Education Committee - Senate
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Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
0:00
thank you members i'm going to remove my mask and speak into the mic um that we're calling i'm calling the senate education committee meeting to order um first i'm going to make some opening remarks um so as you all know i'm senator missy ervin but i just wanted to make these
opening remarks really quickly. I'm excited to join this team of legislators and stakeholders who are all very
passionate about education policy and how it truly impacts the lives and future successes of all of our citizens. Education is the base factor that affects nearly every aspect of life and it is critical that we give a great deal of our time and attention to thoughtfully consider every policy decision that comes before us. I want to thank Senator Jane English for her amazing leadership and incredible work focused on career and technical education and workforce readiness. She has championed the chairmanship of this committee and without her leadership we would
not be where we are today. So thank you Senator English. Senator Eads has also been a champion in this arena. I look forward to working with you both and helping you continue to do your important work. I want to thank Senators Elliott and Senators Chesterfield and Senators Sturge for their commitment to K-12 education and focus, as well as their professional contribution to education and teaching our students. All you have to do is read their biographies and you will see their long commitment
to education in the state of Arkansas and to teaching students. As a fellow teacher, I know how challenging but also gratifying this work is. Be assured that the seeds that you plant grow into strong, fruitful trees. Thank you for your work you've done to the state and for these students. I have worked in the past with Senator Letting and count him also as a friend. We are both, along with former Representative Rebecca Petty, founding board members of the organization Human Rights for Kids, and we have joined forces in continuing our work
for juvenile justice reform and sentencing reform for minors. I'm excited to work with you on this committee. and we all welcome senator charles beckham to the senate and to this committee and
i look forward to working with you i wanted to share a little bit now um about myself your bio was very short
so we're waiting to get more information about you we know you went to mississippi state university and there's been some great stuff that mississippi
State has done in the area of education. So I'm excited to meet with you and learn more about that. I just wanted to share a little bit about myself, and some of you have only seen me primarily work in health care policy, which I will continue to do. Just for the folks that are watching out there and those attending, I'm a student and a product of private school education. I attended Holy Souls and Mount St. Mary Academy. I attended Randolph-Macon Women's College and I hold a
bachelor's degree with a triple major in political science communications and dance and a minor in art history. I have danced professionally. I have worked professionally in communications with KATV and now here I am in politics with you lot. I have also worked as a substitute teacher for K-12 and Alternative Ed for Mountain View Public Schools, where all four of my children have graduated. I helped begin the East program at Mountain View School District, began the soccer program for Mountain View School District, serving as a volunteer soccer coach for the girls soccer
team, and volunteering for girls golf and track. I also served as a volunteer coach for the Mountain View Junior High dance teams. I've worked as a high school soccer referee. I've been a strong advocate and supporter for the Mountain View School District Music Roots Program which you will learn more about during this time on education. I have been intensely involved with public schools for the past 22 years and most recently in helping Mountain View School District implement the Save the Children program for which we just received a National Champion for Children's
award from Save the Children. On the higher ed level I was an adjunct professor of dance and director of the dance department for Hendrix College for several years, so Linda Chesterfield claims me as a Hendrix person with her. I developed and wrote college curriculum there and worked side-by-side with the theater department in developing the dance program. I'm a professional choreographer as well, and I will happily guest teach dance anytime I am asked. I'm deeply committed to pursuing excellent policy through a thoughtful process of dialogue and
debate. We all come from different backgrounds and perspectives. It is my desire and intention to guide us through the decisions we have before us by respecting all perspectives. In deliberating together, as we are all committed to improving the lives of Arkansas students and citizens, I know we will be successful. The state and thousands of children are counting on us. So thank you. It's an honor to serve with you
on this committee. And again, I want to thank Senator English for her leadership and chairmanship. At this time, I want each of you
on the committee to make your own introduction. We will start with Senator
Senator Lance Eads
Unverified
5:44
Eads. I'm Senator Lance Eads from Springdale, represent District 7, which includes Springdale, portions of Fayetteville and Elkins.
Speaker 8
5:56
Senator Letting. Senator Greg Letting from Fayetteville it's district four it includes most of Fayetteville Farmington Greenland and the part of
Senator Jane English
Unverified
6:05
West Fork. I'm Senator Jane English from district 34
and I represent Jacksonville Sherwood North Little Rock all male. I'm State Senator
Senator Linda Chesterfield
Unverified
6:21
Linda Chesterfield. I represent Senate District 30, which encompasses every city
or a portion of every city in Pulaski County, Jacksonville, Marmel, Sherwood, North Little Rock, Little Rock, and Wrightsville. I also represent the rural areas with such colorful names as Dick Jeter, to which I took our chair,
and McAlmont and Sweet Home, College Station, Hensley, Higgins. So as you go up and down, I also represent areas from each major highway, as a matter of fact. I represent parts of individuals who live on 40 east, 40 west, 30 east, 30 west, 440 east, 440 west, 530 east and north and south. and so I go to the airport and all points in between and I could just keep on going because
I think I have one of the most eclectic areas in Pulaski County, but it's a joy and it's good to have a Hendricks person. I'm the first African-American graduate of Hendricks and so we're pleased that Senator
Speaker 14
7:34
Irving claims us at this point. Senator James Sturge, District 19. I represent and Independence, Sharp, Izzard, and
Senator Charles Beckham
Unverified
7:43
parts of Fulton and Randolph County. Senator Charles Beckham, representing District 12, Columbia County, Dallas County,
parts of Nevada, Ouachita, Clark, and Grant Counties. I'm Doris Elliott,
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
7:56
and our new person represents the county where I was born, Nevada County. Let's remember that when we were buds in arms. but I represent the largest swath of Little Rock I think that any any legislator does if you were to start this is district 31 if you were to start right over here by children's hospital and go all the way back to the county line right through the woods and everything and then on interstate 630
if you could start on 630 and to go all the way to 630 cross over to us and all and stop roughly around Kirby Road then go all the way back to the county line so basically I represent Little Rock and I represent the Pulaski County side of Alexander for
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
8:44
you know that's a twin city thank you and I represent district 18 which is Fulton Baxter Marion Searcy Stone Cleburne
van buren white and faulkner counties so i go basically from el paso all the way to missouri north central arkansas um huge massive massive district but i love it so much lots of very rural schools and small schools there um at this time i want the committee uh staff to
um introduce themselves starting with miss nelson hi i'm michelle nelson and i'm your analyst and i'm happy to assist you in any way. Thank you. Thank you. And
at this time, the Department of Education
is with us. If you will stand and state your name and
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
9:57
will always have stakeholders and we're thankful that you're with us here today as well and look forward to working with you at this time it's
our task it's odd not to have a room full of people in these these committees but I have need to go
through the new policies and procedures for the committees so these are taken from the draft rules. So our assigned meeting time is here at 2 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesday. We will not meet next Monday because we are awaiting fiscal impact statements for the bills that have been filed. So we cannot consider those until those fiscal impact statements, unless it's a higher ed bill. That's right, it is. Thank you for the reminder. So due to health
and safety requirements, you do have an assigned seating, which remains
in the duration for the 2021. It's been arranged to provide physical distancing and shall not be rearranged. A mask or other cloth face covering is required to be worn over the mouth and nose of every individual in committee rooms and public comment holding rooms at all times except when an individual is speaking directly into the microphone able to maintain physical distance of six feet or more
from other individuals or are or is drinking um committee members staff and members of the public shall remove and dispose of any trash he or she creates during the
course of the committee meeting so you have to clean up after yourselves um the senate shall place staff in the committee room to ensure compliance by the members of the public with room capacity limits masking requirements and physical distancing requirements um as for our agendas as a bill is filed and assigned to a committee the bill shall be placed on the referred list for the committee the committee
I will then use the referred list items to create the regular agenda for each committee meeting and so my plan is for sponsors of bills to contact me and I will schedule those bills and I am requesting as much as possible that those deadlines will be on noon on Thursday and then the consent agenda will be posted Thursday afternoon and then noon on Monday with a consent agenda posted on Monday afternoon for the Wednesday meeting. I will also text each of the members of this committee
with just the bill number that will be then considered at the next meeting. So expect from me a text message which will have just the bill numbers for you to make
sure that you are prepared to deliberate on those bills. As you
know, so again, it's the responsibility of the sponsors to contact me. I did this last session in public health and tried to schedule bills as much as possible.
And I did a lot of chasing sponsors down. I, you know, time is limited. and so if you know of people that are sponsoring bills in this committee if you will help me just encourage them to make sure they get in
touch with me and schedule the bills that would be helpful um let's see um i i will also ask you to review the list of the bills to the consent agenda and just help me check that to make sure we're we're all square so i'm your point guard basically
folks. The committee agenda shall be posted at least 18 hours prior to the committee meeting and shall state the room number for the public comment holding room. When a fiscal impact is required on bills, you will see and receive, sponsors will receive an email from Ms. Nelson verifying that your bill has been received by this committee and placed on the referred list and is awaiting a fiscal impact. So you
will have that email if you're a sponsor of a bill on education.
Public participation, public comment sign-in sheets for each committee meeting will be posted electronically with the agenda on the General Assembly website and physically at each committee room. So folks, if you know that somebody from the public is going to want to come and comment on a bill encourage them to go to www.arkleg website and under the schedule of events if you pull it up and right here you can go to our meeting
date and if you look for instance on this app on your phone and under education committee you will have an opportunity to sign in to speak so it the little dot says sign in and if you click on that then they can sign in their
name and meeting it's a meeting speaker sign in form with the bill number the name your title your email address and your organization or your interest and your
position which is either for against or informational and then submit it so I'm just making sure you're aware of that app feature on our website and to encourage people to use that it will be helpful for our purposes and an individual's name appearing on a public comment sign-in sheet does not guarantee that the individual will have an opportunity to speak during the committee meeting and for the purposes of the rules a lobbyist is considered to be a member of the public. Consideration of the Senate rule,
committee rules. Folks, if you will look in your green folders, I'm going to go over what is in your content. Madam Chair. Yeah, the rules are being passed out
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
15:54
now. About the part, because I've had this question out, I didn't try to answer because I don't, you know, I wouldn't know what I was talking about at the time. But for all of us in any committee, we have that caveat about there's no guarantee you'll get to testify just because you signed up. Could we just address, let some people know what might be the reason for that,
because right now people don't have a clue, and they've never seen that
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
16:23
written down before. Right. That's an excellent question, and I'll do my best to answer that. So there are motions that are non-debatable motions that can be made by the members of the committee, which are, one, One, limit debate, which that then would not guarantee that an individual would have an opportunity to speak during a committee meeting, or two, that immediate consideration of a bill. So those two motions could be made by a member of the committee.
Limit debate, and that would be a time-kept limit, which would be kept by our staff. That would limit somebody's opportunity from testifying on a bill, or motion to immediately consider, which again is
non-debatable, and if that passed, then that would also not guarantee a member's or an individual from the public's opportunity to speak on a bill. Apart from that, you know, it is my intention that we proceed
deliberately and thoughtfully and hear from the public and do our best to slow down and be patient and to really make sure that we have a
full deliberative process on every bill okay if you will look members at the rules that are placed before you um we will need a motion to consent to adopt these rules so moved by senator chesterfield second by
senator beckham those in favor say aye and opposed eyes have it the rules are adopted for the
committee. If you will look in your green
folder, just, I'm going to, Ms. Nelson, I'm
going to recognize you to go over the green folders. If
Speaker 36
18:08
you open your green folders, on the left-hand side will be your agendas and we'll update those for each meeting. On the left is order of priority of motions for you. Under there, it's just a
Speaker 38
18:26
quick reference page to show the flow of the
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
19:20
and for the purposes of so education is meeting in the old Supreme Court room and for the purposes of the public the public holding room is going to be room 272 so again and that's that is after that is also in your green folder.
I want to address amendments really quickly. We do not have verbal amendments in this committee. All amendments to bills must be in writing. However, if an amendment comes before us when a bill is being presented
and the amendment drastically or dramatically changes the language of the bill and then I will have it rescheduled so that the public knows what exactly we're deliberating on
and what we're considering. So it will then go back and have to be rescheduled for the consent agenda
if it's a substantial amendment. If it's an amendment that just adds co-sponsors, then I will allow that to proceed because it doesn't change the meat of the
bill. the only instance in which six votes is required is to suspend the rules in order to take up a bill that is not on the agenda but again you know we're going to use this judiciously all right
okay members the other thing that was included is a a chronology of changes and structure and funding of the public education system in Arkansas that has been created and that's on your desk that's been created by the BLR and I just want to thank them for that that's your homework but you probably already know it oh you don't have one we'll make sure you get one for you
but we're thankful for that and that's going to be helpful and so just encourage you to read that and ask them for any questions um are there any questions or comments if we leave something in our folders is
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
21:42
that okay if i leave notes in my phone i'm going to get the same folder every time i can leave my stuff in here but i won't leave an encyclopedia anything and i promise you
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
21:54
that so yes any other questions or comments members of the committee all right i look forward to
this adventure together. We're going to do the very best we can, but thank you, and it's an honor to serve with each of you. We're adjourned.
Agenda
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — EDUCATION COMMITTEE - SENATE AND HOUSE MEETING JOINTLY WITH ADVANCED COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION, Jan 13, 2021 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
Senator Lance Eads
Unverified
Speaker 8
Senator Jane English
Unverified
Senator Linda Chesterfield
Unverified
Speaker 14
Senator Charles Beckham
Unverified
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
Speaker 23
Speaker 22
Speaker 36
Speaker 38