MichiganVotes Weekly Report: July 31, 2020

The legislature is scheduled to meet next on Aug. 6. The House did not meet this week and the Senate held a pro-forma session with no voting. Rather than votes, this Roll Call Report describes some topical school-related bills of interest.

Senate Bill 1038: Suspend state 11th/12th grade math/reading tests
Introduced by Sen. Rosemary Bayer (D), to suspend in the coming 2020-2021 school year a law that requires public schools to administer a state learning assessment exam to all students in either 11th or 12th grade. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

Senate Bill 1039: Suspend building-level school performance measurements
Introduced by Sen. Rosemary Bayer (D), to suspend in the coming 2020-2021 school year a law that requires the state Department of Education to assign each public school a letter grade based on the educational progress of its students during the past year. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

Senate Bill 1040: Suspend annual teacher performance ratings
Introduced by Sen. Curtis Hertel, Jr. (D, to suspend in the coming 2020-21 school year a requirement that school districts perform annual year-end evaluation ratings of classroom teachers and rate each as either highly effective, effective, minimally effective or ineffective. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

Senate Bill 1043: Suspend school performance measurements
Introduced by Sen. Sean McCann (D), to suspend in the coming 2020-21 school year a sampling program intended to determine whether Detroit children enrolled in kindergarten have the skills required to participate. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

House Bill 5833: Authorize “school liaisons” to communicate state education regulators
Introduced by Rep. Brad Paquette (R), to require the Michigan Department of Education to establish and implement a program of “school liaisons” who “are able to communicate directly with department staff on matters of relevance to the school.” House Bill 5834 would require the Michigan Department of Education to host periodic statewide networking conferences for all these “liasons.” Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

House Bill 5835: Mandate schools submit report on police who work in schools
Introduced by Rep. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo (D) to require public school districts that regularly have a police officer on duty in a school (dubbed “school resource officers”) to submit a report to the state with the names of these officers, their training and employment history, and whether the officers are armed. These reports would be exempt from disclosure under the state open records law. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

House Bill 5956: Increase school employee health insurance coverage
Introduced by Rep. Mari Manoogian (D), to require public schools to provide employee health insurance plans that after December 13, 2020, must “pay at least 90% of the total annual costs of all of the medical benefit plans it offers or contributes to for its employees and elected public officials.” This would effectively repeal a 2011 reform that capped the amount that school districts could spend on employee health insurance benefits, and required employee cost sharing. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.