New education legislation proposes changes for teachers, administrators, and communities.
Legislators are looking for more local control over schools this session.
House Education Chair Amanda Pasdon said “Every piece of legislation I look at has to have a flavor of local control to pass.”
The hot topics for education right now are public charter schools and alternative certification for teachers.
House Bill 2014 and Senate Bill 14 both address the creation of public charter schools. West Virginia is one of the last states to approve public charter school legislation. Currently 42 states and the District of Colombia allow for charter schools. Pasdon wants to use other states as models to learn from. These schools would provide teachers with flexibility to design their own education environment and provide a mechanism for discovering successful education practices.
Senate Education Committee Chair Dave Sypolt is optimistic that this legislation will provide a frame work for the creation of new schools.
“It provides a blank canvas for a board of directors to bring forth their view of what a school should be,” Sypolt said.
Sypolt believes that public charter schools could provide communities with the option to keep smaller schools instead of consolidating or allow for specialized schools for the preforming arts, sciences, technology, engineering, mathematics or other specialization fields.
Public charter schools would still be subject to all the same requirements as current public schools, such as; Immunizations, school nutrition, background checks for personnel and special education services.
Pasdon also hopes that these schools will spark competition to improve the current school system. “I’m a believer that competition in a market builds a market,” Pasdon said. “Education is no different.”
Other important pieces of legislation regarding education this session include House Bill 2005 and Senate Bill 5. These “same as” bills would update alternative programming for educating teachers. Pasdon said the passage of this bill in her committee was a top priority.
“Alternative certification was a big feat for us,” Pasdon said.
This bill would remove the limit on program to position in an area of critical need and shortage and remove degree requirements in certain disciplines. Sypolt said this could open the door even more to people who can help these communities that are lacking qualified teachers; be it for lack of funding like in poverty stricken counties or in counties where the cost of living is just too high for teachers.
“I would argue having someone who is an expert in their field even though they weren’t an accomplished teacher is better than having a substitute that doesn’t know anything about the subject,” Sypolt said.
The focus this session is answering teachers’ complaints and helping the system run smoothly according to Sypolt.
“Let’s let the teachers teach instead of tying their hands with all of these requirements that really don’t serve anything but bog down the entire system,” Sypolt said.
Both legislators are hoping to redesign the current education system to better help schools and teachers educate West Virginia students.
