Education Committee- House
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Bills discussed (48)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
HB1633
Act 475
· 6 mentions in chapter, transcript, agenda
Matched: “HB1633 Brooks TO AMEND ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR PARTICIPATING…”
|
TO AMEND ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR PARTICIPATING IN EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES FOR CERTAIN STUDENTS WHO TRANSFER SCHOOLS; … | Brooks | Notification that HB1633 is now Act 475 |
|
HB1833
Act 806
· 6 mentions in agenda, chapter, transcript
Matched: “…PRIVATE TWO- YEAR AND FOUR-YEAR COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES. HB1833 M. Shepherd TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE ADMISSIONS AT T…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE ADMISSIONS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS COLLEGE OF MEDICINE. | M. Shepherd | Notification that HB1833 is now Act 806 |
|
SB391
Act 472
· 5 mentions in transcript, chapter, agenda
Matched: “…l. You're recognized and we are here to speak in support of Senate Bill 391, um, robotics, as with all educational programs, has resour…”
|
TO CREATE THE ROBOTICS COMPETITION GRANT PROGRAM FOR ELIGIBLE ROBOTICS TEAMS IN PUBLIC OR PRIVATE … | J. Dismang | Notification that SB391 is now Act 472 |
|
HB1017
Act 904
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1017 A. Collins TO AMEND THE LAW REGARDING PAID MATERNITY LEAVE…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW REGARDING PAID MATERNITY LEAVE FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL EMPLOYEES; AND TO REQUIRE … | A. Collins | Notification that HB1017 is now Act 904 |
|
HB1139
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…NT AND ADMINISTRATION OF PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES. HB1139 B. McKenzie TO CREATE THE RELEASED TIME EDUCATION ACT. HB18…”
|
TO CREATE THE RELEASED TIME EDUCATION ACT. | B. McKenzie | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1283
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1283 J. Mayberry TO REQUIRE THE DIVISION OF ELEMENTARY AND SECON…”
|
TO REQUIRE THE DIVISION OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION TO INCLUDE DIGITAL MEDIA STANDARDS IN … | J. Mayberry | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1709
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1709 Steele TO AMEND THE HUMAN SERVICES WORKERS IN THE SCHOOLS P…”
|
TO AMEND THE HUMAN SERVICES WORKERS IN THE SCHOOLS PROGRAM; AND TO INCLUDE MENTAL HEALTH … | Steele | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1710
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1710 Vaught TO PROHIBIT A SCHOOL FROM USING OR REFERENCING A PUB…”
|
TO PROHIBIT A SCHOOL FROM USING OR REFERENCING A PUBLIC SCHOOL RATING IN ANY ADVERTISING, … | Vaught | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
|
HB1719
Act 905
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1719 Vaught TO AMEND THE DAYS INCLUDED IN THE TOTAL NUMBER OF MA…”
|
TO AMEND THE DAYS INCLUDED IN THE TOTAL NUMBER OF MATERNITY LEAVE DAYS APPROVED BY … | Vaught | Notification that HB1719 is now Act 905 |
|
HB1727
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1727 L. Johnson TO AMEND THE FUNDING AVAILABLE TO ADULT EDUCATIO…”
|
TO AMEND THE FUNDING AVAILABLE TO ADULT EDUCATION CHARTER SCHOOLS. | L. Johnson | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
|
HB1747
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1747 Vaught TO CREATE THE BABIES AT SCHOOL ACT; AND TO ALLOW SCH…”
|
TO CREATE THE BABIES AT SCHOOL ACT; AND TO ALLOW SCHOOLS TO PERMIT EMPLOYEES WHO … | Vaught | Recommended for study in the Interim by the … |
|
HB1755
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1755 T. Shephard TO REQUIRE EACH PUBLIC SCHOOL TO PARTICIPATE IN…”
|
TO REQUIRE EACH PUBLIC SCHOOL TO PARTICIPATE IN THE ARKANSAS PREVENTION NEEDS ASSESSMENT SURVEY. | T. Shephard | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1761
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…RENTS TO BRING THEIR INFANTS SIX MONTHS OR YOUNGER TO WORK. HB1761 D. Garner TO INCREASE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY THROUGH THE EST…”
|
TO INCREASE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY THROUGH THE ESTABLISHMENT OF INCOME LIMITS FOR STUDENTS ELIGIBLE FOR EDUCATIONAL … | D. Garner | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1786
Act 826
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1786 Brooks TO PROVIDE ELIGIBILITY FOR A TUITION BENEFIT TO SOLD…”
|
TO PROVIDE ELIGIBILITY FOR A TUITION BENEFIT TO SOLDIERS AND AIRMEN OF THE ARKANSAS NATIONAL … | Brooks | Notification that HB1786 is now Act 826 |
|
HB1793
Act 804
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…EEDOM ACCOUNTS IN THE 2025-2026 SCHOOL YEAR AND THEREAFTER. HB1793 Duke TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE USE OF POSITIVE BEHAVI…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE USE OF POSITIVE BEHAVIORAL SUPPORTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICTS. | Duke | Notification that HB1793 is now Act 804 |
|
HB1806
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1806 Vaught TO PROVIDE CURRICULUM TRANSPARENCY FOR PARENTS OF KI…”
|
TO PROVIDE CURRICULUM TRANSPARENCY FOR PARENTS OF KINDERGARTEN THROUGH GRADE TWELVE STUDENTS; AND TO ALLOW … | Vaught | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1812
Act 918
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…HE SAME ALLEGATION OF BULLYING UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES. HB1812 Gramlich TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT AND ACCO…”
|
TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT; TO CREATE AN EXCEPTION TO ATTENDANCE … | Gramlich | Notification that HB1812 is now Act 918 |
|
HB1825
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…TEST; AND TO AMEND THE SCORE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE GED TEST. HB1825 Wooldridge TO ALLOW A PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL TO REQUIRE AN ENRO…”
|
TO ALLOW A PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL TO REQUIRE AN ENROLLED STUDENT TO EARN ONE UNIT … | Wooldridge | Recommended for study in the Interim by the … |
|
HB1864
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1864 Andrews TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE ARKANSAS CODE TO IMPROVE…”
|
TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE ARKANSAS CODE TO IMPROVE EFFICIENCY IN STUDENT INSTRUCTION; AND TO … | Andrews | Recommended for study in the Interim by the … |
|
HB1866
Act 908
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1866 Brooks TO CREATE ELI'S LAW; AND TO REQUIRE EACH PUBLIC SCHO…”
|
TO CREATE ELI'S LAW; AND TO REQUIRE EACH PUBLIC SCHOOL TO INSTALL AN AUDIO RECORDING … | Brooks | Notification that HB1866 is now Act 908 |
|
HB1874
Act 795
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…LOCKER ROOM AND DRESSING ROOM ON THE PUBLIC SCHOOL CAMPUS. HB1874 B. McKenzie AN ACT TO AMEND THE USE OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOP…”
|
AN ACT TO AMEND THE USE OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FUNDING THAT EXCEEDS THE MAXIMUM AMOUNT … | B. McKenzie | Notification that HB1874 is now Act 795 |
|
SB352
Act 721
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB352 Stone TO PROHIBIT ANTISEMITISM IN PUBLIC ELEMENTARY AND SEC…”
|
TO PROHIBIT ANTISEMITISM IN PUBLIC ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS; AND TO PROHIBIT ANTISEMITISM IN STATE-SUPPORTED … | Stone | Notification that SB352 is now Act 721 |
|
SB373
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB373 Irvin TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS FINANCIAL EDUCATION COMMISSION.”
|
TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS FINANCIAL EDUCATION COMMISSION. | Irvin | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB390
Act 695
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB390 J. English TO ESTABLISH THE STATE APPRENTICESHIP AGENCY ACT…”
|
TO ESTABLISH THE STATE APPRENTICESHIP AGENCY ACT. | J. English | Notification that SB390 is now Act 695 |
|
SB402
Act 725
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…IELDS OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND MATHEMATICS. SB402 C. Penzo TO PROHIBIT A PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT AND AN EDUCAT…”
|
TO PROHIBIT A PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT AND AN EDUCATIONAL SERVICE COOPERATIVE FROM REQUIRING OR TAKING … | C. Penzo | Notification that SB402 is now Act 725 |
|
HB1027
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…THE STUDENT OBTAINS. DEFERRED BILLS Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1027 D. Garner TO CREATE THE BRIGHTER START ACT OF 2025; AND TO…”
|
TO CREATE THE BRIGHTER START ACT OF 2025; AND TO REQUIRE THE TREASURER OF STATE … | D. Garner | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1030
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…TING AND FUTURE ARKANSAS BRIGHTER FUTURE FUND PLAN ACCOUNT. HB1030 T. Shephard TO REQUIRE A SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICER OR LAW ENF…”
|
TO REQUIRE A SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICER OR LAW ENFORCEMENT PERSONNEL TO OBTAIN CERTIFICATION IN YOUTH … | T. Shephard | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1031
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…OUNSELOR TO RECEIVE YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID TRAINING. HB1031 D. Garner TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS HEALTHY LIFESTYLE EDUCATIO…”
|
TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS HEALTHY LIFESTYLE EDUCATION ACT OF 2025; AND TO ENSURE THE HEALTH … | D. Garner | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1081
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1081 B. McKenzie TO REPEAL ADDITIONAL FUNDING FOR THE DEVELOPMEN…”
|
TO REPEAL ADDITIONAL FUNDING FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND ADMINISTRATION OF PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES. | B. McKenzie | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
|
HB1239
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…IC SCHOOLS ADDRESSES CERTAIN HEALTH ISSUES FACING STUDENTS. HB1239 A. Collins TO AMEND THE PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING ACT OF 2003;…”
|
TO AMEND THE PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING ACT OF 2003; AND TO ADD AN ADDITIONAL CATEGORY … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1242
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…NT AT EACH MEETING OF A SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD OF DIRECTORS. HB1242 J. Mayberry TO AMEND THE MECHANISM BY WHICH SCHOOL NURSES A…”
|
TO AMEND THE MECHANISM BY WHICH SCHOOL NURSES ARE COMPENSATED. | J. Mayberry | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1312
Act 909
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…ACT OF 2003. PENDING FISCAL IMPACT Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1312 Brooks TO AMEND PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING AMOUNTS UNDER THE PUB…”
|
TO AMEND PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING AMOUNTS UNDER THE PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING ACT OF 2003. | Brooks | Notification that HB1312 is now Act 909 |
|
HB1457
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…DER TO BE ELIGIBLE TO ENROLL IN A HOME SCHOOL. Page 3 of 4 HB1457 L. Johnson TO REQUIRE PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO SUBMIT DATA AND OTH…”
|
TO REQUIRE PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO SUBMIT DATA AND OTHER INFORMATION RELATED TO A PUBLIC SCHOOL … | L. Johnson | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
|
HB1482
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…RT CARD TO INCLUDE A STUDENT'S CURRENT READING GRADE LEVEL. HB1482 Gramlich TO CREATE AN EXCEPTION TO THE SCHOOL ATTENDANCE RE…”
|
TO CREATE AN EXCEPTION TO THE SCHOOL ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS FOR A STUDENT WHO TAKES A … | Gramlich | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1483
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…DITIONAL CATEGORY OF FUNDING FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION FUNDING. HB1483 Gramlich TO ALLOW A PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT TO USE STATE FUN…”
|
TO ALLOW A PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT TO USE STATE FUNDS TO PAY FOR AN ADULT … | Gramlich | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1484
Act 910
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…TYPE 2 DIABETES WHEN OTHER HEALTH INFORMATION IS PROVIDED. HB1484 Gramlich TO LIMIT THE NUMBER OF CREDITS A STUDENT MAY OBTAI…”
|
TO LIMIT THE NUMBER OF CREDITS A STUDENT MAY OBTAIN IN A COURSE CREDIT RECOVERY … | Gramlich | Notification that HB1484 is now Act 910 |
|
HB1490
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…TIONAL EDUCATION CATEGORY OF FUNDING FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION. HB1490 Wardlaw TO REPEAL THE REQUIREMENT THAT A PUBLIC SCHOOL STUD…”
|
TO REPEAL THE REQUIREMENT THAT A PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENT RETURN TEMPORARILY ISSUED ITEMS, RESOURCES, MATERIALS, … | Wardlaw | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1492
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…S A STUDENT MAY OBTAIN IN A COURSE CREDIT RECOVERY PROGRAM. HB1492 Gramlich TO REQUIRE EACH PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT AND OPEN-EN…”
|
TO REQUIRE EACH PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT AND OPEN-ENROLLMENT PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL TO IMPLEMENT A MOBILE … | Gramlich | Recommended for study in the Interim by the … |
|
HB1528
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…AMEND THE MECHANISM BY WHICH SCHOOL NURSES ARE COMPENSATED. HB1528 McGruder TO REQUIRE A REPORT CARD TO INCLUDE A STUDENT'S CU…”
|
TO REQUIRE A REPORT CARD TO INCLUDE A STUDENT'S CURRENT READING GRADE LEVEL. | McGruder | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1539
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…ENTS FOR A STUDENT WHO TAKES A GED TEST AND RECEIVES A GED. HB1539 A. Collins TO AMEND THE PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING ACT OF 2003;…”
|
TO AMEND THE PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING ACT OF 2003; AND TO ADD AN ADDITIONAL EDUCATION … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1580
Act 801
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…N PROGRAM USING A UNIFORM STATEWIDE DATA COLLECTION SYSTEM. HB1580 Gramlich TO REQUIRE SCHOOLS TO PROVIDE CERTAIN INFORMATION…”
|
TO REQUIRE SCHOOLS TO PROVIDE CERTAIN INFORMATION ON TYPE 1 AND TYPE 2 DIABETES WHEN … | Gramlich | Notification that HB1580 is now Act 801 |
|
HB1672
Act 800
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…OOL-LEVEL GRADUATION RATE IF THE STUDENT PASSES A GED TEST. HB1672 McCollum TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE ARKANSAS CODE TO CREATE…”
|
TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE ARKANSAS CODE TO CREATE A MORE EFFICIENT SYSTEM FOR PUBLIC … | McCollum | Notification that HB1672 is now Act 800 |
|
HB1728
Act 906
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…IC CHARTER SCHOOL TO IMPLEMENT A MOBILE PANIC ALERT SYSTEM. HB1728 Ennett TO REQUIRE REPORTING ON THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS RECEI…”
|
TO REQUIRE REPORTING ON THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS RECEIVING ACCOMMODATIONS FOR A DISABILITY AT INSTITUTIONS … | Ennett | Notification that HB1728 is now Act 906 |
|
HB1756
Act 803
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…UNDING AMOUNTS UNDER THE PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING ACT OF 2003. HB1756 Vaught TO ALLOW A PARENT, LEGAL GUARDIAN, OR PERSON STANDIN…”
|
TO ALLOW A PARENT, LEGAL GUARDIAN, OR PERSON STANDING IN LOCO PARENTIS TO A STUDENT … | Vaught | Notification that HB1756 is now Act 803 |
|
HB1766
Act 907
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…YPES OF ASSESSMENTS PUBLIC SCHOOLS MAY PROVIDE TO STUDENTS. HB1766 Ennett TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS RESPOND, INNOVATE, SUCCEED, A…”
|
TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS RESPOND, INNOVATE, SUCCEED, AND EMPOWER (RISE) ACT. | Ennett | Notification that HB1766 is now Act 907 |
|
HB1805
Act 805
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1805 Childress TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF "BULLYING"; AND TO CRE…”
|
TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF "BULLYING"; AND TO CREATE A PROCESS WHEREBY A PUBLIC SCHOOL … | Childress | Notification that HB1805 is now Act 805 |
|
SB183
Act 724
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…Y AT THE RESIDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS. SB183 J. Dotson TO AMEND THE UNIVERSAL ACT ASSESSMENT PROGRAM ACT…”
|
TO AMEND THE UNIVERSAL ACT ASSESSMENT PROGRAM ACT; AND TO AMEND THE TYPES OF ASSESSMENTS … | J. Dotson | Notification that SB183 is now Act 724 |
|
SB303
Act 644
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…TIONS FOR A DISABILITY AT INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION. SB303 Dees TO ALLOW A RESIDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT TO PERMIT A PRIVAT…”
|
TO ALLOW A RESIDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT TO PERMIT A PRIVATE SCHOOL STUDENT TO PARTICIPATE IN … | Dees | Notification that SB303 is now Act 644 |
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Chair of St. Quorum, good morning, House Education and guests. We have a number of guests. We will do a little bit of introductions here shortly, but first, if you would stand with us, Representative Vice Chair McKenzie will start
us in prayer this morning. Again, as a Catholic, I'll do an extemporaneous prayer, and then we'll end in the Lord's Prayer, our Father. So, dear Heavenly Lord, come to us today and grant wisdom and strength over our hands as we do your business, and watch out over us as we do the business of the state today in matters of education, we ask for patience and understanding and humility from your name.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from
Speaker 6
0:53
evil. Amen. Thank you, Pastor McKenzie. So, as
Speaker 2
1:03
I mentioned, we do have a number of groups here this morning.
I'm going to let me yield to Vice Chair
Speaker 6
1:10
McKenzie to introduce one large group that's with us. Yeah, thank you
so much. Today, ladies and gentlemen of the committee, we have students from the EAST Initiative here. We have students from Clinton Primary School, which is in Hope, Hamburg High School, Lincoln Middle School, Pottsville High School, and Sulphur Rock Elementary. EAST, which stands for the Education Accelerated by Service and Technology, is a non-profit education program supported in over 250 of our Arkansas schools and empowers students to solve real-world problems in their committees using technology and project-based learning.
So if you wouldn't mind, please give them a warm Little Rock welcome. Thank you, Mr. Feishar. If
there are other groups who are here, obviously a very full room, so if there's other groups that are here this morning who we don't know or haven't recognized, feel free to come up and let us know so we can make sure to recognize them. Vice Chair, yes, sir. One more plug I forgot
to mention. Today is STEM Day in the Rotunda. So if you find yourself with nothing to do around 2 p.m. or from noon to 2, please go into the Rotunda and see these wonderful students and the work that they've done.
So thank you. I know we've got a couple groups here, one from, I believe, Mountain Home and one from Harding Academy who are with some robotics teams who are going to be presenting a bill with Representative Eves here shortly. So we'd like to welcome those groups as well. Some of them might be related to me if it looks like I'm similarly a couple of them. So we are glad that you guys are here this morning as well. So members, without objection, I'm going to yield the chair to Vice Chair McKenzie. And I'm going to start off by presenting a concurrent amendment in HB 1633.
And then we will, as I mentioned in text message, we will jump around a lot on the agenda. There's not going to be a lot of consistency of going straight down. We're going to make sure we take members who are coming here from other committees to take them as they are here so we can make sure and get through as many bills as is possible. So with that, Vice Chair, I will yield to you. If you
would recognize yourself, then you would be recognized to present your bill.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Keith Brooks, State Representative District 78. This morning, I bring you an amendment to House Bill 1633, which we passed out of this committee several weeks ago, passed off a floor with no opposition, and now passed the Senate. This is just a, we're concurring in a Senate amendment. It's simply to add Representative Magruder as a co-sponsor to it, and then we deleted eight lines of text in the bill that were unnecessary and just kind of snuck in that had to do with recruiting, that there are already AAA rules relative to that, And so it did not impact the, um, uh, the specifics of legislation anyway.
So I would appreciate, um, uh, do pass motion on the adoption of the amendment. Uh, we have
a motion to adopt the amendment. Uh, I need just pardon. Oh, just to do pass. We have a motion to adopt the amendment as do pass. Is there any discussion from committee? Representative McCollum, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, just real
Representative Austin McCollum
Unverified
4:10
quick on the eight lines of text. Um, can you say what you said again about it? Sure. So, the eight lines -- -- either way, whether it was there or not? So, the eight lines of text, uh,
referred to recruiting for non-public schools. It's already something that's in rule and with the AAA, uh, and it was unnecessary. It had no impact on the actual merits of the bill or what we were attempting to do. It, um, frankly, according to the AAA executive director, it just snuck in there. Unnecessary
Representative Austin McCollum
Unverified
4:36
because it's already a rule within -- Correct, it's already dealt with in how they approach --
-- what they do from a rural standpoint.
Thank you. Uh, are there any other, uh, questions from committee or any discussion on the motion to do pass in concurring to the Senate Amendment?
Seeing none, you're recognized to close? I'm closed for it. Appreciate it to do pass. Uh, uh, confirming the motion to concur in Senate Amendment, all members say, all members of Green say aye. Aye. All opposed? Congratulations. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, committee. What's next? We don't know. He's going to pick. okay
members without objection we are going to move uh down the calendar to the second page
sb 391 which is center dismaying and representative les eves representative eves you are recognized i believe you have some folks that you'd like to bring to the table with you if you would please just introduce yourself for the
Representative Les D. Eaves
Unverified
5:41
record and then have them introduce themselves all right yep Representative Les Eves, District 58. Just real quick before I bring him up, this is a bill that was brought to Senator Dismay and myself from Harding Academy back in Searcy, also at Searcy High School. It's a bill that would establish a grant program to help pay for and establish robotics programs for, I believe, grades 6 through 12 all over the state.
Uh, interestingly, the bill was, uh, entirely written by Harding students, uh, uh, in the academy. And I, I, uh, was talking to Senator Dismang about this bill and he said, when the bill was sent to drafting, there was, uh, little, if any changes at all that needed to be done. So these, uh, young men and young women have spent a lot of time working on this bill, trying to craft it in a way that, uh, was fair, equitable, and would, and would give, uh, them the opportunity along with their colleagues across the state to, uh, establish this robotics grant program.
No general revenue. It is a grant program. It will be worked through the Department of Education. The teams will have to come up with a 25% matching. But there are some students here that, if your permission, I'd like to bring them up and let them give you the details of the bill in a
much better way than I can. Sure. I believe we have some young folks from Hardy Academy as well as Mountain Home who will be there. Representative Ease, wouldn't you agree that the fact that the bill came to BLR
with such excellence might be because someone with the last name
Representative Les D. Eaves
Unverified
7:08
of Brooks was involved in helping. I mean, just plausible. Talent can skip a generation. Fair enough. That's because they're
Speaker 35
7:15
my brother's kids. If y'all would please introduce yourself for
the record and then you're recognized to help explain the bill for representatives. Okay, well, good morning.
Annalee Brooks
Unverified
7:30
My name is Annalee Brooks, and I am the chair of the outreach department for Team 3937 Breakaway. Hi, my name is Clara
Clara Tittle
Unverified
7:43
Tittle, and I am one of the chairs of the business department.
I'm a junior from Team 3937. Hello, my
Speaker 42
7:52
name is Braden Lynn. I am a chair of strategy and a member of the CAD and design of our robot department on Team Breakaway 3937. Hello, my name
Dylan Abraham
Unverified
8:06
is Dylan Abraham, and I'm the scouting lead for Team 16. Hello, my name
Josh Dickinson
Unverified
8:15
is Josh Dickinson. I am the robot lead for Team 16.
Malachi Rivera
Unverified
8:21
Hello, my name is Malachi Rivera, and I am the electrical
person for Team 16. Just to
Speaker 49
8:29
clarify, you gentlemen are from Mountain Home High
Annalee Brooks
Unverified
8:34
School, correct? Bomb squad, if you will. You're recognized. And we are here to speak in support of Senate Bill 391. Robotics, as with all educational programs, has resources that are needed to support this activity, and the students involved need people to invest in these educational opportunities for them. And so this bill will show that the state of Arkansas is supporting STEM-based educational programs
and investing in programs that provide students with career-ready skills. Additionally, many mentors and sponsors of these robotics teams are teachers who spend many, many hours off contract raising funds for these teams. And so this bill would provide a crucial financial base for robotics teams so that teachers and students are no longer focused solely on raising funds to sustain their programs but now have the time and the ability to focus more on learning and teaching these STEM skills
and being equipped even right after they graduate to go straight into the STEM workforce. And behind me are students who will now speak on to how they have been equipped through robotics. And members, just to clarify,
you do see a handout that you got
there from the bomb squad, just giving more information on this, which I asked them to pass out. Thank you.
Josh Dickinson
Unverified
10:05
So as I said, my primary role on the team is the robotics lead. So my role on the team is I am the leader that oversees all of the mechanical, programming, electrical, kind of seeing that everything gets done within a timely manner. The best way that this has equipped me is I started with FIRST Robotics in my 8th grade year on our junior team. So I did that my 8th and 9th grade year. And my 9th grade year, I came up as a student just kind of seeing how the FRC teams went,
and I continued on this is my last year as a senior but I have learned a bunch of different I guess processes I've learned a bunch of different kind of engineering principles and it has kind of inspired a love for this engineering that I am taking with me to the University of Arkansas to pursue a degree in
Malachi Rivera
Unverified
11:03
mechanical engineering. So, as I said, I am the electrical person on our team. Before Bomb Squad, I didn't know much about robotics or anything.
Didn't have any knowledge with power tools or your regular tools and stuff like that. And robotics has equipped me to be able to do stuff on my own now. I can solder. I can do all the basic stuff, use my tools and everything. Electrical specifically, this year I've helped really hard in creating a diagnostic system for our whole robot. So if there's anything wrong, we have a LED system that will allow us to check for anything on the robot, any moving component, and I've pretty much led that project by myself.
And the things in robotics have helped me realize that I would like to be an engineer, and I will be heading for a physics and electrical engineering degree at Missouri S&T. Like I was mentioning
Dylan Abraham
Unverified
12:03
before, I'm the strategy and strategic lead of our team. I'm blessed to be a junior this
year, so I can enjoy one more year on this wonderful program. I'm from the Mountain Home area, so I go to a school with about 25, 30 people in my grade.
but being able to come to this program and seeing what Mountain Home High School has given is wonderful. I come back to my school and people are asking me, wow, you went over to Louisiana, you went to Chicago, you're doing all these wonderful things, and coming back and I know all these things that I would have never been able to get at my school. Going off with being a strategy, it's a lot of data analysis. I see a bunch of scouts for baseball teams, basketball teams there's a huge list of alumni that have came from this program I've been
looking at going into some data analysis at Harding Academy here Harding University here in Searcy
Arkansas and I'm very thankful for this
Speaker 42
13:05
program as I said before I'm also strategy lead but for breakaway 3937 my role on the team is very similar to what Dylan has just described however throughout my four years on the team, I have sort of switched up around my roles. My first year, my first two years,
I started with our public relations department. I did a lot of what this is right now with the grant writing and the media and the event planning. But then in my third year, I switched to electrical and I learned the basis of wiring. And throughout all of this, I've sort of learned what I want to do, and it's helped me develop what my career interests are. When I was in the media and production side, I wanted to, you know, go into management.
I considered being an electrician when I gained the electrical skills, and most recently, with my experience in the CAD department design, I've learned how to break down problems analytically and think about how to design things. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit my current major I plan on going into, which is AI and computer science. But, I mean, I've still learned so much of programming robots while not just being in that department. So competitive robotics as a whole has given me this chance to develop career opportunities and interests.
Thank you guys for your presentation. I do believe we have some questions for the bill's sponsor. Representative Meeks, you're
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
14:45
recognized for a question. Let me get settled back in there. Good morning, sir. Good morning.
So, as you all know, I'm a big STEM guy and definitely supportive of what we're trying
to do here. As a matter of fact, I actually have a bill over in judiciary that I'm trying to outlaw the weaponization of humanoid robots because those are fast going to be introduced into our society, and as I was in the process of preparing that bill, I was actually contacted
by a group saying, make sure you put exemptions in there for these type of robot competitions to exist. And so these are evidently very popular and growing in our state. The questions that I have related to the bill is basically just the funding source and the funding mechanism. You'd mentioned the Department of Education would administer the funds. Can you just tell us a little bit about where the money would come from, how much we're talking about and get into that aspect of it yeah that would
Representative Les D. Eaves
Unverified
15:41
be entirely up to the department of
education on where they would come up with the funding for again it's a grant program uh wouldn't be any general revenue the schools would have to come up with i think it's 25 matching um i believe i heard in testimony that it's somewhere around 20 000 a year roughly for a robotics team to go to the competitions that they go to in fact i'm correct me if i'm wrong you guys are going to world here yeah that's that's a pretty big deal um but it would be something that would the department of ed would would would take care of on their own okay all right thank you and i want to say something too about um what i saw when i visited harding's particular facility where they
uh build and practice the robots uh and most of you know i'm in manufacturing and in our facility that i have we have some pretty cool tools we have you know high def plasma tables and all kinds of computer controlled machines but when i visited uh their facility i was absolutely blown away at what they have and a little smaller scale than what we have at our factory but the the plasma tables the cncs the lathes i mean and i'm like so how much of this robot did you
make and they make all of it they machine all of the parts i mean i i was just shocked at all of stuff. The electronics they do themselves. I mean, everything is done by themselves. These young men and women, I mean, I'm at a loss for words, really, when you go see it. And of course, when I went to see it the first time, I thought it was going to be, you know, they're going to be shooting flames out of them and having axes and all that. But it's even more technical than that. I mean, at one point, they have a driver that drives this robot to do certain
tasks and then at another point it's autonomous it does it all its own that they program in it is it is truly uh mind-blowing and these robots aren't small they're like the size of a of a of a washing machine maybe not that tall but that kind of footprint is what they are they're heavy big machines so these young men and women are learning skills that people like me would hope to hire for engineers and operators and all of these things.
So it is, if you've never seen one, I highly encourage you to go take a look at the next competition that is going to be in your area. If you don't have one in
your area, I know where they're having competitions, and it's in my area, and you're welcome to come.
Are there additional questions for members? Seeing none, we do not have anyone sign up to speak for or against the bill. Would anyone like to speak for or against the bill? Seeing none, Representative Eves, would you like
Speaker 49
18:21
to close for your bill? I'm sorry, Representative Grutter.
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
18:33
off by saying I love the bill. I think it's great, but I have a question. Wouldn't you agree that you are a better public speaker than your uncle? Is
Annalee Brooks
Unverified
18:50
down what a member says? Robotics, in addition to what everybody has said about
how the technical aspect of robotics has helped them
and has influenced their career path, something Brayden briefly mentioned is robotics is also a very good environment for students to learn professional communication, problem-solving skills. Like you said, there's this whole public relations side where students learn marketing and branding. And so the environment of robotics does help students build confidence in public speaking skills. That will transfer to any career, whether STEM-based or not. Thank you. Here you go. Representative, what
I would suggest there, Representative Grutter,
is that you just witnessed a very eloquent answer without throwing her uncle under the bus. It was a yes. See, no additional questions for members, and Representative Eves is closed for his bill. We have a motion on the table to do pass for Representative Painter. Is there any discussion on the motion? There's a discussion for Representative Painter. You
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
19:51
recognize? I'm definitely not going to be lost for words since I have the Mountain Home Bomb squad here. I'll tell you, I've seen them in action, especially when they've come down here at the Capitol,
and it's just to watch them use those robots and see the passion that they have. And like the gentleman earlier said, he made his own diagnostic system. I have to go take my cars in to figure out what's going on. So to watch these young men and women have the passion and do this. You know, Representative Duke, you know, I said a couple of committees ago, your bill was the best bill of the session. I'm going to retract that statement and say this is because really it affects a lot of young men and women.
and just to see their passion. I appreciate you guys being here, and I will definitely be
voting in favor for this. Appreciate you, Representative Hughes, for doing this. Representative
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
20:47
Nazarenko, you're recognized for discussion on the motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hey, I just want to congratulate
you all for being here, number one. Excellent job with the knowledge that you've got, the expertise. It's just incredible. And then I do have to give a big shout-out for the bomb squad. Mountain Home is not in my district but just barely outside of it, but my nephew was on bomb squad years ago over there, Joshua Francis,
and now he's over here in Little Rock in a great position, and I know it's because of this program like this. So great program, and I'll be voting yes, of course. Representative Eves. Just want to
Representative Les D. Eaves
Unverified
21:19
give a shout-out to Searcy High School, who was unable to be here. The Goonies also had a big role in doing this too, so don't want to forget those folks. Seeing no additional discussion, we have a motion on the
table to do pass. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Congratulations, Representative Eves. You passed your bill. Thank you.
Members, without objection, we are going to, again, move around the schedule and recognize Representative Shepard for HB 1833. It's on the second page, HB 1833. If you would, please, Representative, introduce yourself for the record, then you're recognized. Representative Matthew Shepard, District 97. And if
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
21:55
the chair would allow, I'd like for Andy Davis UAMS to join me here at the end of the table. Normally I wouldn't allow for
him but since you asked yes. 1833 it's on the second page of your printed calendar I apologize.
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
22:18
Members House Bill 1833 is really I would say kind of a cleanup bill
that hopes to clarify some of the admissions parameters for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. This is a bill that was brought to me by UAMS and that we worked on for quite some time now just to try to get it to a place where we feel comfortable with it. As you can see, it moves away from kind of these percentage allocations across congressional districts and just specifies a firm number
for those congressional districts and then additionally it tries to address what happens if there's not enough qualified individuals from congressional districts what happens to those slots and then finally we also include a reference to satisfying published admissions standards in the admissions process and this is important because a part of the accreditation of UAMS is based on the successful matriculation through these years at UAMS.
And so if there's not some, the published admission standards will be utilized so that they can hopefully accept individuals that are most likely to be able to successfully move through their years at UAMS. And that's important because of the fact that if individuals are not able to, that actually works against UAMS's accreditation. And so that's the kind of the third point to this bill is trying to address that issue while still generally aligning with the parameters that have been in place for some time.
Speaker 97
24:08
And I'll turn it over to former Representative
Speaker 98
24:14
Davis for his thoughts. Andy Davis, UAMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee. I think Speaker Shepherd explained it pretty well. We've had this congressional district allocation for years and years and years, going back to when UAMS was the only medical school in Arkansas. So a couple things have changed. One is we're not the only medical school here anymore. There's four now accepting applications and students.
Accreditation requirements are also going to require us to raise sort of minimum admissions standards for the college. So we want to publish those standards. We want to make sure students know before they apply what's going to be required. We don't want to admit people to College of Medicine and let them get, you know, potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt before they realize it's not the best path for them. So we want to be up front about that with applicants. And, you know, all those things considered, the law already requires this allocation per district.
We're just trying to simplify it and then clarify what we do if there's not enough applicants from a district, which the current law doesn't do. It kind of works on the assumption that there's always enough. So that's why we're asking for these changes.
Representative Austin McCollum
Unverified
25:36
Representative McCollum, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. i like the point on the uh like clarification if there's not x amount from each congressional district showing what maybe the next steps are um
i guess more curiosity what what is the point of
moving away from the percentage and just putting the hard number there from each
Speaker 98
25:57
congressional district just simplification um and if the uh you know the size of the class were to change So just hold that
Representative Austin McCollum
Unverified
26:08
allocation as a static number. Is there any type of implication of striking the language around legal residents in each congressional district? First page, line 34.
I know that's part of the striking of taking out the percentages and changing it to the hard numbers. I guess from a legal standpoint, did you
find that part meaningful? Like, I shouldn't think, and therefore I need
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
26:40
to be worried about resident status. I don't think that there was any significance to that being struck. That particular deletion, that came from UAMS. We're still, certainly the intent is that they would still be individuals that have residency in that congressional district,
And it alludes to the fact that certainly by implication, if there's not 25 applicants from the congressional district that first have to meet published standards, but then ultimately have to accept. Because that's the other part of it, too, is that you could have many qualified applicants that meet published standards, but they may not accept their offer of admissions. And so we were just trying to clarify that. I don't believe it would change that residency, but I would defer to Andy because that was part of what UAMS was asking for.
Certainly, my intent was to preserve these slots for each congressional district if there are enough qualified applicants who do accept admissions. I don't think it's necessary because,
Speaker 98
27:38
you know, as a resident of congressional district, would obviously be Arkansas resident, and then the next step in the decision tree says Arkansas resident. So I think it's still covered. Thank you. Are there additional questions about the committee?
Seeing none, we do not have anyone signed up to speak for again. So would anyone like to speak for against the bill?
Speaker 106
28:07
Seeing none, Representative Shepard, would you like to close for your bill? I'm closed for the bill.
I appreciate a good vote. Representative Shepard is closed for his bill. We have a motion to do pass on HB 1833. Is there a discussion on the motion? Representative
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
28:21
Meeks, you're recognized for discussion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the veteran and the old guy on this committee, this has been an issue that's been discussed ever since I was a freshman down here. Been going back and forth, and I think you
guys have landed in a real good place with this bill. Appreciate the work you've done to hopefully finally put this issue to bed after all these years. So I appreciate, I will definitely be supporting it and would ask my colleagues to do the
same. Seeing no additional discussion, we have a motion to do pass on the table. All in favor say aye. All opposed, congratulations, Representative Shepard. Do you pass your bill? Thank you, committee. Thank you, committee. And committee, again, without objection, I'm going to move to HB 1786 and yield a chair to Vice Chair McKenzie.
There is an amendment that committee staff will pass out. And while we're waiting for that, the chairman can
recognize himself. Thank you, Mr. Chair. With the chair's permission, I'd like to bring Mr. Annie Goodman to the table. Yeah, that's fine. Duly noted. Keith Brooks State, Representative, District 78. Andy Goodman with Arkansas Independent Colleges and Universities. You're recognized. Committee, the amendment that's being passed out is simply adding Senator Josh Bryant as the Senate sponsor,
and I would appreciate a motion to
do pass on adoption of the amendment. We have a motion to adopt the amendment. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed.
You are now allowed to present your bill as amended. Thank you, Mr. Chair. HB 1786, as amended, is discussing the National Guard Tuition Waiver Program. So we established this in 2019. It's open to all enlisted and officer personnel of the Arkansas Army and Air National Guard who have not been previously awarded a bachelor's degree and are residents of the state of Arkansas,
are in good standing with our unit, completed initial active duty training, and the training requirement can be waived by the officers or Reserve Training Corps. So guardsmen have to be enrolled in Arkansas, state-supported public institution in a degree-seeking program. Guardsmen who have been deployed or discharged may have a continuation of eligibility. What this bill does, this bill, and just so you know, in fiscal year 24, we had 447 guardsmen and women who were taking advantage of the program, and so it remains one of the guards' largest recruiting tools.
What this bill does is it simply opens it up to allow our non-public institutions to be able to also offer the same program. And so that would include, they have to, the institutions have to be willing to accept Title IV federal student aid. And so we have the institutions here in the state of Arkansas that do that would be Washtenaw Baptist, Philander Smith, John Brown, Harding, Central Baptist College. And so this would just simply allow National Guardsmen and women to utilize this tuition waiver at those schools as well.
And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Fantastic. Are there any questions from committee? There is a
Speaker 117
31:40
zero fiscal impact on this. Are there any
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
31:42
questions from committee now? Ah, yes, Representative Diane. Sorry, Gonzalez-Worthen. Yes, thank you. I was just curious as to when they would be able to start the program. Is there a certain amount of time that they would have, or it's unlimited to utilize the funding for going back to school?
Speaker 119
31:59
I can try to field that. There is provision provided by the National Guard that shows that they can
Speaker 121
32:06
go back. I'm looking for the exact timeline on that. I want to say that they have time to go back, but it depends on their reason for discharge. If it's for a medical reason, then they can go back and take advantage of that, if that's in the line of service. Otherwise, it's while that they are enlisted.
Speaker 123
32:29
And I can get you clarifying information on
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
32:33
that as well. Yes. I got a
follow-up question. Yes, you're right, Ness. Yeah, so I was just curious because I know that some may not be able to right away, you know, immediately go into school, go back to school if they have a situation, whether it's, you know, physical or mental, emotional, may not be able to return to school to work on a degree. And I just wanted to know if there was allowance made for that time.
And we'll get an answer to that question. And just to clarify, this is not impacting the waiver program in any way in terms of how it functions or eligibility. This is just adding additional institutions who they could utilize a waiver at. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions from
committee? Seeing none, there's none. No one signed up to speak for against Bill. Are you ready to close for your bill? I'm close for Bill. I appreciate a motion to do pass. We have a motion to do pass on the table. Any discussion on the motion?
All those in favor say aye. All those opposed, congratulations. You've passed your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, committee.
Speaker 129
34:02
see represent collins is not here correct all right uh represent tar shepherd members without objection we're going
to again go out of order we're going to recognize represent tar shepherd for hb 1755 thank you mr chair and if
Representative Tara Shephard
Unverified
34:18
it's okay i'd like to bring two witnesses up with me uh you
Speaker 110
34:22
ma'am yes ma'am if you would please introduce yourself for the record and
Representative Tara Shephard
Unverified
34:30
you're recognized, present your bill. Tara Shepard, State Representative, District 79.
Speaker 135
34:37
Kirk Lane, Director of the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership. Tanisha Barnes,
Speaker 137
34:42
Deputy Director for the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership. Recognized, Prince Javille. Thank you,
Representative Tara Shephard
Unverified
34:50
Mr. Chair. Colleagues, I want to start off by asking, how are
the children, which is what this bill is about. If you have the bill pulled up, I'll walk through it with you. And as it states, this is a bill to require that public schools participate
in the Arkansas Prevention Needs Assessment Survey. If you go to line 25 on the first page, we are asking that this begins in the 25-26 school year. If you will skip down to line 29 of the bill, what are we trying to determine? We want to know how kids are as it relates to alcohol and drug use, mental health, academic failure, as well as violence. What are their views in regards to that?
You look at line B, who's going to be responsible for this? I'm sorry, line 31, still on page 1. It would be the Office of Substance Abuse and Mental Health of the Department of Human Services. What do we want them to do? Skip down to line 34. We want the division to basically provide technical assistance. We want them to maintain their surveys for one. For two, provide technical assistance to the schools if it's needed. If you would turn over to page two of the bill,
if you will begin to read at line two, on page two, what it states is that all parents will receive written notice of the survey. they do have an option of opting out. They do not have to participate if they do not want to. If you skip down to line 9 on page 2, it was important to me that after the survey is conducted, a copy of the survey is provided to the president of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, the chair of the House and Senate Education Committees,
the chair of the Public Health, as well as House and Senate Committees, And then if you'll skip down to line 20, where we always want to consider funding, and you should have had a fiscal impact statement that was attached. There is no fiscal impact to the schools, but we will have federal dollars that we'll be able to have for the survey to be completed. And if there are no federal dollars for it to be completed,
then they're not required to complete the survey. Skip down to line 25, line 25 who will take the survey, 6th graders, 8th graders, 10th graders, and 12th graders. And final notes that I have for the need for passage is one is that this is foundational to the Arkansas State Plan in regards to prevention. Another note I have is that it's useful for schools and communities to use this data to secure funding in the future. And with that, if you have, I'll take any questions that you may have.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
37:52
Representative Meeks, you're recognized for a question. Thank you. Just, I guess, two questions. How many schools are currently participating in this,
if any? We have that in front of you. I'm just kind of wondering how, if you've already got schools that
Speaker 145
38:15
are participating in, kind of what the results have been. so currently right now you have 123 have have actually agreed to participate you had with
covid that happened it decreased it decreased it was 275 because of covid it went down to 124 i'm so sorry thank you 124 with 16 declining
Speaker 148
38:34
okay and then uh based on that information so
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
38:39
So it sounds like we've got a lot of schools that are already participating in it, so you kind of know
how it's working and stuff. So what benefits have come from doing the program?
So, you know, it's one thing to collect the data. Then the bigger question is what are
Speaker 151
38:59
we going to do with that data to actually make a difference? Okay, so that's a great question. First, if I can
Speaker 145
39:07
go back, this survey has been administered since 2002. Arkansas has been number one in producing actual data for 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th graders. We actually train other states on how to do this. We collect every year. Every other state collects every other year.
So we're able to utilize this for different funding throughout the state. The benefits, it's at no cost to the school. The other benefits is that it shows schools how to do their plans as it pertains to the environments in which their schools may have, as it pertains to alcohol, tobacco, other drugs, such as bullying, such as violence, such as mental health. It gives them a guide for the environment which is in their
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
39:50
schools. Okay. And then all the data, I'm sure, is anonymized, so you can't tell which,
and the students are self-reporting, is that correct? That is correct. Okay. And then my final question, Department of Education, do they have a position
Representative Tara Shephard
Unverified
40:05
on the bill? No, and I actually met with the secretary even before I filed the legislation. Okay.
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
40:20
Representative Brown, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is the data this produces.
Is this general data that goes to the school or the district or the state to inform how students in general are doing, or
does it identify individual students that might need some help? I think
Speaker 162
40:45
it's general to tell how the general student population is. It doesn't identify an individual student.
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
40:53
So when it, I've read something here, I'll try to paraphrase correctly.
So this helps inform the school on things that they might do to help just uplift the student population or help them deal with whatever it is that the challenges are? I think it helps them identify
Speaker 162
41:13
problems that they may have in their student body, and they can develop prevention plans
Speaker 168
41:17
to address it, not only the schools but the community itself. And if I
Representative Tara Shephard
Unverified
41:23
can add to that, Representative Brown, it will put the schools in a position where we can do some targeted interventions.
based on what's being reported. Instead of, you know, assuming or having assumptions on what a particular school district may need based on the reports of the students, now we can actually implement some targeting
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
41:42
interventions. So if drugs or a certain type of drug seems to be becoming a concern, you can approach that for the whole student body or if alcohol
or violence or whatever? Yes. Thank you. Mm-hmm.
Representative Sonia Eubanks Barker
Unverified
41:59
Representative Barker, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So also, it's my understanding, as I've heard from people in Union County, even before you filed this legislation, some of our county programs are counting on this information in order to get federal funds as well. Is that like our touch coalition in Union County? That is absolutely correct.
Speaker 178
42:25
It's also – so there's a list – I have a list of – there's a list of grants
Speaker 145
42:33
that are used for the department for this data across the entire state. And Representative Shepard does have a list of those. But I want to go back and talk – yes, Union County. I know exactly because I am from Union County. So, yes, we do use this. What are the other things that we use this data for over in the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership in my new hat. We use this data as well. We have to do it for our drug-free communities. We actually, in the state, in order to even apply, we have to have the actual data.
So the success for this data that we utilized just last year, we were able to have 13 coalitions to actually apply for some funding that we received. In order for them to go and apply for the actual drug-free community grants, they had to use the APNA, the data for the 6th, 8th, 10th, in 12th grade, because it's a requirement to have the data, they brought back to the state, there were seven correlations out of the 13 were able to successfully bring that grant back to
Arkansas, bringing in $4.3 million back into Arkansas for five years. On top of that, they will use the data from APNA on top of the data that they were used to collect with the five that they have for additional five years. That's bringing in $8.6 million. And as
Speaker 179
43:52
I'm doing the math they just passed that we're going to do additional five bringing in 16.7 million dollars back into the state so yes when I tell you I am passionate about this survey as I am passionate about the kids as
Speaker 145
44:07
I am passionate about prevention I please that back yes this data is important
Representative Sonia Eubanks Barker
Unverified
44:11
okay and I have a follow-up so the requirement for the schools is to give some consistency and so those programs can count on though some are some aren't and back and forth that's that puts you year to year wondering are we going to have the information to be able to apply for these grants and have these programs? Absolutely
Speaker 181
44:31
correct. Some of those counties that did not apply cannot apply for the drug-free communities grant because
Speaker 179
44:36
they did not apply in that county and those school districts did not apply. We can't apply for funding in that county because we don't have the data to
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
44:45
support it. Representative Duke, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of questions, if that's all right. So my first question is,
if I understood this correctly, and thank you,
Representative Shepard, for bringing this bill. I appreciate your work on it. I know you work diligently on your bills. So it's a shall, is that correct? No. It's not a shall. It's
Representative Tara Shephard
Unverified
45:13
a may? Yes. They will be required to participate.
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
45:16
So it is a shall. They do have to require. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I'm confused. Okay. So the local school boards that are elected by their people do not have the ability
to say, no, we do not want to participate in this. No. Okay. So my second question is on that. Is
there an example that we could see about the survey that we're going to require? Because I Googled it last night, and I found something. I don't know if it's the correct thing, but I do think that if we're going to require school districts
to send this out to their parents, you know, I'd like to see what serve, what
Speaker 143
45:55
the questions are going to be. So is there a survey
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
45:59
where I could see that? It's coming towards you now. Okay. And then, um, my next question, I'm
trying to fire through these pretty quickly. So I'm not trying to be abrupt, just trying to be respectful of time. Does, um, does, and all these people
that we were reporting back to, is there reporting going back to
Representative Tara Shephard
Unverified
46:15
the school board of the parents? Yes. And additionally, to go back to your earlier statement, the parents have the option to opt out.
So although we are requiring that the school is completed, the parents do not have to take it if they don't want to. Would you agree
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
46:29
that sometimes parents don't always get all the information on surveys and all the paperwork they get from the schools, that they are always diligently going through all of that to know this is or they can or cannot do something,
that that kind of falls through the cracks sometimes? Yeah, I'll agree with that, but I also agree that there
Representative Tara Shephard
Unverified
46:45
are parents out there that are on top of their school's education and want to be involved. Absolutely. I don't disagree with that at all.
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
46:53
So, okay, I've got the survey thing. I think that's all the questions. I
just wanted to get some of those questions answered so I would kind of know on
Speaker 179
47:04
that. And this is the entire survey, or this is the results. Those are the state results. They are broken
Speaker 145
47:11
down state, county, and regional. And just want to go back to your question. The school districts receive, once it's completed, they actually receive a code that they go in and actually see the results. Also, on top of that, with this funding, there's a regional prevention representative that oversees the counties in the school districts
that walks that actual school district through what that data looks like. There's a training that we provide as well. It's just not taking the survey. we actually come back in and follow up to show them how to best utilize and create a plan for that
Speaker 181
47:42
school to show how to best utilize the data for their school district. Do you have, because, again, I looked
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
47:48
through this survey, because I'm, in case you probably can figure that I have my radar up on surveys. As a parent going through schools and stuff, I pay a lot of attention to that. Does this have the copy of the questions?
Because the one I found online was a little broader than what I would have wanted as a parent or that I even think as a school district is my responsibility to be asking these questions a little bit intrusive. So this has a copy of the question so that everybody here could see like what we're looking at asking parents or asking students about. They are in. They're in here right now. Okay thank you. I just I wasn't sure if I was looking at the right one online or not. Thank you. Representative Beck you're recognized for a question. Thank you Mr. Chair.
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
48:36
My question is, I do like the concept of it. I think it's
a way to direct our efforts where they need to be directed versus taking a shotgun effect at some of this stuff. But my concerns are that without the parents participating in the survey, Is the survey, and help me out with this, is the survey the lack of getting everyone in the survey?
Is that a concern to you guys? Or is it like, okay, the students will do this, right? And so I have 100% of the students? We
Representative Tara Shephard
Unverified
49:22
want as much participation as possible, Representative. And you're absolutely correct in regards to this, you know, We can have targeted interventions towards our children in this state. Again, I'm going to go back to a parent does not have to require that their child takes the survey if they do not want to.
But we want as much participation as we can get. And obvious by the testimony that's been here this morning that's been stated, this brings in more funding to the state of Arkansas. It brings in funding to local communities. So any information that we can gather, then we want to collect that
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
50:04
data. So I appreciate that. So the parent can opt out and the student not fill out the survey.
And I apologize because I haven't had, well, I guess I could look at this. So I'm looking at my home account. I just haven't opened the right page. So it says 48.42%. So that indicates the grade levels that responded. That's 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th. So only that person. So y'all reporting that out of the group, you're only getting, in my case,
less than half, slightly less than half the students are actually replying. Are you concerned that you might have parents that are, you know, like you take a certain block, you know, parents that might say, okay, well, I don't want my child to answer these questions because it might indicate their situation? So I think our concern is the
Speaker 162
51:14
fact that school districts aren't making it available
Speaker 168
51:17
to allow them to make that decision. They've been declining over the years. We were in the high 200s of the school districts, and now we're at 150 to 120. And so the data is getting skewed because of that. And we're in the business of applying opioid funding to cities and counties, entities in there. So we look at the data so it would inhibit us from putting data where it's needed or resources where it's needed based on the data.
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
51:48
I would just, again, my concern is that over half the people said we're
not answering your questions. And that means that you're, statistically speaking, that means that your data is, I mean, using statistical means your data is flawed, right? I mean, you have over half your respondents not responding. So unless you can backwards and say, okay, yeah, and maybe you guys are doing this, looking at the demographics of the people that are responding and saying, okay, yeah, we are,
the demographics of the responses do follow the demographics of that particular school district. Therefore, you'd say, okay, we're probably getting a good picture here. But without that, a survey that has less than half respondents is not statistically valid. So let me go back and try to
Speaker 181
52:42
answer your question. I think what we're trying to state is that it's not so much
Speaker 145
52:49
that the parents are not wanting their kiddos to actually do the survey.
We're trying to get what happened is that we were at 250 before COVID. It happened. It wasn't a point of asking parents. We had already had the buy-in with the parents. It was there. COVID happened, and all of a sudden now it started to climb. It's because schools started opting out to say, well, you know, we have too many surveys. We don't want to do these surveys. So it's not so much of the parent is not asking for the actual child to participate. We're trying to get the school districts to say, hey, please do the survey.
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
53:30
Just one more question, then I'll be quiet. Because I think you answered my question just the way I wanted it answered, actually. So what you're saying is, and I'm just going to use my counting, the 48%, all right? What you're saying is that's a result of schools not putting them out, not the results of the response. So now it prompts us one more question, and that is when you go into a school and you do the survey thing, what is the percentages of responses that you get in that school district?
Is it more like 80% or something? The number of students within a school district, once the school said, okay, we're going to do this, so what's that respondent level? So when you look
Speaker 181
54:14
in the actual survey book, it breaks it down to tell you by the school level what percentage
Speaker 151
54:20
actually participated. So you have 48%, correct? Yeah, well, this is... I think that's what you stated. Yeah, that's each
Speaker 145
54:31
region, right? Right. So there actually is what we gave you.
It's an actual state-level data. If you wanted me to bring, I can actually bring you another one to bring it all the way down to your county level to tell you exactly how many students actually participated. But we don't have that in front of us. We have the state level. But we do have access
Speaker 216
54:52
to that actual information that can actually show you how many students actually participated in your county. Just
Speaker 210
55:00
one more question, then I'll be quiet.
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
55:05
The thing I'm kneeling at here is I want to know that if you put this survey out, I want to know the percentages of the surveys that come back. Because if you start grouping it together with, okay, the school doesn't do it, That makes the data a little flawed. But whereas if the school participated, all right, now, and I got 80% respondents back from that, now you're getting in statistical real world, right?
That's the number I'm looking for. Okay. So when you go to a school, is that in here somewhere? And I apologize, I just got this. But when you go to a school district, what is typically the response that you see? Is it more like 80%, 90% response? Is it more like 60%, 70%? What would you normally
Speaker 181
55:55
say? I think to answer your question, what you're asking is, and I want to make sure I get to your
Speaker 179
56:01
question, you're asking how many schools actually participated within that district on top of when
Speaker 151
56:06
they actually do participate, what is the percentage?
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
56:10
Right. When a school actually participates, what's the percentage of students that they get results from? And that's in that book. All right. Do you want to pay?
Speaker 181
56:19
No, sir. But if you tell me you're a county, I'll get that answer to
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
56:23
you. All right. But, I mean, do you typically, I mean, you probably shouldn't, round number. So, I would hate
Speaker 228
56:33
to say that on record. Okay. All right. Thank you. I think it's difficult for us because this is not our survey. This is a survey that, this is not our survey.
This is a survey that the state has been doing since 2002. This is a tool for us. We used to belong to the state, but
Speaker 168
56:52
now we work for the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership. So as we apply opioid funds into different communities, we look at this data as a tool to go there. So we didn't develop the survey, but we have been promoting the survey in our old role when we work for the state
and in our new role because it's such valuable data.
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
57:27
Representative Brown, you're recognized for a question. Thank you. When you, our individual, I'm just looking at the form, but the individual identities are not recorded on these forms. And when, Representative Shepard, you said that we could use the,
data uh to target it what what do you mean by targeting it what
Representative Tara Shephard
Unverified
57:50
i mean by targeted interventions is based on the outcomes based what you know based on those reports what are the students reporting as it relates to mental health issues are we seeing schools across the district that have a high number of students reporting that they have some mental health issues going on if that be the case then do we need to deploy more mental health workers in that area as it relates to high number of substance abuse used.
That's what I mean by targeted. I'm not saying that I'm mandating that those things are happening, but if you can do targeted interventions based on what data shows you. Some of the
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
58:28
questions are kind of concerning. I mean, I didn't read all of them, but, you know, how many times have you or do you use beer, marijuana, you know, and things like that? Do your brothers and sisters, you know, have you seen it? It gets a little, to me, it almost normalizes that kind of behavior
to assume that children are seeing this, and I guess we should assume they're seeing it, but it's just
a little concerning, a little, thank you. That's all I have. Representative Nazarenko, you're recognized for a question.
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
59:07
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for bringing this. do uh i appreciate and i believe um that the kids you know we've got them in uh our best interest here and we're looking
at that and i do appreciate that my i had a few concerns when when we were
talking about it uh one of the things that you had you kind of uh mentioned before was about 250 pre-covid and now that number is significantly lower so i've got a couple questions one on that do you what's your explanation or what would you kind of attribute that to that number
Speaker 161
59:49
decreasing You know, in talking to school districts, in
Speaker 170
59:59
helping them, trying to encourage them to participate in this, in my overall,
Speaker 168
1:00:06
A lot of it was we just didn't have time to do it anymore. It could be complacency, or they didn't see the value of what they got out of the survey, or they didn't utilize the survey for the value that it could
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
1:00:21
provide to them. Okay, thank you. So now have you been at ground level then for the administration of the survey?
Speaker 162
1:00:29
I was the former state drug director for the state, and so i was a little bit above ground level and encouraged
Speaker 168
1:00:35
and talked to the school districts and
encouraged them to participate in it when we started seeing the decline okay
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
1:00:41
when when you were there at that ground level what was the estimated time that it took to administer the survey and then which period or which you know section time in the year and everything kind of when was it best that you found to administer and how long did it take as i understand it was usually
Speaker 162
1:00:57
administered in the fall and took one class period one whole class period
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
1:01:00
and then usually by a health instructor or kind of in that kind of realm the school district would select the person select
okay because i think kind of going back to the other question that was brought up when we looked at the shall so it is it is a requirement we're saying you know the school has to do this so it is required i know there wasn't a fiscal impact but thinking that there's not you know it's not integrated per se it's it's an addition to so i'm i'm kind of concerned from mine what i continue to get back from my district is just unfunded mandates. So probably on that where they don't see a, you know, immediate feedback from it, or they're not seeing immediate value. And I'm sure
there is value that they're just not seeing. I know their concern is running out of time for those requirements with, you know, integrating this. So I think that, would you agree that that's probably what their, you know, line of thinking is of why they're wanting to pull back it may be i think that was really my last question uh is just my concern is that
unfunded mandate that uh again i continue to hear that so um
Representative Tara Shephard
Unverified
1:02:07
and and representative you know it's not an unfunded
mandate you know they there's no fiscal impact on this at all
Chair
Unverified
1:02:14
the monies that are needed to make this happen it's it's already taken care of okay well thank you Representative
Representative Wade Andrews
Unverified
1:02:28
Andrews, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I think Representative Brown asked one of my questions, that this is anonymous, right? No kids put their name on the piece. Okay. Second question is, what's the accuracy of this?
Like, are there kids out there, say, you know, they are involved in bad behavior, that just write down the answers of, oh, I'm a good child today, so I write down the good stuff. or you have one student might say, I don't know what marijuana is, but I'm going to say I use it all the time. Is there data to show inaccuracies or
Speaker 151
1:03:00
any of that? Yes, sir. There's actually pseudo-questions within this survey. They can't just
Speaker 145
1:03:04
jot down, I'm going to use myself, Tanisha Barnes likes cake. I'm just going to mark A down for all of those. Those are thrown out because there's in any survey, you know,
we have to put questions in to make sure someone doesn't go and go A, B, C, D, E, F, G, because it's going to throw questions
Representative Wade Andrews
Unverified
1:03:23
out. We do have that as well. I'm just thinking, like, you know, if the student is, like, actively
saying, I'm going to actually take certain reasons, but, like, I'm going to put down what looks like all good answers, you know, pretend to be good when they're not.
Speaker 148
1:03:37
And we have to understand it's voluntary when you fill out surveys.
Speaker 179
1:03:45
We do this with a survey because we don't want the child to fill this if we are basically telling them how to fill this
Speaker 181
1:03:52
survey out. It's when they fill out the survey, they are filling out it voluntarily, just like if we were,
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
1:04:06
just filling out that survey. Okay, thank you. Representative Gonzalez-Worling, you're recognized for a question? Yes. Can you give us an example for a school district or a particular area,
They received their survey results, and then they wrote another grant to help, and now here are the outcomes. Can you give us, like, a scenario to show what this survey can do for a community? Yes, ma'am. I'm going to
Speaker 145
1:04:36
use High Spring Schools District. They actually did the survey. That's part of that COPE coalition. They were able to bring in at least $4.3 million.
They were part of that program. And what
Speaker 179
1:04:49
they were able to do is focus on exactly what that survey does, which is talk about alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, along with not just substance abuse. They talk about bullying. It talks about anything that could do with basically home, what's happening in the home, gearing around their peers. And then when the peers come back in, the coalition comes in with the student, with the actual teacher, to talk about what the findings are and what programs that we bring in to the actual school.
Speaker 145
1:05:18
So when she say targeted solutions, targeted evidence-based programs, those are the programs we're talking about that comes out of this survey. They could be saying that possibly, hey, instead of just assuming that, hey, we have
Speaker 179
1:05:29
a marijuana problem, we may not. But if we do that survey, we actually can tell, are the students telling us there's an actual marijuana or vaping problem that are happening? So for
Speaker 145
1:05:42
the answer to your question, that school district came out and said there was a vaping issue within that school.
That coalition found an evidence-based program on vaping and started utilizing the evidence-based program for vaping to target it with their DFC, the Drug-Free Communities Grant. And that's how they were able to secure the funding to talk about it and bring it back into the school. Now, we'll tell you they just got that funding. I can't give you the results yet, simply because they just received the funding. But that is a targeted program that they're going to use based on the APNA survey that was utilized.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:06:18
Thank you. Representative Beaks, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So just a couple
of questions based on what I'm hearing from my colleagues and actually looking at this survey. First question is, do all grade levels get
the exact same survey, or are they, you know, tailored to individual grades? They get the same exact survey.
Same exact survey. Are parents provided with a copy of the survey so they can see what their
children are going to be filling out beforehand? So with the permission slip that goes home, that goes home with it, or
the parents have to request? That is correct, sir. Okay. And I guess my only concern, some of these questions, a lot of the questions I like, I don't see any problem
with them, but there's a few of them that are kind of, they seem a little much to me. And I guess that would be my kind of only concern about trying to, you know,
make every school do this. I'm just interested in any, do you all develop this test, you're getting it from somebody else so if we we said we you know some of this stuff i'm okay with like you know if you smoked a cigarette in the last couple of months that you know those are fine but some of these talking about you know what's going on in your home with your family you know some of that starts to get real intrusive and people start getting concerned that big brother is getting too much into my business and i think i would feel more comfortable if maybe we were
editing or auditing some of those getting rid of some of those questions do we have any power to do that or or not yes sir we do okay we've actually
Speaker 145
1:08:09
uh in my previous hack before this one we actually those are the questions have been revised so there were questions taken out and these are the newer questions now the state does have a chance that they can actually change those questions, but I want to target back on the question that you stated about what's happening
in the home. That's what we call a risk and protective factors. Those are things that we utilize in that service for that counselor at that school, that if
Speaker 179
1:08:34
something is happening, not targeting a student, so that counselor can actually know that there may be possibility she can build an actual education plan around something that she may see that may have a high rise of something that's happening in homes as it pertains
Speaker 151
1:08:49
to her students. So that's what that survey is for.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:08:53
Okay. And this will be my final question.
Who decides what's on this survey? Is the Department of Education involved? Is there a group of parents involved? School
boards involved? Or who makes the decision which questions are on here? Let me find a new name. They have a new name. The Office of Substance Abuse and
Speaker 266
1:09:14
Mental Health of the Arkansas Department of
Speaker 179
1:09:17
Human Services. Okay, so they're the ones who make the decision about what's on there.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:09:27
Do they take input from these other groups, or do they just say, we think this
Speaker 181
1:09:32
is what's best? So I can't answer that
Speaker 179
1:09:35
question because it's not my survey. But I will tell you that in my previous hat, yes, sir, because I was the
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:09:49
prevention director. Okay. Representative Beck, you're recognized for a question. Thank you,
Mr. Chair. So my question, what's going to be, walk me through the logistics of this survey,
and I'm just going to say what I think, and then you guys tell me whether I'm right or wrong. So the first would be, okay, there's a permission slip that goes out. If the school elects to do this, but we would make it to where they had to, but they would send a permission slip home to the parents and saying, okay, we're going to give a survey to your child, and then that would be, would the parents be sent, did you say the parents were sent the survey?
Okay, so with the permission slip, they get the survey, and then would they give that survey to their child to take it at that point, or would the child do it at school? They would take it at the school. All right, so the parent would know, that's good, that the parent would know what questions they were being. But so then that survey, who
gets access to that survey? That will be the
Speaker 223
1:10:54
school district. That will be, so the survey. Drill down a little bit.
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:11:00
Who at the school district gets access to that
Speaker 151
1:11:03
survey? That will be the superintendent. Each actual school get their own password to it. So it's whoever they deem as the person that will be over that actual survey. My
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:11:15
concern is that if we give too granular of data to a teacher or
a counselor, which might be someone that would really help a student that has a problem that would show up on the survey, but there also could be bad actors there
and there would be a lot of tendency not to have people fill that out. You know, if you're a 13-year-old and you're smoking marijuana and you think that your teacher is going to see that you're smoking marijuana, I think your answer is automatically no to that on the survey. You see what I'm saying? That would be – now, if the data was going up higher and then comes back down and it's not granular anymore, 14% of your class is participating in marijuana,
that might be a different thing. But I was wondering around the logistics exactly. The child fills out the survey. Where's the
Speaker 179
1:12:20
next place it goes? That survey would go to what is called the PRIDE survey, which is a base where all that data is collected. And
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:12:29
the teacher doesn't see it? No. Doesn't have
Speaker 145
1:12:35
who has access is normally either the superintendent or the principal or whoever they deem as the person to have access.
and only one person has that access, and they have to deem it. And what happens, let me walk you through what happens. Just go ahead. So what happens after that, what they do is get their data. Then after that, you have a regional prevention representative, which the state provides. There's 13 of them that oversee all 75 counties. What they do is walk with that person to walk them through their data, that booklet that says, hey, these are items of concern.
These is where your school is doing great. These are some things. How do we look at an evidence-based program for your school to fix some of the things we see or not fix? It's whatever they see. They have a person there that provides technical assistance with them to walk them through how to read that big booklet you just
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:13:34
saw. That is great. I love that. I think that could be very
helpful. and I got a yes or no, all right? Can the superintendent or someone they elect
to be the person that receives this data, if they have the, at that point, is there anything that could identify a student? Oh, no, sir. At that point, so no one in the school can ever identify a student. No, sir. Thank you, that's all I
Chair
Unverified
1:14:03
need. No, sir. Representative Grutter, you recognize for a
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
1:14:07
question? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Read over the legislation. I love what you're doing as an educator.
I know students have issues and concerns that they're not comfortable often sharing. And as an educator, I know they're seeing a lot of these things in their environment. So I support you all 100%. I love this. I know it's important in high poverty areas that they actually have access and they feel comfortable sharing. And I have, as a gentleman who was blessed to come from a two-parent home, there are kids who I teach now at a middle school who experience things that are mind-blowing to me.
So this is very important, passionate, and if there's anything I can do to assist, please let me know. But I will be supporting you all 100% on this legislation. Thank
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:15:01
you. Representative Duke, you recognize your question? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one quick
question. Well, maybe two. But I'll try it quick. So is this, is the intent here to find out what addressed the problem in the school culture or the home or both?
Because I've heard both, I've heard talking about school climate and doing things to help the school, but then there's a lot of questions about the home. So which one? So there is
Speaker 145
1:15:27
not a which one, there's both. Actually, because you have a counselor. You're a counselor, you have students that have things, and I'm just going to take you back to answer that question. if I can just take it back for a personal note. So things that are happening with a student, say Tanisha Barnes, that I probably wouldn't tell someone else or a peer that I can write down on an actual survey,
not knowing that that may be more than just Tanisha that's going through that, that actually give a percentage of about 20 to 30 percent that allows for an evidence-based program to come in and say, hey, we're going to talk about what's happening in the home from an evidence-based program state. That's amazing. Also, we're able to talk about what's happening in the culture, in the environment for the
Speaker 266
1:16:14
school, so it would be both. Okay, and I understand and I appreciate that.
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:16:21
I'm the camp that our kids go to. I love the fact that the counselors are not from their church because I do
think that they need to have that ability sometimes to have hard conversations with somebody else. So I totally appreciate that. I do have a question for the department if they could. - If there's a representative of
the department who'd like to join them at the table, I'd like you guys to draw the short straw.
If you would please introduce yourself for the record and you're recognized.
Speaker 276
1:16:52
- Good morning, Jacob Aliva, Department of
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:16:57
Education. - So my question is, and my knowledge on this is limited and it's more from a school board perspective. But my understanding, limited as it is, is that they, when there is a disciplinary, and this has to do with the school climate part, if there is a disciplinary thing, the school does enter that somewhere in a system with a code, and I'm going to assume broken down as far as if it's a vape, if it's drugs, if it's alcohol, if it's bullying, if it's something else.
Did I understand that correct? Has that maybe changed in
Speaker 276
1:17:28
the last few years? No, that's correct. We can – districts submit those incidents that occur on campus based on whatever incident is.
Speaker 278
1:17:34
They all have different codes. Those codes are submitted to our agency that can be aggregated at a state level or disaggregated by a district level or by a school campus by incident type. So sometimes there may be a little bit of misinterpretations on types that – by the incident types that we collect that through our cycle process. So the
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:17:54
districts do already have some data. I realize it's not all of it, but –
Speaker 278
1:17:58
Yeah, that's if a student has an incident on a campus, right? So when you look at the survey data, I think they say sometimes there may be more incidences in a community that the school is not aware about than on a campus. But by incident type on a campus or a school event, because that would cover school events too, like maybe if they're on a field trip or something like that, that would be collected. Or a football game.
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:18:23
Or a football game. And I completely understand that. So part of this survey is what is happening on the school,
but also is what is happening at home. But the school is going to be the one being required to send it out, and that's probably more for Representative Shepard. But it's not obviously just what's happening there. And I'm not pleased. I totally understand where you're coming from. And so it's not that I don't see the needs or don't understand some of the issues, just as you know sometimes different approaches to how to address issues. But
Representative Tara Shephard
Unverified
1:18:59
is that correct? Yes, and I'm sorry, and I appreciate your questions, Representative Dukes.
This is not personal. The questions that you all are asking is because you have concerns about the children, and that's the purpose of the survey, to give us more information. So this is not personal. I'm going to ask that you all support this legislation. As Mr. Secretary mentioned, you know, they do data in regards to what happens on a school campus, but this is a little bit more comprehensive, and I think we all can agree to that. Representative Meigs, you're recognized for a question for the Secretary.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:19:35
Thank you, Mr. Secretary. So, Michael, since you're down there, all right,
Speaker 283
1:19:39
you almost got away. So, of course, as
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:19:42
you know, we have surveys that the General Assembly requires when we do our biannual deal, and we have trouble getting all the schools to respond to that one, and that's a requirement from the General Assembly. Part of the challenge, I think, is just schools get hit with a lot of surveys, and you get survey overload, and that's what my question's related to. Obviously, we can require this, and even if we require this,
you're probably still not going to get 100% participation, just nature of the beast. Are there any other surveys that are done that are similar to this, that collects this data already? Again, I guess my concern
is at some point it's survey overload, right? And I don't want to push another survey on them if we're not going to get any benefit from it.
I definitely, you know, your heart's in the right place with where this is going here. I still don't know which way I'm going to vote on this. And so I'm just, you know, with the secretary, if you could just kind of help me out with where we are with surveys in general to schools. Are we having them do 100 a year, 50 a year, 10 a year? What's
Speaker 276
1:21:01
required in the survey space already? So I think it's going to vary by district. and it's going to vary by the programs that the districts participate in. A lot of times there may be state federal grants like this one's looking at that's asking for students to participate in maybe a youth risk behavior survey.
But then there's other federal grants that may focus on nutrition, and
Speaker 278
1:21:20
then those students have to do surveys on how many carrots or rice did they eat in a month. And it's going to depend based on programs. And because a lot of those programs, they either quantify or qualitative their data or summary of findings based on pre- and post-assessment
Speaker 276
1:21:37
survey data. So it's going to be -- it's a really hard number to quantify, like how many surveys the students participate in. But this could be some of the fatigue that you may have seen from school districts on
Speaker 278
1:21:51
why participation rates declined because they may feel it's a duplicative survey or overburdening. Did you all get
Speaker 276
1:22:02
any of this data from any other source? Well, there's -- this is a pretty wide spectrum of questions. So I think you could derive some of the data based on the results in many different platforms. This one's probably more of a comprehensive approach to
Speaker 278
1:22:14
a lot of different topics. So you're going to get a different set of
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:22:19
results. Okay. And then final question, do you all have a position on this or what kind of take on this?
Speaker 276
1:22:24
We're neutral on this proposal. If the will of this delegation is to require districts to participate, we're going to make sure the districts have everything they need. If this doesn't go through and the districts are not
Speaker 278
1:22:38
required to, we're still going to encourage districts to participate because a lot of this data links to some long-term longitudinal data trends. So I think from a research perspective and from a federal grants perspective, there's value in collecting this information and this data, but whether or not we require it,
we're going to defer to the legislative delegation.
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
1:23:05
Representative Nazarenko, Greg, can I ask for a question? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll make it fast as well. So I appreciate you being
there. You said that you already, the department already encourages the schools, but we've had a decline. And so would you agree with the question that I asked earlier? Is the decline because they're just not seeing the value in it? They're not seeing the results? Or is it because of taking up another period of time that could have been Matthew's impression?
Speaker 289
1:23:28
It's probably going to cover everything
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
1:23:31
on the spectrum. So one last one, and this is probably more for you guys. So if in that survey, within the school, a percentage, let's just say randomly, 30% or 40% chose that they would opt out, They would not take it. What's going to happen to those students? Where are they going to be during that class period? What's the plan there? Or what's been done in the past because it should be some history. So that's up to that school?
Speaker 151
1:23:59
That school decides that? Because I want to take it back.
Speaker 145
1:24:03
The schools have been participating. Arkansas was actually leading in this survey with our school. We had a 100% compliance of actually getting school district to do this. So to answer your question, that's up to the school districts. If they're willing to participate, it's up to them to determine which students will take it, which students will not, and they will have to decide that. So it's not a, like if
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
1:24:28
the school does it, it's not all of the 6th, 8th, 10th grade.
Speaker 179
1:24:33
It's just a portion thereof? It's all of them, but a parent can say, I don't want my 6th, 8th, 10th, or 12th grader to take it. And that's up to that school district to determine where that student that decided that parent decided they're not going to take it. It's going to reside while this test has been administered or what they're going to be
doing. Okay. Thank you. Seeing no additional questions and we do not have anyone signed up to speak for or against this bill. Representative Shepard,
Representative Tara Shephard
Unverified
1:25:04
would you like to close for your bill? I wouldn't thank you, Mr. Chair and colleagues. I absolutely appreciate the conversation that we've had this morning, um, in regards to this particular survey. Um, I would appreciate a, a good vote on this as this will give us a comprehensive look of what's happening with the children in Arkansas. And with that, Mr. Chair, I'm closed. Representative Shepard is closed for a bill. We
have a motion of due pass from Representative
McGruder on the table. Is there a discussion on that motion? Representative Duke,
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:25:35
you're recognized for discussion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, members, um, I'm going to be voting no on
this. And the first and foremost reason why is one I hear said in here a lot. And I know sometimes this is a hard one for us to decide where that is, but this is a really an
ultimate local control thing. And I think we got to step back there and think if there's a decline in schools doing it, there may be a reason. And it may be that their people or their people in their
district don't think that this is something they want going home or their kids taking or they
recognize that sometimes parents don't realize that their kids are being asked these surveys and this this should be decided by the local school district if they want to participate this in this or not and if they choose to opt out of it a later date it should be completely up to them and it should give us pause whenever we know they had them and then they've stopped doing them for some reason and for us to come in here as a state and say okay now you're going to do this you have no choice on it whatsoever I know some of y'all fellow school board members I know you all know
what it felt like to sit back there and session ended and then you went what just happened and and that's that's real and I don't think we should take that opportunity away from our school boards we should be empowering them we should be letting them have those decisions and um it concerns me that we talk a lot about parental rights and we talk a lot about being engaged and I hear a lot of criticisms about public schools but then we also won't give them the opportunities to be able to make decisions for themselves and to say no this isn't good for us. Our parents have indicated
because I feel pretty confident I've got schools in my district who would not appreciate being told you shall do this. And you shall send this survey out. I feel pretty confident about that. And I think probably other members have them as well. I understand the intent. I come from a district that has a pretty strong
understanding of alcohol and drug problems and trying to address those in the ways that they see it fit. I haven't
found school boards who are unaware. I haven't found teachers who are unaware. I mean, they're mandated reporters for a reason. They do see and they do
know, and they are trained to know these things. And so to put this survey out here and to collect
that information, and I just don't think that that's our job. I don't think it should be a shall. I think it should
be left the way that it is. And to the point that we've been doing this for a long time, we used to be the number one. Arkansas has changed a lot in the last 15, 20 years. And we can't just always go back and say, well, that's how we used to do it. I think we should look at that historically but we also need to look at the context of that why why was it done
that and why are school districts choosing not to do that and why do we think we know better to step in and say you don't have a choice I think they should have the choice if your school districts want to do it go for it right but our school districts or other school districts should have the ability of saying no we don't think that this is appropriate for all school we talk choice all the time why are we taking choice away here so with that I'm going to vote against it I appreciate Representative Shepard, she knows. We agree on a lot of things. We don't agree on some, but I agree she's a great person with a great heart, and I know what she's trying to do. This is a direction
I just am not comfortable with, and I would ask my other members to really think about making this a
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
1:29:05
shall. Thank you. Representative Barnett, you're recognized for discussion. Yes. I just wanted to thank, uh, Representative Shepard and those that spoke on, uh, this bill. I do see the need for it. Um, I'll wait.
Speaker 9
1:29:18
Committee, please let Representative Barnett talk. Thank you.
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
1:29:26
Okay. I do see the need for us to collect this data. Um, increased participation only strengthens the data that we are collecting. Um, the data is needed to allocate resources to our Arkansas counties. Um, and it allows for our school districts to be able to, um, design targeted preventions for things that are being, uh, taking place in their schools. Um, the survey removes assumptions rather than our teachers and counselors and superintendents, um, guessing
at an issue that their students might be facing, this creates a method to collect that data to actually get some numbers and percentages on what students might actually be faced with. The argument about it takes away local control and choice actually is putting the choice in the hands of the parents who have the option to opt out whether or not their students are going to participate in this. Um, I know there were concerns, concerns about questions that
addressed home culture, home culture affects school culture. Anybody that has worked in public education, whether it's public education, private education, you work with children in any way, what takes place at home affects them in other environments. Um, so those things are needed, um, as we look at collecting data to address these issues. Um, so I'm in favor of the bill. I thank you for presenting it. I thank you for taking the questions and addressing
them, but I do believe that this bill, uh, does support local control and it puts that control in the hands of the parents for them to opt out if they do not wish
Chair
Unverified
1:31:14
their child to participate in this survey. Thank you. Representative Beck, you're
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:31:21
recognized for discussion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And Representative Duke did a lot of talking for me there. I
agree with what she's saying. But there's another aspect. I do have some concerns about how valid the data is based upon responses and stuff.
And I kind of went through the book here. I think it should stay in May for a different, I want to add this as far as local control. I think that if a school is, it's their choice to do this, then I think they'll go at it and you'll get better data. Whereas if you push it down to them and say you will do this, there's lots of ways that you can get it done. You can check the box and say that you did it when you didn't.
So I do think it's going to take a school district to really push out to the parents, hey, this is something good. These are the benefits. I tell the committee, think of all the questions that we've had here. Now you're a parent, and all you've got is a slip of paper, and here's the survey your child's going to take. Who's going to have this? Who's going to have this information? That would be the first question I would ask. Who's going to have this information? And more than likely you'd say no. Now, the other side of that equation is if you took a school board,
a school board said this will help us participate in this. And there's some communication from the school that says no one is going to see your child's survey, that it's going to go back up and be back down here in a non-granular, what I call non-granular form, so you can't identify anybody with it. So I think it should be a May. And I would also think that the school board, the state education department,
has a big role here to push this May. Now, this is a good thing. What are the benefits of this? Actually, they sell this down to the school districts so then they would promote it and you'd get better data out of it. I absolutely, there's no way you can argue against this. If you had good, strong, 100% data, there is no way you can argue against this. This is great information that you can act on. But if it's pieced like it is and you don't know that you're getting 100%, then you could make a mistake off of that data.
But I do appreciate it. I think it's a great idea. But we've got to somehow make sure that we're getting 100% of responses. If you look in the book, there's a lot of levels of responses that are down around 20% and things like that. And that worries me because when you start making decisions off of 20% of the data, you're almost guaranteed to make a mistake. But I love what this thing's doing, but I think it should be a may because I think you're going to have to have that local push to get people to participate at levels to give you good data.
So, unfortunately, I have to vote no on
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:34:17
this. Representative Meeks, you're recognized for discussion. Thank you. I'll keep this brief. My
concern kind of follows up with what Representative Beck is, is if I send a permission slip home with this survey and parents are looking this over, If I'm coming from a home where there's a lot of these problems, I'm going to out my kid out because I don't want the state or school to know I've got these problems going on in my home. And so I think what's going to end up happening is you're going to get skewed data
because, you know, if I'm in a Christian home, everything's great. Okay, I may not, you know, I'm not having any of these issues. Okay, I may let my kid take it. But if I've got all these issues going on, I don't want my kid spilling the dirty laundry. I'm going to out myself out. And so I think that's going to skew some of the data that you're trying to get. And so I think keeping it voluntary, I don't know if it would help with that or not. But that would be part of the reason why I'm just not comfortable getting that. I appreciate the intent. I think it's great what you're trying to do.
But I don't know that I'm quite comfortable enough to say yes
with it. Seeing no additional discussion, we have a motion on the table of do pass. All in favor say aye. All opposed. No. I'm sorry, Representative Shepard, your bill has failed. Committee without objection, actually first, just a scheduling comment. We're going to stay here until probably 12, 15, 12, 30. I know we've got a session at 1, 30, so I want to make sure we leave some time for lunch.
But probably 12, 15, 12, 30, depending on the bills that we will hear. And we will also likely look to come in on Thursday at 9 a.m. so we can continue to clear bills off of the calendar, so a little bit early on Thursday. So as you're thinking ahead for the rest of the week, do that because I don't know that we'll get through as many as we'd like to today. So with that objection, move to HB 1017 with Representative Collins. Representative Collins, if you would please introduce yourself for the record and you're recognized.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:36:24
Thank you, committee. I am Andrew Collins and represent District 73, and I'm
happy to present this bill today, 1017. So one of the things that was really great about the LEARNS Act is what it did on maternity leave. And, you know, it's one of these opportunities that I'm really excited to take something that was already good and work with the people who developed it in the first place to make it even better
and work better for people of Arkansas. So what it does, what this bill does, is it, I guess what I'll first do is describe what the LEARNS version did and then how this would change it. So the LEARNS version basically said that districts could enter into a cost-sharing agreement with ADE for paid maternity leave. And so they could offer up to 12 weeks, and ADE would reimburse the district for half of the cost of the sub.
And that was really good, and that was an incentive for the districts to provide the maternity leave. The issue that kind of came up over the last couple years since it's been implemented is that there just has not been as much adoption as I think people would have hoped. So out of our 200 and some odd districts, 237, I think it may have changed, but 22 participated in 23-24 school year and 27 participated in 24-25. So if we believe that payment certainty leave is important, and I think that we do, and there are reasons that, you know, we can discuss about why it's so valuable.
We can improve that by doing a couple things, and these are the three things the bill does. Number one, it would make the reimbursement 100% for the cost of the sub from ADE. And I've worked with ADE on this bill, and they are fine with it, and they believe they can handle that from their existing budget. So I also want to point out that I'm working with the sponsors of Lawrence on this, Representative Chairman Brooks and Senator Davis are both on this bill working with me,
and the governor's office has also worked with me on some of the language and is good with the bill. So that's one thing. It would be 100% reimbursement by ADE. Number two, it would require it. So it would have every district would participate. Maternity leave would be available throughout the state. And finally, it would include foster placements. And so right now, you've got the birth and adoption, but you don't have foster. This would include foster.
And it would match what we do for state employees as well. So there's really no change in how the maternity leave is done other than a little bit of additional language regarding the foster placements to ensure there's no abuse of foster placements to get excess leave. That is sort of the mechanics of how it works. Obviously, the goal is to get more adoption, is to make sure that maternity leave is available for all the teachers. And while I do think it somewhat goes without saying why it's important, I want to say it anyway.
So the value of maternity leave, especially in the education context, is multifaceted. Number one, it helps kids in the classroom because instead of a teacher having to manage a classroom as well as a newborn, you have the teacher, if they want to take that leave, can take that leave, be with their newborn, and is not being stretched thin in the classroom. Number two, it helps retention.
And there's no question about it. A lot of teachers will leave when they have a baby or they have the second baby because they can't get leave. If you're in a district that does not offer leave and you're required to come back to work immediately after that baby, it's often just not going to work for you. And so you make the decision to leave the profession. Maybe you come back later, maybe you don't. And it is something that improves maternal and infant health.
And there's no question about it. The research is overwhelming that this is a benefit to new moms, new babies, when they can spend time together after birth. And the benefits go on from there. It's not just at that period, but those crucial first weeks have a long-lasting impact for both mother and baby. So, again, as I mentioned, the cost is a total. So the overall program was initially budgeted for $3 million, and the estimated cost by doing these revisions would be $3.4 million.
So it's a small increase, but again, ADE has said they feel comfortable that they can absorb that, and that's the idea. I'm excited about the bill. I think it will make a big difference for moms in the state, for teachers, for the
profession of teaching, for students, and for public education as a whole. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Members, we
have several questions. Just a note of procedure. So this does show a fiscal impact, so we won't be taking a vote on the bill per our process currently.
Speaker 6
1:41:58
But we do want to make sure we get everything heard on the
bill. So first I'll recognize Vice Chair McKenzie for a question. Thank you. And I don't know if ADE wants to come to the table, but this is a question. And, A, I want to start by saying I appreciate you bringing this bill. In the interim, after passing learns, the probably second most phone call I received from principals, teachers, administrators, only second to AMI days, was about maternity leave. I still believe that what we did in learns was bold reform.
We've done something that the state wasn't able to provide before, and other states are now starting to match. I did appreciate also the burden share, because if a district at the time wanted to provide maternity leave, it was all on them outside of the standard FMLA that their insurance coverage would ultimately move that person off payroll to pay for. I have been vociferously texting the ADE about, you know, how are we going to pay for this? Because that was the initial refutation was, well, we couldn't afford to do it all across the state. And if it's only a $400,000 increase, then I'm for it, especially if it only comes from the public school fund.
If this isn't going to hit GR, and I know Ms. Salisford just confirmed, but to your understanding, this is the setup question, to your understanding, this is only a modest $400,000 increase to the public school fund that we won't
Speaker 311
1:43:16
see a GR hit on. That's exactly right. And that was what the
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:43:20
governor's office wanted to make sure of as well. And, you know, I think once that was confirmed with ADE, that was when they were good going forward as
well. And just as a follow-up, I think this is, we, with LEARNS, we have started base teacher salary to be adjusted for inflation, cost of living, the best in the country.
With this, I think we will have the best benefit package that we can offer to teachers. So we're reassuring, and I appreciate the opening salvo of your comment, the good parts of LEARNS. I think most of LEARNS is good. I think this is really, when we talk about bold reform, this is making being a teacher one of the most salutatory things we can do. It's one of the best things we can do is really putting our money where our mouth is. So I appreciate you bringing this bill. - I agree, thank you. - Representative Meeks, you're recognized for a question.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:44:11
- Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I definitely appreciate the bill. All your facts are,
you know, I totally agree with them. But my question is, is what about that? Obviously, I don't know that dads need 12 weeks, but, you know, if I'm a teacher, wife has a baby, if I want to take
a week off, I've got to do that, you know, with my, you know, either unpaid or whatever. Was there any consideration given to maybe, you know, 12 weeks is probably way too much for dad, but, you know, given a week or two for dad to be home for the first week
or two to help mom and baby adjust?
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:44:47
It's a great question, and absolutely, I thought about it a lot. And I think I would agree with you.
This was how it was set up in current law. And I thought, you know, if we're going to do this, let's do what we're doing here, and then there may be another bill to do what you're talking about, and I would support that. But I thought, simplest to leave the program as it is, that was something that was agreed on at the time, and just change the thing that we're changing. Okay, correct. Thank you. Representative Follett, you're recognized for a question.
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
1:45:17
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too, appreciate the bill. you and I talked, I have a bill that will actually, because there's a loophole where supers are using the two weeks like of non-contract days of Christmas or the week of spring break, and you and I talked, and we do believe that this will marry into that very well and will not hurt each other in any way from what we read, right? That's
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:45:43
right. Those will be complementary. This amends section A,
B, and C, and yours is a new D,
And I think it works, you know, with or without this
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
1:45:52
bill, I think your bill works. Okay. Again, I appreciate the bill. I do think this will be a great retention tool. It is really hard on a mom to go back to work two weeks after their baby was born, four weeks after their baby was born. I think we're losing highly qualified teachers because they want more time with their baby when they're young. I think there's more evidence that shows that a child at a very early age needs that mothering like you said um or fathering um to help them develop into a better a better
child um and and i feel sorry for moms who have to leave their babies so early i actually had a bill in state agencies that said moms can bring their babies to work until they're six months old because of the fact that i think they need their mothers for for that bonding moment so i appreciate the bill and i have a motion at proper time representative duke you
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:46:51
recognize for question thank you mr chair so only question i have and you don't really address it in this bill but it is going to be an issue so that i think we have to acknowledge so because you talked about
it i agree helps with retention i mean i have a daughter a teacher daughter who's expecting in June so I understand um she was fortunate to be able to time it that way um he said it helps kids in classrooms and I understand the aspect of being the split that the parent the mom has or the dad has at that point my concern is the kids that are there when the teacher is on maternity leave because we have a shortage of substitutes we have even more of a shortage of substitutes who are
licensed right and I've had experiences with it with some of my family members whenever they had a sub who was able to take because of their just personal circumstance they were able to take 12 weeks and they missed out on having a teacher for three months of that year in one of those early childhood you know classes and and that was hard and there that whole I've seen it a couple times with so have you given thoughts because we have to think I think about unintended consequences So have you thought about ways to address those kids that are there for those three months
with a shortage of subs, shortage of licensed subs, and making sure that we keep their education on track?
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:48:16
I think it's a great question and a great point, and I talked about that with Senator Davis a fair amount. So I think here's how we feel about it. Number one, yes, absolutely, there's a shortage of long-term subs, But the idea, I think, by retaining more teachers is that long-term we will have more teachers in the profession and that will trickle down to more long-term subs as well.
So that's sort of the long-term side of it. The short-term side of it is, you know, again, if you have a teacher who's being compelled, don't have the choice to come back too early, a week after they've given birth or something like that, don't think you're getting the highest quality classroom experience at that point anyway. And so, I mean, sometimes maybe they can make it work, but oftentimes you're going to, I think the kids in that classroom are going to experience challenges, as the teacher will, just because they're being forced into a situation where they don't want.
So I guess that's my response, is that I think that it's a consideration that I think is a legitimate consideration, but I think it's outweighed by both the benefit of getting someone who did not just give birth into the classroom, who doesn't, you know, they may want to be there, but they also would like to be with their child. They'd like to be taking that leave. And two, the long-term benefits of keeping more people in the profession and recruiting and pretending to the profession, and hopefully that will increase the overall supply so these issues are less acute.
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:49:43
So if I may, because obviously I live in a different area of the state, and so can you tell me how many schools are actually having teachers come back a week or two after they, because, like, that's not been my experience in Northwest Arkansas, But I realize I'm not experiencing the same thing other people do across the state. So do you know that information on how many schools are making teachers come back in that short of a window of time and such? Or maybe other members can. They can chime in at discussion or something and let me know. Because I'm not aware of that, but I realize I live in a different area.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:50:13
Well, no, I don't have any statistics on that. But I can tell you that since filing this bill, I've
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:50:19
anecdotally heard from teachers who have been, you know, just very frustrated with the fact that their district didn't offer them what they felt like was reasonable, you know, policy as far as when they could come back. It's all anecdotal. I don't have stats on it, but I think people felt like they were being asked to come back when they weren't ready. So maybe not
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:50:39
somebody coming back a week later. I mean, I think we're having districts. Was that just a number you threw out? That's what I want
to make sure because like that's pretty harsh. So I
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:50:54
was like, wow. Whatever the case is, right. Okay, thank you. Representative Meeks, you're recognized for a question. Thank you. Representative Collins, you've helped me on many of my bills, and I'm going to try to throw one here to you. Did you consider? So under the bill, the way it's written, if someone gets an infant in the foster care system under a year, then they would qualify for this 12-week. As someone who's, I've been a foster dad before, foster placements, by definition, are temporary.
And so my only concern with the bill would be if a teacher took an infant, had that infant for 10, 11 weeks, and then that infant went to somebody else, and then they got another infant, now you're looking at 24 weeks out of 36 weeks school year. So potentially this could be abused so that a teacher could be out two-thirds of the year simply by fostering a one-year-old or, you know, six-month-old and then 12 weeks later getting another six-month-old.
And so I'm throwing out the idea of maybe amending it so that this could only be used maybe once a year or something so it's not abused. I don't know that a lot of teachers would abuse it, but
you could see how it could be.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:52:14
Well, I'm so glad you asked that question because the governor's office was one step ahead of you on that, and we did add in on, if you see, Section 1, that A2 says that an employee shall not be eligible for, if they're fostering, for an additional 12 weeks of paid leave if they have already taken the 12 weeks on the initial foster placement.
So exactly that situation you're concerned about was something that was brought to our attention. We got it in there. Yeah. Representative
Gonzalez-Werthin, you're recognized for a question? Are there additional questions
by committee? Seeing no additional questions, we do not have anyone signed up to speak for or against this bill. We do have a motion due pass, but again, we will not address the motion. Uh, represent Collins, would you like to actually, we won't close for the bill because we'll
wait, uh, for when we actually vote on it. Uh, so, um, with that represent Collins, we will, um, I guess, complete hearing the bill. And then, uh, when we vote here in a week or so on any bills that have fiscal impact, we will bring you back and we will take the motion, which is already on the table, uh, and we will vote on it that time. Okay. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Members, um, without objection, uh, representative Steele has been extremely patient today. And so I'm going to go back up to the top of the calendar. Representative Steele has an amendment, I believe.
Yeah, he has an amendment that staff will be passing out. And then we will hear that. HB 1709. Yeah, if you need it. I got one.
Representative Steele, you're recognized to present
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:54:39
your amendment. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the committee. I have actually enjoyed the dialogue and your work here. This is the amendment to a bill that's been brought before. We basically had a fiscal impact study done, And this amendment actually
states the true nature and purpose of the bill is to not obligate the Department of Human Service workers to any financial obligation as relation to the bill.
That's on the amendment, sir. Are there questions from the committee on the amendment? I see no questions. We have a motion to adopt the amendment. Is there a discussion on the motion? I see no discussion. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Congratulations. You've adopted your amendment. Now, Representative Still, you're
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:55:36
recognized to present HB 1709 as amended. Thank you, committee. I'll be very brief. This bill has been before the committee. Before what happened the last time, it's because it was in this committee,
we had a financial impact statement from the Department of
Education. However, we did not have one from the Department of Human Services, and that's the impact study that you have before you. However, the amendment now that's part of the bill makes it very clear that even though the impact study from the Department of Human Services would basically give you the amount of resources it would take
to put a human service worker and a mental health worker in every school, that certainly is not the intent of the bill. And the amendment just clarifies that to make sure that the Department of Human Services does not have any financial obligation. That would be
up to them and their administration. I have worked with the Department of Human Services. Tiffany is, excuse me, Director Wright is here and can speak to that, as well as the
Department of Education and the Governor's Office.
Funding is definitely an issue, and it actually was a good thing that the bill had been delayed a little bit because I understand that there could be a bill that would present some funding coming out of the Senate. So with the passage of this bill, there could be hope at the end of the rainbow. But that's all the bill does, is change the definition. Representative Steele has presented
HB 1709 as amended. Are there questions from the committee?
So, Representative, I guess I would have a question. So, if the intent of the bill is not to require it, we see the fiscal impact of $31 million. So, the intent of the bill is not to require it. What would be the benefit of the bill if we aren't necessarily funding anything but help me understand kind of the intent of the bill. Since we don't have a funding mechanism currently to provide this,
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:57:58
where would we go with that? Well, the bill actually is part of a program that's been
around for over the past 12 years, but the program is only for social workers. This bill would expand it to not only social workers but also mental health counselors, which is a major expansion of the requirement of the bill. So DHS at any time can decide in conjunction with the Department of Education to put funding in it. Also, as I mentioned, there is a bill on the Senate side
that would provide funding for mental health counselors as well as social workers in the schools. And
so as a follow-up with that, so should DHS not decide to, and that bill that's coming out of the Senate not
make it, just hypothetically, then what would be, where would we be going with this should DHS not decide to fund it?
Speaker 336
1:58:51
That would be a total local decision. School could do
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:58:55
that. If they have the budget, a school throughout the state of Arkansas
could actually hire people in these positions already. But through the
DHS program, the DHS required, they could only hire them as social workers, not as mental health counselors, and that's the difference in the bill. Representative Garner,
Chair
Unverified
1:59:12
you're recognized for a question. Thank you, and
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:59:17
thank you, Representative Stills. I've got
a couple of questions. I've been working with the Department of Human Services for some mental and behavioral health, and I was amazed at some of the programs that they have already. Yes. So could you or someone from the department come talk to us about what we have going on right now
and how this would change or affect, how it would help, whatever? I
Speaker 302
1:59:44
would ask for Director Wright, DHS. If you'd like to
send, obviously. If you would please just introduce yourself for the record. Director Wright, introduce yourself as well, and you're recognized to
help answer the questions. Hey, good
Speaker 344
2:00:01
afternoon. Melissa Weatherton. I am the Director for Medicaid Specialty Populations. I'm over mental health is one of the divisions that I'm over.
Speaker 346
2:00:10
Hi, good afternoon. I'm Tiffany Wright, and I'm the Director for the Division of Children and Family. services. I think
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
2:00:18
if you restate your question for them since they were not at
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:00:21
the table, then it would be great. Right. I think what I'd like to know is how this bill affects what you're already doing. And I was
just amazed at the number of programs that you have already and would like to hear what's going on now and how this bill would impact that.
Speaker 350
2:00:34
Absolutely. So I'm not as familiar with this particular bill, so I might defer to Ms. Wright. But I will tell you what
Speaker 344
2:00:41
we are working on in the Medicaid space around children and behavioral health needs. So we are actually working very closely right now with Secretary Oliva and his team on another bill sponsored by Senator Hester that we are working to see if we can develop possibly a new concept where Medicaid can come in and offer a much greater assistance to schools, specifically specifically looking at their LEA programs and how we can come in and offer more help.
Aside from the work we're doing specifically around that bill, we have launched several programs. Thanks to the governor and to you guys for the appropriation, we just signed a grant for $10 million with the University of Arkansas Department of Social Work to build statewide crisis. So as part of that grant, we are setting up a hub and a call center with a specific emphasis on children in schools.
That was specifically requested by the governor. We actually rewrote the grant with U of A because we want to set up a crisis line so that when we are having incidents and behaviors at school, they have an immediate number to call where we can send out assistance for stabilization. So we have a lot of that going on in that space as well. And we're piloting two other programs with some American Rescue Funds
that are really focused on treating families, not just kids. So we're having great success with the pilot data so far. We've been running it for about a year. We have another year's worth of funding. But really getting into what's going on with kids and their families. We're trying to change a lot of our Medicaid services right now. We truly believe if we can't get in and try to understand the root cause of some of this that's going on with kids, that we're not going to be able to change their behaviors.
So family-centered treatment is one of the evidence-based models that we've been piloting, a highly successful model. All the work we're trying to do with Secretary Oliva and Department of Ed around the other bill will be we are recommending that family based type model where only are we assisting at schools, but we're actually going into homes and assisting with changing families. So that's just kind of a summary of what Medicaid and Department of Human Services is focusing on for school age kids.
Speaker 110
2:03:28
Are there other questions for Representative
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:03:31
Garner? Yeah, just a follow-up. So can you just help me understand how this bill would help or if it – just help me understand how it relates to what we're doing
Speaker 346
2:03:45
or what you're trying to do now. So currently, DCFS does not have family service workers in the schools. We partner with the schools, and obviously when we're out initiating child maltreatment reports, we're engaging with the schools. We've been doing some work around education with teachers around – sorry, with educators around child maltreatment.
How do they engage and support children who may be involved with DCFS but also – or maybe in foster care? And so I think that the work that we're doing through being able to open supportive services cases and wrap around families using the programs that Medicaid is standing up, we're able to support families. DCFS also, with the support of the legislator, now I think five years ago we rolled out a contract called intensive in-home services. We're using that to safely stabilize children in their homes with their parents, as well as support reunification through foster care.
So I think that we have a lot of other work going on plugging into the schools, but not necessarily being in the schools doing
Speaker 353
2:04:53
some of the things that's listed out
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:04:57
here. So I guess my concern is whether we require human service workers or mental health counselors in every school. Is that necessary, do you think? No.
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
2:05:08
This bill does not require that at all.
That's up to the department to decide. And the
school district. Now, if the school district wants to do it on their
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:05:24
own, they certainly have that right. It does not require that. Yes, no. That's what the amendment wanted to make clear. What is the human
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
2:05:33
service worker? Is that defined somewhere? It is defined in the existing
code. No, there are already human service workers in schools. That's been happening about 12 years. All this bill does, and all these programs are wonderful, but that's not HB-1709.
HB-1709 simply expands the definition from human service workers to mental health counselors in schools. It's an existing program. All this bill does is expand the definition. I would like to clarify, although it's
Speaker 344
2:06:04
been in state statute, it's my understanding for some time, When we have been doing research internally, we have not been doing that program in several years. For years. For years. It's my understanding, and I actually reached out because I was here.
We were both here way back then and reached out to some old DCFS directors. And it was my understanding that we piloted this maybe for a very short amount of time, but we have not been sustaining or running this program.
Speaker 354
2:06:35
And what is the reason for that? Just
Speaker 344
2:06:38
out of curiosity. Well, we can't come to the conclusion because I think everybody, it was 10 or 12 years ago. It
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
2:06:46
was 12 years ago, and it was primarily funding. Funding ran out. When we initially started this program, funding came from TANF.
It was carrier funds from TANF, and schools that had at that time, it was 90% free and reduced luncheon, was eligible for the grants through the program. These were one-year contracts. They were done through the Department of Human Services. Once that money ran out, then the program, although it was still in place from a legislative standpoint, it was not funded.
Speaker 346
2:07:19
It looks like from the research that we did, the last time there was anything happening was about 2010, and that was it.
And I think part of that is DCFS has evolved over time. I mean, we're talking about 15 years now. And a lot of that was around, that original act was around prevention services, and we have really morphed the prevention services and done different avenues of things to help families. And, again, I wasn't here in, I mean, I was here in 2010, but I was in the front lines in 2010. So I'm not sure exactly what happened with the pilot, but from what we could find and asking questions, that's what we know.
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
2:08:00
And we do know that some of those individuals, even though the grant no longer existed after the date that she aforementioned, some of the school districts took on the responsibility, and they kept those individuals in place for many years after that. I don't know how many still have them, but that's up to the local school district to do that. But at that point, it was only social workers. Those kids, as you all know, some of them bring problems to school, And sometimes those problems not only affect them, but disrupt other young people in the classroom.
This just expands it, not only just to be social workers, but to also include mental health counselors. Thank you,
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
2:08:45
Mr. Chair. Representative Painter, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. On the 99 districts that it says that meet the criteria, can you kind
of explain to me what that criteria is?
or maybe this is for the department of education it says it's prepared by the DHS
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
2:09:08
I think that was that's based on if every
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
2:09:16
school well it's 99 districts so and it says the criteria so what what is the criteria and I'm sorry if I
Speaker 344
2:09:23
missed that conversation I can answer that I'm sorry I didn't realize you were talking about the fiscal impact so um we we asked um our finance team to run a fiscal impact and with some assumptions so at the bottom on the back um you'll see we made
some assumptions like we estimated one service worker and one mental health counselor um for every four schools per district that met the criteria in the bill and we um ascertained that the criteria in the bill affected 99 districts um i believe they have over 200 but i think way the bill was written we we based on 99 and then cost to train each of the workers um and then we broke it down with the the total computable and then the state share versus the federal share
if Medicaid is able to pay for this. But we do not assume that that would be the case because every child in a public school is not on Medicaid. I'll give it to
Speaker 58
2:10:35
y'all. Okay. Thank you. Sounds good. Thank you. Are there additional questions about the committee?
Seeing no additional questions, thank you, Melissa and Tiffany. We do not have anyone signed up to speak for or against
the bill. But just a moment, please, let me
consult. So, Representative Steele, thank you for presenting the bill. Since this still falls in line with showing a fiscal impact,
even though I understand where you're going with it's not necessarily requiring it, it still shows a fiscal impact, then we'll hold this to vote on it at the end of the session when we vote on the other bills that show a fiscal impact. So with that, we will complete hearing this bill, and then it will allow you to close for it at that time, which I anticipate will probably be next week, and take a vote on it then. Thank you, committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members, without objection, we'll hear one more bill, Representative Gramlich. You are recognized for House Bill 1812, if you would please introduce yourself for the record.
My apologies to anyone who came for other bills. We're trying to knock all these out as quick as possible. As you see, we do a great job of asking a lot of questions because we want to make sure everything is vetted well. So we will,
again, start at 9 o'clock on Thursday morning to make sure that we
Speaker 369
2:12:13
start getting through. So Representative Gramlich, if you would please introduce yourself, you're recognized. Thank you
Zach Gramli
Unverified
2:12:20
very much. Zach Gramlich, State Representative, District 50, Fort Smith. House Bill 1812 is really doing a lot of technical corrections, and it does do one thing. First off, Act 423 of 2023 was ran, and its goal was to make GED.
If a student received a GED after they dropped out, that it wouldn't affect. School ratings, well, there's a couple of spots in the law where it still does, and so we're doing some technical corrections to ensure that if a student gets their GED, it doesn't count as a dropout and it doesn't affect graduation rates. Another thing that this bill will do is it will allow a public school student to be able to apply to take the GED test instead of dropping out of school. The goal of this is to allow flexibility for individuals who may have different things
where they could be having a kid. They could be a kid who just needs a different option in life so that they can get their GED and take a piece of paper and go out into the world and be successful. And really just providing flexibility for those individuals that fall into that route. And then also some more technical corrections. I worked with the director of adult ed to do some of this stuff. in reality how the actual students who take GED tests work instead of the 8.5 grade level.
That's not actually how they do it. It's determined by the adult ed. And then there's a couple other spots where it's technical corrections. But yeah. So three things. A lot of public school kids take a GED, technical corrections, and make it so if a student receives a GED, it does not count as a dropout and doesn't affect graduation rate. Other
questions from the committee? Representative Nazarenko, you're recognized for a question. Thank you,
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
2:14:06
Mr. Chairman. Thank you for bringing this bill. I like it.
I just had one quick question that kind of caught my eye. The REDI test, it looks like that's a proprietary test. Is there a reason why there's a proprietary test? I mean,
Zach Gramli
Unverified
2:14:19
that's the test that they use for the GED. And there's no chance of that ever changing? Not unless we went with something other than
Speaker 6
2:14:34
the GED. No. Okay. Are there additional questions about the committee? Representative
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
2:14:40
Brown, do you have a question? Representative Gramlich, I'm just -- if you could, before we, like, move on without
me asking my question, on page two, if you could, please, look at that section three On line 13 through 19, what is that saying? So from my understanding,
Speaker 369
2:14:59
the Arkansas National Guard Youth Challenge
Zach Gramli
Unverified
2:15:01
Program used to be a thing, but it's not a thing anymore. So we're just striking it from the code because it's not used. Okay,
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
2:15:10
well, I see that, but I'm just trying to figure out, all right,
Arkansas Code concerning exceptions to the requirement
that each child of a certain age shall enroll in and attend a school is amended to read as follows. I guess there's some things that are mentioned. Yeah, yeah, so that's compulsory
Speaker 369
2:15:25
ed. There's compulsory education law, and so there's other surrounding pieces that say you have to go to school, you have to go to school, you
Zach Gramli
Unverified
2:15:31
don't have to go to school if you do this, this, and this. This is one of those things where if you're in that program, you... So if
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
2:15:39
a child 16 years of age or older is enrolled in an adult education program, then that... Yeah, if they're adult, then they wouldn't be.
Zach Gramli
Unverified
2:15:47
They're subject to different compulsory ed stuff. Thank you.
Seeing no additional questions, and there's no one signed up to speak for or against the bill, Representative Grammich, would you like to close for your bill? I am closed for my bill, and
I would appreciate a motion. Representative Grammich is closed for a bill. We have a
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
2:16:10
motion to do pass on the table. Is there a discussion on the motion?
See a notice. Oh, Representative Gonzalez-Worth, and you're recognized for discussion. No, I just very quickly, I just want to applaud this bill because I, as an educator, had never understood why when a student receives their GED,
it would count as a dropout. They're finishing their adult education. They're getting an equivalent to a high school diploma. And so I appreciate your bill very much. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no additional discussion, we have a motion to do
pass on the table. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed. Congratulations, Representative Gramlich. You've passed your bill. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Committee.
House of Education, as I said of note, we will plan to meet at 9 a.m. on Thursday morning. See, no additional business. Are you ready to go, Representative Painter?
See, no additional business. House of Education will stand adjourned.
Agenda
CONCUR IN SENATE AMENDMENT
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HB1633 Brooks TO AMEND ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR PARTICIPATING IN EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES FOR CERTAIN STUDENTS WHO TRANSFER SCHOOLS; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY.
RE-REFERRED TO COMMITTEE
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HB1709 Steele TO AMEND THE HUMAN SERVICES WORKERS IN THE SCHOOLS PROGRAM; AND TO INCLUDE MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELORS IN THE HUMAN SERVICES WORKERS IN THE SCHOOLS PROGRAM.
REGULAR AGENDA
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HB1710 Vaught TO PROHIBIT A SCHOOL FROM USING OR REFERENCING A PUBLIC SCHOOL RATING IN ANY ADVERTISING, PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL, OR COMMUNICATION DIRECTED TO THE PUBLIC.
HB1727 L. Johnson TO AMEND THE FUNDING AVAILABLE TO ADULT EDUCATION CHARTER SCHOOLS.
HB1283 J. Mayberry TO REQUIRE THE DIVISION OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION TO INCLUDE DIGITAL MEDIA STANDARDS IN KINDERGARTEN THROUGH GRADE TWELVE LIBRARY MEDIA STANDARDS.
HB1017 A. Collins TO AMEND THE LAW REGARDING PAID MATERNITY LEAVE FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL EMPLOYEES; AND TO REQUIRE THE DIVISION OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION TO PAY FOR INCURRED COSTS FOR APPROVED PAID MATERNITY LEAVE.0
HB1755 T. Shephard TO REQUIRE EACH PUBLIC SCHOOL TO PARTICIPATE IN THE ARKANSAS PREVENTION NEEDS ASSESSMENT SURVEY.
HB1786 Brooks TO PROVIDE ELIGIBILITY FOR A TUITION BENEFIT TO SOLDIERS AND AIRMEN OF THE ARKANSAS NATIONAL GUARD ATTENDING CERTAIN PRIVATE TWO- YEAR AND FOUR-YEAR COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.
HB1833 M. Shepherd TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE ADMISSIONS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS COLLEGE OF MEDICINE.
SB391 J. Dismang TO CREATE THE ROBOTICS COMPETITION GRANT PROGRAM FOR ELIGIBLE ROBOTICS TEAMS IN PUBLIC OR PRIVATE SCHOOLS FOR THE PURPOSE OF ENCOURAGING STUDY IN THE FIELDS OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND MATHEMATICS.
SB402 C. Penzo TO PROHIBIT A PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT AND AN EDUCATIONAL SERVICE COOPERATIVE FROM REQUIRING OR TAKING CERTAIN ACTIONS RELATED TO EMPLOYEE ORGANIZATIONS AND PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS.
SB373 Irvin TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS FINANCIAL EDUCATION COMMISSION.
SB390 J. English TO ESTABLISH THE STATE APPRENTICESHIP AGENCY ACT.
HB1081 B. McKenzie TO REPEAL ADDITIONAL FUNDING FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND ADMINISTRATION OF PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES.
HB1139 B. McKenzie TO CREATE THE RELEASED TIME EDUCATION ACT.
HB1805 Childress TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF "BULLYING"; AND TO CREATE A PROCESS WHEREBY A PUBLIC SCHOOL MAY CONDUCT MULTIPLE, SIMULTANEOUS INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE SAME ALLEGATION OF BULLYING UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES.
HB1812 Gramlich TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT; TO CREATE AN EXCEPTION TO ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS FOR A STUDENT WHO TAKES A GED TEST; AND TO AMEND THE SCORE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE GED TEST.
HB1825 Wooldridge TO ALLOW A PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL TO REQUIRE AN ENROLLED STUDENT TO EARN ONE UNIT OF CREDIT IN A COMPUTER SCIENCE OR COMPUTER SCIENCE-RELATED CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION COURSE IN ORDER TO GRADUATE.
HB1719 Vaught TO AMEND THE DAYS INCLUDED IN THE TOTAL NUMBER OF MATERNITY LEAVE DAYS APPROVED BY A SCHOOL THAT OFFERS MATERNITY LEAVE.
HB1747 Vaught TO CREATE THE BABIES AT SCHOOL ACT; AND TO ALLOW SCHOOLS TO PERMIT EMPLOYEES WHO ARE PARENTS TO BRING THEIR INFANTS SIX MONTHS OR YOUNGER TO WORK.
HB1761 D. Garner TO INCREASE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY THROUGH THE ESTABLISHMENT OF INCOME LIMITS FOR STUDENTS ELIGIBLE FOR EDUCATIONAL FREEDOM ACCOUNTS IN THE 2025-2026 SCHOOL YEAR AND THEREAFTER.
HB1793 Duke TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE USE OF POSITIVE BEHAVIORAL SUPPORTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICTS.
SB352 Stone TO PROHIBIT ANTISEMITISM IN PUBLIC ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS; AND TO PROHIBIT ANTISEMITISM IN STATE-SUPPORTED INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION.
HB1806 Vaught TO PROVIDE CURRICULUM TRANSPARENCY FOR PARENTS OF KINDERGARTEN THROUGH GRADE TWELVE STUDENTS; AND TO ALLOW A PARENT TO REVIEW AND OPT OUT OF SELECTED LIBRARY MEDIA MATERIALS FOR HIS OR HER CHILD.
HB1864 Andrews TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE ARKANSAS CODE TO IMPROVE EFFICIENCY IN STUDENT INSTRUCTION; AND TO CREATE A STANDARDIZED FLEXIBLE SCHOOL CALENDAR SYSTEM FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
HB1866 Brooks TO CREATE ELI'S LAW; AND TO REQUIRE EACH PUBLIC SCHOOL TO INSTALL AN AUDIO RECORDING DEVICE IN EACH LOCKER ROOM AND DRESSING ROOM ON THE PUBLIC SCHOOL CAMPUS.
HB1874 B. McKenzie AN ACT TO AMEND THE USE OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FUNDING THAT EXCEEDS THE MAXIMUM AMOUNT AWARDED TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS UNDER THE PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING ACT OF 2003.
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — EDUCATION COMMITTEE- HOUSE, Apr 1, 2025 | Agenda | 4 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Representative Keith Brooks Chair
Unverified
Representative Brit McKenzie Chair
Unverified
Speaker 6
Speaker 2
Representative Austin McCollum
Unverified
Representative Les D. Eaves
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Speaker 35
Annalee Brooks
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Clara Tittle
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Speaker 42
Dylan Abraham
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Josh Dickinson
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Malachi Rivera
Unverified
Speaker 49
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Speaker 70
Representative Jessie McGruder
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Speaker 74
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
Representative Jason Nazarenko
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Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
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Speaker 97
Speaker 98
Speaker 106
Speaker 117
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
Speaker 119
Speaker 121
Speaker 123
Speaker 129
Representative Tara Shephard
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Speaker 110
Speaker 135
Speaker 137
Speaker 145
Speaker 148
Speaker 151
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
Speaker 162
Speaker 168
Representative Sonia Eubanks Barker
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Speaker 178
Speaker 179
Speaker 181
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
Speaker 143
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
Speaker 216
Speaker 210
Speaker 228
Speaker 161
Speaker 170
Chair
Unverified
Representative Wade Andrews
Unverified
Speaker 266
Speaker 223
Speaker 276
Speaker 278
Speaker 283
Speaker 289
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
Speaker 9
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
Speaker 311
Representative DeAnn Vaught
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Representative Tracy Steele
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Speaker 336
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
Speaker 302
Speaker 344
Speaker 346
Speaker 350
Speaker 353
Speaker 354
Speaker 58
Speaker 369
Zach Gramli
Unverified