Bill Summary for H 159 (2021-2022)

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Summary date: 

Mar 9 2021

Bill Information:

View NCGA Bill Details2021
House Bill 159 (Public) Filed Wednesday, February 24, 2021
AN ACT TO MAKE VARIOUS CHANGES TO EDUCATION LAWS.
Intro. by Torbett, Blackwell.

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Bill summary

House committee substitute to the 1st edition makes the following changes.

Part I.

Specifies that the funds for the $350 bonus paid to teachers in a school for students with visual and hearing impairments do not supplant any existing compensation funds (was, local funds). 

Further amends GS 115C-316(a)(2) to expand the provisions to permit salary payments in 12 installments for employees employed for 11 calendar months. Makes conforming changes.

Part IV.

Adds a new subsection to GS 115C-450 to prohibit a public school unit that provides school nutrition services from assessing indirect costs that are more than 8% of a school nutrition program's annual budget per fiscal year. 

Part VIII.

Amends GS 115C-270.20 by deleting the changes that require that a professional educator who meets the requirement of the statute for a lifetime license as a professional educator be issued a lifetime license. Instead, amends the statute as follows. Deletes (a)(4), which sets out the requirements for a lifetime license (which specified that a teacher is determined to have completed the required 30 or more years of teaching when the teacher holds a current NC teaching license and has completed 30 or more years of creditable service with the Teachers' and State Employees' Retirement System). Enacts (d), which requires the State Board of Education to issue a lifetime license to an individual currently licensed as a professional educator who has met at least one of the following: (1) completed 30 or more years of creditable service with the Teachers' and State Employees' Retirement System or (2) completed a combined total of 30 or more years of employment as a licensed teacher, administrator, or student services personnel in one or more public school units in this state.

Part IX.

Amends the proposed changes to Article 6C, GS Chapter 115C, to include charter school students in the Education and Workforce Innovation and Career and Technical Education (CTE) Grade Expansion Program. Specifies that local administrative school units can use program grants for CTE programs at one or more schools in the unit. 

Part X.

Adds the following. Amends GS 115C-12 to require the State Board of Education (Board) to adopt any rules, regulation, policies, standards, or statements of general applicability in accordance with GS Chapter 150B (Administrative Procedure Act); specifies that such provisions are only valid if they are adopted in substantial compliance with GS Chapter 150B.

Specifies that the current standards that make up the standard course of study, which are subject to rule making, are deemed permanent rules so long as: (1) the standards were adopted by the Board before January 1, 2021, and (2) the Board submits the standards to the Codifier of Rules in the specified format no later than 60 days after this section becomes effective. Provides that the permanent rules will be effective on the date that they are submitted to the Codifier. Makes any standards that do not meet these criteria subject to GS Chapter 150B. Requires the standard course of study to continue to be revised on the timeline provided in the comprehensive plan developed by the Board and in accordance with the rulemaking process in GS Chapter 150B. Requires the Codifier to publish notice of the permanent rules online when the Codifier enters the permanent rules into the NC Administrative Code.

Amends SL 2019-82 to make the requirements of SL 115C-81.45(d) (which required the Board to require high school instruction in civic and citizenship education through a full-credit course called Founding Principles of the United States of America and North Carolina: Civic Literacy and that encouraged inclusion of the specified components) applicable to students entering the 9th grade in the 2022-23 school year (was, the 2021-22 school year).

Amends the act's long title.