Bill Summary for H 159 (2021-2022)

Printer-friendly: Click to view

Summary date: 

Jun 16 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.

View: All Summaries for BillTracking:

Bill summary

Senate committee substitute makes the following changes to the 4th edition.

Part I.

Deletes part of the proposed changes to GS 115C-302.1(b), which eliminated the deadline for a teacher to request 12 salary installment payments and eliminated the prohibition from teachers employed less than 10 months from receiving their salaries in 12 installments. Maintains the new requirement for local administrative units to fulfill the requirement for installment payments through a payroll deduction plan. 

Adds to the proposed changes to GS 115C-316(a)(2), regarding payment of school employees, to similarly direct local administrative units to fulfill the requirements for installment payments for eligible employees who so request through a payroll deduction plan. Makes further clarifying and technical changes.

Part II.

Amends the proposed changes to Section 2.3 of SL 2020-80 to further extend the due date of the State Board of Education's (SBE) report to the specified NCGA committee on unpaid meal charges in local school administrative units from October 15, 2022, to October 15, 2023. Eliminates the proposed changes that would have allowed, beginning June 30, 2021, the funds transferred from the School Bus Replacement Fund to the State Public School Fund to provide free school lunches to students of all grade levels qualifying for reduced-price meals to be used in 2021-22 in addition to 2020-21. 

Part III.

Revises the proposed changes to GS 115C-450 regarding school food services. Now prohibits public school units that provide school nutrition services from assessing indirect costs to a school nutrition program unless the program has an operating balance of at least two months (was, at least three months).

Part IV.

Eliminates the previous content of Part IV., which made, for the 2020-21 school year, any student in the 12th grade who has not completed instruction in cardiopulmonary resuscitation eligible to graduate if two criteria are met; Part V., which amended GS 115C-105.57 to require that public school units report to the Center for Safer Schools (Center) annually regarding school resource officers as part of the Center's annual census of school resource officers, and required the Center to compile the information submitted by the public school units and report that information at the statewide and local levels to the already specified entities; Part VII., which amended GS 115C-270.20 to 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; and Part VIII., which made various amendments to Article 6C (concerning the Education and Workforce Innovation Program) of GS Chapter 115C. Makes conforming organizational changes to renumber the remaining parts and sections of the act.

Part XI.

Changes the deadline by which the Department of Public Instruction must administer the proposed bonus payment to teachers employed as of April 1, 2021, in a school for students with visual and hearing impairments from April 30, 2021, to 30 days after the date the act becomes law.