you know, this is an important debate, and it needs to be talked about in a very thoughtful manner, and it's really hard for me to not
come at this as a parent and to me this is not about guns in school this is about who has a gun in school and I want that person to be the highest trained the most highly trained professional individual who in the blink of an eye can deal with one of these situations without thinking about it and with
Speaker 43
1:27:27
that Representative Edwards do you have a question sir thank you Mr. Chairman
Representative John Charles Edwards
Unverified
1:27:32
Dr. Kimbrell, and I applaud everyone today who's raised the issue of mental health.
I also appreciate your commentary regarding some of the changes that your children's school has made and how they operate. And my question is, what are your thoughts or what have you done about looking to the future for our campuses, how schools are designed, barriers?
Because I also feel like that the design of – I know the building that I went to elementary school in in England, Arkansas, back in the day had a lot of glass in it. And I would just like to hear your thoughts about how barrier design could be helpful to improve school safety. Well,
Speaker 160
1:28:28
I think it's been very interesting. If you go back and look now, over the last five to eight years, the schools have been designed. That has been part of the design features of many of our schools, the ability to lock up schools,
the ability to ensure that there are fewer and fewer entry points into our schools. You have to design them, of course, with enough exits for other issues. But one of the things that we have had is now we've had conversation not only with the Division of Facilities and Transportation, but also members of what is kind of a, as I say, a defunct subcommittee, advisory committee of architects and engineers about these issues.
And I think that's come to the forefront in some of the work that school architects are doing in working with schools. So the discussion now that we will have as we go and amend our design features with our schools is that you're going to have to look at school safety designs. And how do you do that and secure these? Now, we don't want prison-looking schools. But there are things that can be done, and there are schools out there that have already been constructed. There are plans. And there's conferences that are occurring that our architects in our states are already going to.
And I know that Dr. Stein is working with those people to help ensure that as we look at the future of what is expected under the standards for the construction of school, that they do those retrofits of schools. How do you do that? Because I'm like you. The elementary school I went to in Corning, Arkansas, every classroom you walked out of, you walked out into the outside. I mean, that's the way you did it. You didn't walk into a hallway when you left the classroom to go to the bathroom. You left the classroom to go to the library.
Wherever you went, you went outside, and you walked down a corridor, outside corridor. So, you know, schools weren't designed in the 60s, 70s, and 80s for these issues, but they're beginning to be designed with that in
mind. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Dr. Kimbrell. Do we have anyone else in the audience who wishes to speak for or against the bill? If
Speaker 169
1:30:38
not, Representative Linderman, would you like to close for your bill, sir? Thank you, Mr.
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:30:54
Chairman, and thank you all for all the kind words.
I hope all the voters in my district heard this today. This is a very serious issue, and I think everyone has taken it very seriously. Dr. Kimbrell mentioned already that there is one school district that they do have administrators that do carry on campus as certified security guard officers with only 12 hours of training. This bill, again, there's nobody in here that's not
concerned about school safety today. Our job as an Education Committee is to determine if, as we look at school security, is this bill a good document? Is this a good way to address school security in our schools? With that being said, I would appreciate a good vote. Thank you. Thank you, Rep. Linderman, and thank
you for bringing this bill up today. It's something that needs to be talked about. With that, what is the will of the committee? Rep. Catlett, do you
have a motion? We have a motion
do pass. All in favor? All opposed? Motion fails. Rep. Linderman, thank you for being here today. Thank you, Mr. Chair,
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:32:09
and thank you, committee. Okay, we
Speaker 2
1:32:14
are going to, like I say, committee, if we can, Representative Carnot, you have a question. If
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
1:32:26
I might, Mr. Chair, I'd like to offer a motion concerning this, and I know because all of us, I think,
sit around this table are concerned, I would hesitate to just allow this thing to go without a direction. And I would like to move, with your permission, that this bill particularly be moved to interim study and that a report be given prior to the fiscal session so that if, in fact, the speaker would consider it, it could be on the agenda for the fiscal session. Okay. Representative Carnaugh,
do you have a motion to move this bill to interim study? So move.
We have a motion on the table to move House Bill 1231 into interim study. All
in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passes to move House Bill 1231 to interim study. Thank you, Representative Carnot. Okay, what I would like to do, with the permission of the committee, is
to go until 1230. I don't think that's going to hamper lunch too terribly much, and I believe that that will pretty much take care of our agenda and get these bills rotated through the committee.
Speaker 2
1:33:36
With that, I believe Representative Mayberry, are you still here, sir? Representative Mayberry? I
know Representative Mayberry's wife is here, so I know he's not
Speaker 2
1:34:03
too far. As soon as we get Representative Mayberry, we are going to take up House Bill 1410.
And after that, we have about three or four more bills that Mark has brought to my attention. And if we can get through those, we will have done, as usual, lunch pail work in the House Education Committee.
Speaker 2
1:34:34
Representative Mayberry, we thank you for being here today, sir. You are now recognized to present House Bill 1410,
Representative Andy Mayberry
Unverified
1:34:42
sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And with your permission and the committee's permission, I'd like to be joined in the presentation of this bill by Ms. Morgan Asbel.
Speaker 128
1:34:53
Yes, sir. I'm Morgan Asbill, hi. And the
Representative Andy Mayberry
Unverified
1:35:11
reason I've asked Ms. Asbill to be here to help me present this is that this actually is her idea. Morgan is an 11th grade student at Springdale High School, and she sent an email to I think
all of the legislators, is that correct, with this idea, and I looked at it, and because of some personal experiences of mine, kind of hit home a little bit, and so we went on from there. Essentially, what this bill is
is something that puts into Arkansas law something that the Supreme Court said that we can already do. In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized American Sign Language as a standard, independent with its own grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and cultural heritage, and the court ruled
that American Sign Language could be offered in all public and secondary schools to satisfy foreign language
requirements. From a personal level, my father had perfect hearing until he was about 25 years old. I have two older brothers who are significantly older than me, one 10 years older, one's 12 years older. My father began to lose his hearing at about age 25. By the time he was 35, and by the time I was born, he was completely deaf.
Because of the later stage in life when he lost his hearing, he had to make some adjustments. See, at that, this is how we've advanced in time. At that particular juncture in time, my dad went to learn sign language through the VA He was told, essentially, that if he communicated well with his family, that there really wasn't that much of a need to learn it, because most people didn't know sign language, and so it
really wouldn't do them a whole lot of good. And so we learned the alphabet. He reads lips. If he gets stuck on a word, we spell out that particular word. We kind of created our own family sign language, you know, our own unique little signs and such as that. But I can't help but think, you know, what if my high school or my school had offered this opportunity to be able to take that? And you know, what that might have done in our family to change the dynamic of how we
communicated and how we communicated with the rest of the world as well. In fact, that's why it took on kind of a personal approach to me. And what this bill does is it would not mandate anything for any school, but it would give them, our public schools, the authority to be able to offer American Sign Language and count it as a credit toward modern language or foreign language credit for any schools that might be an issue. And with that, I'm going to let Morgan kind of explain a little bit where she's coming from with this.
Speaker 189
1:38:14
You're recognized, ma'am. Thank you. The reason I proposed American Sign Language as a foreign language began last year when I was in 10th grade. We had to choose between Common Core and Smart Core. The difference meaning you take honors and foreign language. And I wanted to do Smart Core and take a foreign language that I had already known since I was young, Sign Language. And when they gave us the form to fill out, they did not give us the choice of, you know, like any language.
it was specifically Spanish, French, or German. And I was kind of upset because I've already known sign language, or at least some, and why not take that rather than something I have to learn completely new. So, my brother was never given the option. My brother is deaf also, like Representative Mayberry's father. is also partially deaf and so my brother never had the option to get honors because he cannot
hear well enough to take a foreign language and I felt that wasn't very fair because why not take one that he actually knows and that he can continue learning and I had to choose one language that I could learn, other than the one I already know, and to help me communicate with people that are in other countries rather than someone that's in my family.
So to remedy this, I am pursuing a plan of action that is close to my heart, just as Representative Mayberry's, to offer American Sign Language to high schools as a foreign language credit option that may not be required by all schools. By passing this, the number of high school seniors who attend college could increase and they could also go to college and learn more about American Sign Language.
Many students don't take a foreign language in high school due to the fact they can't hear well enough or talk well enough to hear the syntax of each language. So allowing American Sign Language could potentially allow more students to graduate with this foreign language credit. That's all I have. Thank you. This is,
Representative Andy Mayberry
Unverified
1:40:50
according to this bill, we contacted the Department of Education, the Department of Higher Education, also worked with the Arkansas Association for the Deaf, a number
of different individuals and groups to try to make sure that everybody was okay and on board with the way that we crafted this language. This is current. According to the information received back from the Department of Education, there are 22 states that now recognize American Sign Language for foreign language credit equal to other languages, and that most of those laws are similar to what this proposed bill says. Foreign language isn't required in the 38 units or as a graduation credit under Smart Core, and this opens the door for American Sign Language to be taught in a school and
credit be given for foreign language by the school again this is not a mandate for school to have to offer this this is not any kind of kind of requirement there are no state funds involved there are no funds involved unless the school opted to to do that themselves this would provide in some instances an opportunity that that individuals just would not have had otherwise open some doors and members, I am almost 100 percent sure that this is constitutional.
That's my logic. Thank you very much, Representative Mayberry. We
are always glad to know that things are constitutional. With that, Representative Klemmer, you
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:42:16
have a question? Thank you for bringing this bill, Representative Mayberry, and thank you, Mr. Chair. I know that UALR allows foreign language, American Sign Language, to count as a foreign language. Do you have any information about what other colleges and universities
Representative Andy Mayberry
Unverified
1:42:33
are doing? Right now, to my understanding, there is only – University of Arkansas Pine Bluff,
I believe, is the only college that requires foreign language as an entrance. And I believe Shane Broadway is here. He may be able to speak to that to a greater extent than I
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:42:56
can. Well, I'm sorry. Maybe I didn't phrase my question clearly enough. As far as college foreign languages, aren't some colleges allowing this to count for college credit in lieu of a foreign language?
It is my understanding that that is correct, yes. And if colleges are doing it, then it would seem that we ought to extend that privilege to high schools.
I would agree. Thank you. Do we have any other questions from the committee? If not, do we
Representative Andy Mayberry
Unverified
1:43:29
have anyone who wishes to speak for the bill? I think we had someone signed up to speak for it. Tommy Walker with the Arkansas Association for the Deaf. Mr. Walker, you are recognized.
Speaker 206
1:43:42
I'm okay. I'm okay. Almost every day I meet someone and they say, sign language is so beautiful. I would love to learn it. I wish I had the opportunity. And that's cool too. But, really, today we see interpreters such as these that need interpreters for our life.
What this bill can do is really start the students at a lot younger age in the public schools learning sign language and lead them to a career, an opportunity there. most of the interpreters in Arkansas are within 50 miles of Little Rock. And outside that, there's almost none. And we need to grow the field. And I believe that with this bill, we would have the better opportunity
and better situation for our lives and for people to communicate with this bill would lead, hopefully, to grow the number of interpreters in the long run. and I really strongly support this bill and it's long overdue thank you very much thank you very much so anyone we speak for the bill against the
bill if not what's the pleasure the committee representative Edwards what's your motion we
have a motion to pass all in favor all opposed
Speaker 2
1:45:19
motion passes thank you very much represent Mayberry thank you committee okay we are going to take a House Bill 1469, Madam Chair. Madam Vice Chair, would you go to the end of the table? And
as soon as you are ready, you are recognized.
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:45:51
Madam Vice Chair, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is
an agreed-upon bill. I hope it's non-controversial. It simply allows, or excuse me, it doesn't allow, it requires electronic transcripts to be used for transmitting high school credits to colleges and to the Department of Education. This is really important to streamline things. It also requires that it requires electronically what the hard copy transcript in law currently requires,
and that is that there be a stamp or a designation on the transcript that they have completed the core curriculum and have a minimum GPA of 2.75 on a four-point scale. So this was, as far as I know, agreed upon by all the parties involved, and I appreciate a good vote. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Do
we have any questions for Vice Chair Clemmer? If not,
Speaker 2
1:46:55
do we have any money in the audience who should speak for the bill, against the
bill? Dr. Abernathy, are you speaking against the
bill? I guess so. Okay. Dr. Abernathy will be speaking against the bill. Dr. Abernathy, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker 212
1:47:24
Chair. And I hate to say I just received
Speaker 213
1:47:26
information on this bill last night, and I was trying to get to Representative Clemmer this morning,
and she agreed to meet with me. But I just want to express a concern that I have, and it has to do with elementary transcripts. The concern that was brought to me last night was that we have elementary transcripts, schools require different things. We have elementary schools grading students, A, B, C, D. We have other elementary schools who have developed their standards-based report card. What is a standards-based report card at one school does not look like a standards-based report card at another school,
and how that process has worked. So it's more of an implementation-type process, and maybe the department has the answer, or Ms. Glemmer has the answer, But that
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:48:15
was my question, so. This does not change anything regarding elementary transcripts. And I'm sorry, I thought we were meeting today after adjournment, not before the meeting. It just affects grades 9 through 12. It does
not affect elementary transcripts. You're looking at, I'm just getting the ADE.
Speaker 219
1:48:35
They wrote this bill. I apologize and would like to retract my statements and I hope Representative Klammer
Speaker 190
1:48:54
doesn't hold it against me. There is a
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:49:02
– in your defense, Dr. Abernathy, it does say
that the elementary or middle school
shall use an electronic transcript in lieu of a paper transcript, but it doesn't change how the grades are reported for elementary. It just is making the way for electronic transmission of data. And my understanding, just from previous conversations, is that a lot of times schools were getting the transcripts quite late after the kids had been enrolled, and they hadn't had a chance to adequately review those. And this will speed up the process for transcript to receive and review by the receiving institution.
Just for clarification, this is an agreed-upon bill, Madam Vice Chair? Yes. With that, do
Speaker 2
1:49:49
we have any questions from the committee? We have a motion. Excuse me. Anyone want to speak for the bill or against the bill? If not, Representative Hobbs, you have
Speaker 224
1:50:00
a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have a question as to why it is in lieu of instead of an or
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:50:10
option. I think simply because we want to
have students' transcripts get there, at least when they do.
And there have been situations around the state where the transcript does arrive, but it's not arriving in a timely fashion. And I think, you know, we can't argue that the mail truck sent it to the wrong school or whatever.
Speaker 224
1:50:29
Okay. And so if a student were to transfer to a school from out of state, could they bring up what they could
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:50:37
do? Well, we obviously can't control what comes in from other states, but the request could be made for an electronic transfer from out-of-state. Okay, and all of the schools do have access to that electronic transfer?
That is my assumption when this bill was brought to me, that all the schools had access for this. Okay,
thank you. And it also requires that, you know, for admission for college financial aid and for college, you know, for colleges.
Speaker 224
1:51:03
Okay, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Chair. Thank you, Representative Hobbs. Representative
Speaker 43
1:51:06
Linderman, do you have a motion? Yes, sir, Mr. Chair. Motion
Speaker 2
1:51:13
to do pass. We have a motion to do pass. All in favor? All opposed? Motion passes. Thank you very much, Madam Vice Chair. Representative Link, are you prepared to run Bill House Bill 1310?
Representative Link has an amendment to House Bill 1310. And we will, you are recognized
Speaker 99
1:51:33
to present the amendment to House Bill 1310, And Representative Link. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If everyone
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
1:51:39
has the amendment pulled up yet, I'll kind of wait until they do. The amendment adds some co-sponsors, that being Representative Catlett, Senator Flowers, and Senator Irvin. And then I still see people moving.
But after that is a significant amount of language that all goes about defining what fair market value is. As part of the bill, we depend upon fair market value, that term, and all of this language in here defines what fair market value is in
that bill. Thank you, Representative Link. Members, is the amendment being published on the tablets? Does everybody have the amendment?
Okay, if not, we have hard copies.
Representative Linderman, do you have a question on
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:52:29
the amendment? No, sir, I'm sorry, I have a
question on the bill, sorry. Okay, well, let's take up the amendment
first, then we'll head to the bill. Members, do we have any questions in regard to the amendment? If not, does anyone wish to speak for or against the amendment? With that, what is the pleasure of the committee in regard to amendment to House Bill 1310? We have Representative Daryl do pass a motion from the amendment. All in favor? All opposed?
Amendment to House Bill 1310 is adopted.
Representative Link, you are now recognized to present House Bill 1310 as amended. Yes, sir.
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
1:53:06
Thank you. Two years ago, I came in here after working on this bill for a little while
with the Rural Community Alliance. This bill has to do with empty school buildings that are created typically because of consolidation, where perhaps a community may lose their school to a larger entity, and that building sometimes will set empty.
and it's difficult for the school to upkeep or maybe difficult for them to use, and maybe sometimes the community might have a purpose for it, and we're trying to make it easier for these communities to use these empty school buildings. We were at that time, when I got to the end of the table, we were opposed by the school board association and the attorney general office, which both had reasonable good ideas and some good reasons to oppose it. We put it in interim study, and those of you on the Interim Committee of Education got a good dose of what an interim study can be.
We brought the Attorney General in, Rural Community Alliance, and all interested parties, and we liably debated this thing for several hours in interim study. From that point, I've gone out and met with every organization in education that has an acronym for their name numerous times. I've talked with everybody I can imagine talking to, And I believe I put together, we have put together, along with Representative Catlett, who got an attorney general opinion, we used five other opinions in putting together this language to satisfy Article 14, Section 2.
We put together a bill that I am confident that this organization, that this body of this legislature can be proud of and will serve a good purpose for our communities as well as our schools. Thank you, Representative
Link. Do we have any questions for Representative Link? If not, do we have anyone who wishes to speak against the bill? Dr. Abernathy? And when you make your way to the end of the table, sir, you are recognized to speak against the bill.
Speaker 212
1:55:19
Mr. Chair, thank you. And I want to thank Mr. Link for coming by and visiting with the school administrators a week or so
Speaker 213
1:55:28
ago. And we expressed some concerns at that time. And the concept that he's trying to do and the situations he's trying to take care of, we completely support. So I like the directions he's going. I don't think any of us wants property out there being unused. But we have a concern with unintended consequences. And unintended consequences are really what kind of plays into a lot of things that happens out there
that does not turn out to be good. We have any time you use this term shall versus may, obviously that mandates that a district shall, you have to do something right then and there, and it doesn't matter what other plans or purposes you may have. If you look over on page 3, line 27, and on that particular line, it's talking about real property. I'm sorry, a school district for educational purposes is using this property.
What is the definition of educational purposes? Obviously, if the students are in the classroom, that's educational purposes. If it's being used on weekends, is it being used as a warehouse, storage facility? et cetera. Is that educational purposes or not? And we don't really know. And I'll give you an example. We purchased some property when I was a former superintendent that had a house on it. We were not going to use that property for a couple of years, but we had plans to grow
and eventually turn that property into some school facilities. But until we were going to do that, we rented the house. And it wasn't a low-cost, long-term lease, but we rented the house out at a fair market value. Is that school purposes or is that not school purposes? And we're not real sure. The other concern we have was brought to me last night by First Security, which, as you know, does a lot of our bonds, sells bonds for schools to allow them to build school facilities.
And their concern was not with the state law but was more with the IRS. These schools are typically built on tax-exempt bonds, and those tax-exempt bonds cover whatever facilities you have going. Several years ago, schools used to pay off those bonds, and now it's more and more common that schools extend those bonds. Instead of raising your millage rates at the property, they extend the bonds and then build additional facilities. And I'm sure at your local elections, you have probably done that in your community somewhere.
They're concerned with if that property was not paid off and it used tax-exempt bonds for that property, then you had better to be very, very cautious before you run afoul of IRS. As a matter of fact, First Security was trying, he's worked with three different properties trying to move those school buildings out, and he was 0 for 3 trying to get in compliance with IRS regulations. And I know that's not the intent of the bill. I'm just simply raising a warning that there could be some unintended consequences out there
that we may not be aware of. But,
Speaker 235
1:58:39
again, the concept that he's trying to do, we completely support.
Thank you very much, Dr. Abernathy. Ms. Renee Carr is here to speak for the bill. Ms. Carr, you are
Speaker 236
1:58:56
recognized. Thank you, Chairman. I'm Renee Carr, Executive Director of Rural Community Alliance. And I think that you all are probably well aware of some of the effects of Act 60, which
took effect in 2004. Initially that was not to be an act that would close schools, but we have seen that that has been the direct result. In fact, since 2004 there have been 53 high schools closed and 39 elementaries closed. So this is an issue that impacts every part of the state, and there seems to be a lot of confusion among the school boards, the local school boards, of what they can and
can't do. But it's a terrible shame. In many cases, these buildings are the only physical asset of that community. In some cases, well, a lot of cases, they are locked up, there are no utilities, they're not even insured, and so it really becomes a blight, whereas the community in most cases would be willing to do something with that if they could have possession of the building.
So I ask that you do pass this bill for the sake of rural
Speaker 237
2:00:22
Arkansas. Thank you very much, Ms. Carr.
Mr. Richardson, do you have anything to add, sir? Good
Speaker 238
2:00:43
morning, Scott Richardson, the Attorney General's Office. I would echo Dr. Abernethy's statements about Representative Link and that we appreciate
what he's trying to do and the struggle this causes for these rural school districts. My comments will be directed to one aspect of his bill that allows donation of these buildings. There are, and he's acknowledged there are some constitutional concerns with that, specifically article 14 section 2 of the constitution states that no money or property belonging to the public school fund or to this state for the benefit of schools or universities shall ever be used
for any other than the respective purpose to which it belongs there are other provisions that also restrict public school property to be used for public school purposes and he referenced the The opinion that we issue to Representative Catlett is opinion number 2012-60. We issued it last August. It echoes some prior opinions that say when you get to a situation of low value or donation of public school property,
you open yourself up to a constitutional challenge to that transfer, more especially with the donation. The opinions do state that, and I think Representative Lenk's bill tries to get at this, if the school district is in a situation where it's a drain on the resources of the school district and they have trouble getting rid of it, they can take that into consideration in determining what fair market value is. But with a donation and providing that space to citizens, to other purposes than education,
then you run into some constitutional problems with that activity. With that, I'll finish what I'm
saying. Is there something that could be done if Representative Link is open to correct that aspect of your concern? the the
Speaker 238
2:02:50
surest way to address that would be to take the donation aspect out but but I'm here mostly to make sure the committee is aware of the constitutional limits there and the constitutional concerns on on the donation of the
property is representative link is is that
something that you would be open to we
Representative Kelley Linck
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2:03:12
believe the way this is written that we've covered it we want to leave
the donation in there we've worked at it, we've talked, we've done everything we can do, we think it's very important that we leave a
donation in there and we believe we're okay with it. Do we have anyone who wishes to speak for or against the bill? Thanks. If not, Representative Eubanks, do you have a motion? We have a motion to pass. As amended, all in favor? Aye. All
opposed? No. Motion passes. Thank you, Representative Blink. Thank you, committee. Representative Balz, are you prepared to run
House Bill 1485 if you are, sir. You are recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair
Representative Scott Baltz
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2:03:58
the committee would let Mr. Steve Schultz, the director of Black River Technical College, join me. Absolutely. We
understand this is a non-controversial bill and in the interest of time, with all
With all due respect, if we could be
Representative Scott Baltz
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2:04:14
brief, we'd appreciate it very much. Basically what this bill does, there is a law that says that a two-year college, Black River Technical College, cannot have a barracks for their students, dormitory for their students. Then there is a law also that says that they have to provide housing for the LEEDA students, the law enforcement and fire students. So we just want to clean that up, and, you know, I'll turn it over to Mr. Schultz.
now. Do you have anything to add, sir? No. Okay. Do we have any questions
from the committee? Seeing none, do we have anyone who is to speak for the bill or against the bill? If not, what is the pleasure of the committee? We
Speaker 2
2:04:57
have a do pass motion. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passes. Thank you very much. Representative Hammer, you are recognized for House Bill 1489.
Chair
Unverified
2:05:11
They won't all be like this. Yeah,
Representative Kim Hammer
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2:05:26
don't get pulled. Representative Hammond, you're recognized? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members. House Bill 1489, the intent of the bill is to allow us mechanisms to be able to recover the monies that currently are not being recovered from students who take out the lottery scholarship,
receive the money, and then drop and never pay the money back, or we are not able to recoup it. Currently, in the first year, there was $21 million that resulted in losses because of students dropping out, And then this last cycle of which we were able to collect information, $19 million of scholarship money that was allotted was lost from students dropping out with a drop rate of approximately 53%.
It is my opinion, and that's what this bill is intended to do, is to give us a mechanism whereby we can begin the process of recovering money from individuals who take out the Arkansas Lottery Scholarship. and then for whatever reason, of which we're not really certain of what the reasons are, do not choose to pay the money back. And so that's what this bill is intended to do, and
I'll be glad to take any questions. Okay,
Representative Hammer, let me kind of get this straight in my mind.
If you are awarded a lottery scholarship and you do not graduate, you are then compelled to pay back the scholarship amount. Is that correct?
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:07:00
That's correct. And this bill is patterned after the other requirements that are in place or the allowances that are in place in other scholarship situations, and it does make allowances for hardships, you know, things that are out of individual's control. And actually it gives a little bit of latitude, kind of an opportunity,
that if it's not covered in one of those situations you know the the board the Department of Higher Ed has has the ability to make exclusions if you can come before them in the appeal process and make a good enough argument so it is actually patterned after what's already in place in other scholarships as far as reasons why they wouldn't have to pay it back to allow for those situations that involve hardships of life outside of the control
Speaker 253
2:07:49
of the student okay what's the And I'm looking through the bill, and
please, I beg your pardon, what is the mechanism for if someone does not repay?
Representative Kim Hammer
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2:08:03
If you look at second page, line 22 and 23, the amount owed under this section is subject to being set off from any state tax refund due to the student, basically going after their state income tax return. along with everybody else that's already lined up in front of us. Okay. Okay,
Speaker 132
2:08:24
so that's your way to get the money? Yes, sir. Okay. Do we have any questions from the committee?
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
2:08:35
Madam Vice Chair, you have a question. It's hard for him to see my hand when I sit next to him. Perhaps. Never mind. I guess I could elbow him. But, Mr. Representative Hammer, I have a concern here, and so I hope that you'll understand where I'm coming from. Does your bill make any provisions for that student who has perhaps made decent grades, maybe not stellar,
but just the circumstance where someone says, you know, college isn't for me, Or I thought I wanted to major in, oh, say, political science. I'll do respect to my visiting political science student here today. And, you know, I realize I might not be able to get a job with that degree. Be careful. And I just think I'm going to go to trade school. They would still have to pay that money back. Correct? I don't believe so because
Representative Kim Hammer
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2:09:39
I think if you look on page two at the very top of it,
has not obtained an associate's degree. So I think if they are in the process of maybe shifting gears and transitioning to continue their education, but they've made a decision that the route they were going on was, and that happens, that's life, as long as they're progressing the ball down the field and moving toward that, I do not believe this bill is going to punish that individual. Now, if they drop out, yes, if they drop out and later, you know, say a semester later or, you know, a year later, I believe it would subject them to the application of this law's intent.
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
2:10:19
Well, let me see if I can be more clear and maybe I didn't ask. So let me
understand your answer and you understand my question. If they decide in the first two years you're saying that college isn't for them and they just decide to pursue something else, they do have to pay it back or they don't? I would not think they
Representative Kim Hammer
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2:10:43
would have to, because if they complete two years of college, I would think they would. No, I'm
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
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2:10:48
saying during the first two years, before completing a two-year degree.
Representative Kim Hammer
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2:10:55
If they, and I will speak, I'll answer your question around the barn, but I will come through the barn at the same time. Number one, if they choose to just drop out, say, in the first semester of their second year, if they just choose to drop out, then, yes, they would be responsible to repay that money. However, there are situations that are allowed for in this bill that if their reason was solid enough, or there is also that open clause to where they can make their appeal if it's not covered under one of these criterias,
and they can, you know, they can convince the appropriate agency that's going to be responsible for this, you know, they can make their appeal and make their case. Probably to the point of your question, yes, they would have to repay that money. Okay. Thank
you, Mr. Moore. Representative Hammer, please, I beg your pardon again. I'm looking on page two. Where are the exemptions?
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:12:00
I'll beg your forgiveness if I can't answer that question as quickly as you asked
it. Okay, I believe it's covered under line 27. The Department of Higher Ed may waive or defer all or any part of the repayment under this section for any of the reasons that the Department of Higher Ed may grant a leave of absence
under 6-85-210, and I believe those are the ones that are consistently patterned in all other situations that require repayment or the scholarship program, which I don't
have that list in front of. I mean, is there documented somewhere where if an illness, accident, death of a family member that causes interruption of schooling, this essentially, if someone did have to,
due to unforeseen circumstances, leave college, and please correct me, it would be up to higher ed to determine if that was a proper exemption? Well,
number one, I think that's covered under
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:13:21
6-85-210, but then if you drop down to line 30 of the bill, the Arkansas Higher Education Coordination Board shall promulgate the rules to implement this section. So as the rules are implemented, there would be sensitivity that would be given in the
process to participate in what those rules would be.
Okay, I saw some hands. Rep. Talley, you have a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Hammer,
Representative Brent Talley
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2:13:48
can you help me define scholarship and what that means, as in the title for the lottery scholarship? Well, a scholarship would be any money that would be granted or
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:14:00
given, and I probably feel you've got a follow-up question to that. Would you want to ask that one? Well, I'm
Representative Brent Talley
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2:14:07
just saying if that's a title of this, and it is a scholarship, and you said
Speaker 266
2:14:11
that the title was granted, I mean, and now we're asking to repay, I mean, I'm just
Representative Kim Hammer
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2:14:18
trying to get an understanding on that. Probably and, you know, to bring it out, it may be on somebody's mind, if not, I probably I wish I hadn't made this statement, but I want to be transparent and clear. There's probably the question of the difference between a scholarship and free money, and is there a difference between scholarship money and is there a difference between the free money that's given through the Arkansas Lottery Scholarship or that's maybe awarded in the form of grants.
And perhaps the Attorney General, if he's in the room or somebody from there, would like to come to the table and speak to that to give a level of comfort. If that's fine with me, invite him to the table at this time. But I will speak to the principle of the matter of the bill. And the principle of the matter is that there are millions of dollars that are being given away. And currently, except for if the student fails under the grade point average in college, for example, if the student fails according to the grade point average that they have to maintain while in college
in order to continue to receive that scholarship. Outside of that, there's no information that's being collected as to why they are dropping. So one thing that this bill would help achieve is to give us the tool to collect the information as to, well, exactly why are students dropping out? Why are we losing $21 million the first time and $19 million the second time? We don't really have the mechanism in place to be able to collect that information. Thank you, Representative Talley. Representative Biviano.
Speaker 2
2:15:49
MR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Hammer,
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
2:15:53
I commend you for bringing this bill forward. I think it's time to make some of these students more accountable. Question I have, and it may be for Mr. Broadway, are we currently making any efforts to recover this money under the current system? MR. To
be interested in why that is. Thank you,
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
2:16:19
Representative Biviano. Linda Linderman thank you mr. chair it is my understanding that scholarships are
awarded or paid on a semester basis is that correct that's correct is it your contention and from what I'm reading here that if a person completed two three four semesters that that education they received those basics would not be beneficial to
them and not make them a better worker or more productive in the workforce? If I can answer
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:16:45
your question this way, if part of the concern is, why would a person complete the first year of college and get into the first semester of second year of college and
drop out for whatever reason, and we're going to go back and recoup the entire amount of money? Anything they do in college, if nothing else, just to figure out what it is they want to do, because, hey, you know, I've got a child who started off in college, got into about the second semester the first year, and it was not their thing. They ended up going to a technical college and getting a life skill, and I applaud them for that. They figured out what it was. Anything that you get in the way of education is going to be valuable in the manner in which
you apply it. I will shoot myself in the foot on this one, and that is I'm not sure that the law that's before you right now that I'm proposing identifies whether we're going to go back and take all the money back or we're going to take back just
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
2:17:47
the semester that they dropped in? That's kind of where I'm going. Education, ASU was 10 miles down the road. A lot
of kids started. Some of them went for a semester, a year, dropped out for whatever reasons. Life happened. Some of
them joined the military and things like that. But many of them entered the labor force. And and based on my understanding of this bill, that we would require them to pay any of those scholarship monies back. And do you believe that this could be a deterrent
from some people actually starting college and say, you know, this fear, I'm going to start college, and if I don't make it, you know, I'm going to end up with thousands of dollars owed to the state to have to repay?
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:18:31
Well, it's a personal philosophy, and maybe some will agree or not agree, but I think we do a great injustice to our society today by saying, here's this free money, go do what you want to do. There are no consequences to your actions. You can spend it any way you want, put it within any grant that you want, and, you know, there's no consequences for it. So if it didn't do anything, but if it did slow people down and make them think seriously through what they're going to do before we just give them free money, I think that within itself would serve a benefit, and I think would make them more responsible.
And also I think it would make us – because one thing this bill, if you haven't had the chance to read it and see what happens to the money that is collected, the money that is collected is redirected back into the nontraditional portion of the lottery scholarship. And part of the reason I did it that way was because I know that some kids are going to start college and they're going to drop out. Even the best projected success rates, a portion of those are going to drop out regardless.
And somewhere down in life, you hope that they figure it out that they do need that college education and that money will be redirected and they will, in essence, benefit from it because at that point they're going to be the nontraditional student that's going to be needing the money. So from those that drop out, we recollect the money, We put it back into the nontraditional portion of the Arkansas Lottery Scholarship, and it creates a savings into it for hopefully those kids
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
2:20:06
that cycle back around. One final question, Mr. Chair.
And I've had a lot of kids that dealt with a lot of different scholarships, and I did not know of any that required a repayment schedule if they did not get
a degree. Do you know of scholarships that do that? I'm under the impression that
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:20:24
there are some scholarships that if you get them and you drop for reasons outside of the criteria that's defined in there, that there is an expectation and responsibility to pay it back. Is it applicable to all of them?
I can't answer that question. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Speaker 99
2:20:39
Thank you, Representative Winneman. Senator Broadway, we've had some questions that I think are
right up your alley. I think specifically Representative Talley and Representative Viviano. And if you have anything else
Speaker 270
2:20:54
to add, please, you're recognized. Well, I may have to be reminded, Mr. Chairman, what some of those questions were to make sure I've got them in order here. To the initial question about, and I'm sorry, Shane Broadway, ADHE, the initial question about the current circumstances where ADHE can waive
if there's something that occurs with a student to Representative Hammer was talking about that already exists the authority already exists within the lottery legislation itself for medical condition of the student or an immediate family member we have had students and some this year sadly student early in the fall who was diagnosed with cancer and so we were able to place, in a sense, place that student on hold until their medical condition, you know, could
improve, and then they could go back, you know, on the scholarship. They wouldn't lose it because of the medical condition. So you've got medical condition, a personal or family emergency. Obviously, that can be broad in its interpretation as to what
Speaker 161
2:22:06
that means. Military service. Someone is called to duty to serve in military, commitment for 12 or more months for community service with the national or
Speaker 270
2:22:16
global humanitarian service, and then any other reason approved by us.
You do have a lot of interesting circumstances that certainly come our way in terms of why a student may need to have their scholarship placed on hold or put back. Representative Biviano, do
Speaker 202
2:22:37
you want to restate your question? Thank
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
2:22:42
was just curious, and maybe you can just give us a little history. Was there a discussion about, you know, a scenario where somebody has dropped out, and
obviously that takes away money from other future prospective students, from my perspective. But has there been that discussion, and if so, why not, and what's the thought on
Speaker 159
2:23:03
this? I think it goes to the legal terms used, and that's
Speaker 270
2:23:07
the discussion. And let me say something about Representative Hammer, not just because he and I have known each other our whole lives, but how much I appreciate him coming and visiting with us about the bill and letting us kind of talk through some issues here about it.
And there will be, and certainly I'm no constitutional scholar. I was around when the initial bill was being drafted. At the time, there was not any discussion about there being a payback provision put in. And I think, Representative Viviano, that goes to the definition of scholarship or grant and whether or not under the constitutional amendment a scholarship or grant, by definition,
could be instead a forgivable or unforgivable loan because the word loan was not used in the constitutional amendment. And so there has been issues raised about those specific definitions and whether then you could, on the back side, we're giving you a scholarship or grant if you look at their peer definitions, and then on the back side, if you don't do something, then you're going to have to pay that scholarship or grant back.
So there was never really a great discussion about that upon the initial drafting of the legislation. So there's never been any provision within the academic challenge scholarship of collecting when a student fails to meet their eligibility requirements. We do have two programs, two loan programs that we currently administer, and there have been others in the past at ADHE.
One is for dentistry. The other is for optometry, where we provide a loan for them to go out of state because we don't have a dental school or an optometric school. We provide a loan, and then if they come back to the state and work, then we pay back their costs that they had to take out to go to those schools. So we do administer those, but they are specifically spelled out that they are a loan program.
So you're probably going to get a lot of different opinions in terms of whether or not the constitutional amendment itself would permit something like this, and that's one thing I'd told Representative Hammer early on is, you know, I'm not the legal scholar here. There is concern that this, you know, something like this may not be constitutional because
Speaker 60
2:25:50
of the way the constitutional amendment was written. But, again, you probably
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
2:25:55
need somebody. You know, I would think one of the scholarships to me is granted based on ability to achieve
either previous achievements or capacity for future achievements. It shouldn't be just a word as free money. But the second thing is we've already seen legislation in this session that's passed to reduce the amount of scholarship money because of lack of funds. So I think we're going to have to look at ways, unless we believe that that is going to turn around anytime soon, at ways to actually reward students that have the ability to succeed.
So I would hope that whether this passes or not today that we continue this dialogue and discussion about this particular
Speaker 270
2:26:40
issue. To your point about that, Representative Bibiano, by making the reduction that has been made, the figure that I provided to Representative Hammer about how much has been lost, if you stayed on the same course in terms of the number of students the first and second year who did not retain their scholarship, Obviously, the first-year award amount now will be lessened,
so you're probably talking about, I guess, half that number. If it's a 2,000 instead of 4,500, that number may be less in terms of what your actual loss
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
2:27:17
is. I just point that out. But it also lessens the amount of those students that have the ability to achieve and may place additional hardships on those. I mean, the ultimate goal is to get people graduated. Because you've had to reduce
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
2:27:30
the amounts. Yes, sir. Thank you, Representative Viviano. Thank you.
Speaker 270
2:27:33
Thank you. And I apologize, Madam Chair, and someone else had asked, Representative Linderman, you had asked a question, I think, I was going to add, and I'm trying to remember what the question was.
There was a point I was going to mention on it,
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
2:27:49
so I apologize. If they have another question, they can get on the list. Representative
Representative Eddie L. Armstrong
Unverified
2:27:56
Armstrong. Yes. Basically, what you need to do now is clear, clear, clarify up and take scholarship away and just say a loan and let it be known that they got to pay this back if they don't make it through school. Because if you say scholarship, they're looking at a scholarship, and I think Representative Linderman talked about this.
Well, scholarships are usually something people look forward to that they don't have to pay back and that most of them that get a scholarship is going to work hard for it. I know my daughter got a scholarship, and she worked hard because she knew the requirements to keep that scholarship. And if she lost that scholarship, it wasn't a payback. It was she had to keep those requirements to keep it. So that's what we need to look at, make certain standards where we can make the requirements where they can keep those scholarships and try to motivate them more to keep them than just take
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
2:28:44
away. Did you have a question, Mr. Armstrong, of Representative Hammer?
Speaker 77
2:28:49
Wouldn't you agree? Wouldn't you agree
Speaker 121
2:29:01
to that? I respectfully like to think about that, please. Representative Douglas, do
Speaker 122
2:29:05
you have a question? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. A question, I would be very much in favor of this. If you qualified the repayment due to a student dropping out during the term or from lack of going to class,
they pack up and go home you know something like that that shows no effort on their part and so I wondered if that was maybe more of a qualifier other than you know we've got lots of students that will go to college like Representative Linderman said or Catlett and that first year even if they make it one year may be valuable to them in some way. They may not graduate from college.
So I think lack of effort could be somehow determined. And I know we do that, I think, on Pell Grants. If they quit midterm, they have complete zero grade point, then they have to repay maybe that. But I would be very interested in that. Okay. Is there a question? Wouldn't you agree? Let's remember,
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
2:30:17
we are a bunch of educators, and we do like to talk, but this is for question and answer.
If you wish to speak for or against the bill, we'll certainly give
Speaker 122
2:30:30
you time. Yeah, and the question was, is
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:30:35
that addressed in your bill? May I respond to that? Absolutely. Thank you. Boy, that train just jumped that track right off the bat. Okay, yes, thank you. The bill is actually part of the intent of the bill and the way it's drafted is to begin to accumulate that information that you're asking for
because we don't want to punish those who have good legitimate reasons. And punishment was a hard word. We don't really want to look for the ability to recover from those who have hard circumstances of life that are of no fault of their own as much as we do those that are maybe utilizing and imposing upon the system and punishing other people because they have just chosen they want to quit school and they took all that money and ran with it. And I think maybe Senator Broadway wanted to say something to that.
Speaker 270
2:31:29
Representative Douglas, one thing that Representative Hammer and I had talked about and one thing that I've had an initial conversation with the presidents and chancellors is there has been concern expressed about students taking the money and then dropping. Pell Grant has been one example for many years. And some of our institutions have gone to a paying out, I think, twice over the semester, or once early on and then once after the drop date.
And we are now taking a look at, we currently, on the 11th day of class, is when the count is taken. And after the 11th day of class, we send a roster to each institution saying, by our system, this student should be at your institution. The complicating factor of trying to do that on the 11th class day and in the middle of the semester to try to check it, and we've talked about doing it at the end of the semester to see if they completed it,
somebody's going to miss Christmas. is about what we've figured out in terms of somebody's going to have to be doing a lot of work during a holiday. So we're trying to look for a smoother way to do it. And so one thing we've talked about, and I've talked about Ripson of Hammer, is instead of sending the roster at the 11th class day, and some of this we've got to work through as a cash flow issue because you're talking about, for the spring, you're talking about $63 million that is transferred from us to the institutions.
So we've got to make sure we're not putting them in a cash flow problem if we wait until the last day to drop. That's one thing that we have talked about is taking that. The other issue is that's different for all 33 institutions what that day is. So trying to – your thought is kind of along the lines of a way that we've been thinking, too, in terms of not paying until we're sure that they're still there. Director Broadway, if
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
2:33:32
I can excuse you for just a moment. Just excuse or interrupt for just a moment.
We are getting very close to restlessness and past time
of the committee. So, Representative Hammer, do you have a comment here to bring this in for a landing? Yes, ma'am, I do. What I
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:33:49
would respectfully like to do is, on the basis of a couple comments that have been made at
the table today, I don't perceive that we don't agree that we need to address the issue. I would like to just pause or take this bill down for now. I'll come back next week. I'd like to address Representative Linderman's point.
And I have conferred with the Attorney General's office. I'd like the chance to go back and reconfirm with them. But I want to say this in my closing comments. This committee just passed out a bill that there was a question whether or not it was going to be constitutionally challenged in the front. I would just like for you all to remember that when I come back. if I can't agree with the attorney general's office because we need a point of reference to start from, and this bill could be that point of reference to start from. So I just wish the committee would think of that as I will respect the time and pull it down and come back next week.
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
2:34:42
Thank you, Representative Hammer. I am going to ask for a quick motion to adjourn and assume everybody is in favor.
Agenda
HB1231
HB1410
HB1469
HB1310
HB1485
HB1489
Documents
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Speakers
Representative James McLean Chair
Unverified
Speaker 2
Speaker 3
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
Steve Schultz
Unverified
Speaker 21
Speaker 23
Representative John Catlett
Unverified
Speaker 46
Representative Sheilla E. Lampkin
Unverified
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
Speaker 47
Speaker 97
Speaker 99
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
Speaker 105
Representative John Charles Edwards
Unverified
Speaker 118
Speaker 122
Speaker 126
Speaker 121
Speaker 129
Representative Jon S. Eubanks
Unverified
Representative Jody Dickinson
Unverified
Speaker 43
Representative Bruce Cozart
Unverified
Speaker 152
Speaker 157
Speaker 159
Speaker 160
Speaker 169
Representative Andy Mayberry
Unverified
Speaker 128
Speaker 189
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
Speaker 206
Speaker 212
Speaker 213
Speaker 219
Speaker 190
Speaker 224
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
Speaker 235
Speaker 236
Speaker 237
Speaker 238
Speaker 244
Representative Scott Baltz
Unverified
Chair
Unverified
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
Speaker 253
Speaker 132
Representative Brent Talley
Unverified
Speaker 266
Speaker 270
Speaker 161
Speaker 202
Speaker 60
Representative Eddie L. Armstrong
Unverified
Speaker 77