Education Policy Bill Passes off Senate Floor

A Bit of a Slog, but Education Policy Bill Passes in Senate.  It took several hours and the offering of fourteen amendments, but the Senate’s 2024 Omnibus Education Policy bill (SF 3567) passed the full Senate on a party-line vote of 35-31 on Tuesday afternoon.  The fourteen amendments ran the gamut and six were adopted, but mostly centered on creating greater flexibility for school districts in view of the array of new programs that passed last session.  The most substantive amendment added to the bill came from the author of the READ Act, Senator Erin Maye Quade, as she pushed the training timeline for when training must be completed for the first subset of teachers out one year from 2025 to 2026.  The amendment also allows training  provided by a “certified trained facilitator” to satisfy the professional development requirements of the READ Act.  These changes were also contained in SF 3698 that was heard in the Senate Eduation Finance Committee last week.  There is an additional $40 million that has been proposed to absorb professional development costs, but that will have to be carried in the omnibus Education Finance bills that are making their way through the two bodies.  Because there are no appropriations in SF 3567, the bill could originate in the Senate.  Funding bills ordinarily must start in the House of Representatives.  From here, the policy bill will head to the House where it could be on the floor later this week.