H.B. 358 School Scheduling Amendments: transcript

Uh, Representative Welton Thank you chair and committee. I'll try to be really fast and, uh, if you have any questions, we can take longer. So what this seeks to do is, uh, kind of change the way we, we measure things in education. Right now you have to have 180 school days. Um, in practicality, what that looks like is if you're on a five by five schedule, that you've got roughly 85 hours per class per credit. And if you're on a four by four schedule, you have 120 credit hours or 120 hours for one credit. And if you're on a trimester, it's somewhere in between. We have a lot of schools who've been asking for four day work weeks and trying to get exceptions from the state school board and a lot of other things like that. And so what this does is we are just trying to create some flexibility in the school system while maintaining accountability and rigor. Uh, and we've tried to match this up with what is actually happening in reality. So what this says is a is a one credit class, instead of being 180 days is a minimum of 83 hours of seat time. That would allow an LEA to then be creative with their scheduling. They could go forward days on and, and one day off and go more school days in the year. They can go a longer day Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and shorter. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, they could do nothing as well. But this allows them to have some, some creativity and some flexibility on their school scheduling while still maintaining the same seat time that we currently are allowing. So, seat time, this doesn't change anything. Uh, it just allows, uh, uh, LEA some options. Um, and that's the bill.

Thank you. I just wanna make sure that I'm understanding this. So we're not saying that we're gonna get, uh, that they're gonna get paid for the credits of the classes or that that's how we're gonna monitor somebody getting through school, but we're going to, um, get credit for the classes by the number of hours that they have in the seat. Am I misunderstanding that?

Yeah, I'm not sure what you mean by getting paid. Okay. So Just like if I take a one credit class, like English right now is, is a one credit class, it's a year long class. Sure. In the current 180 day model, if you are on a four by four schedule, you've got about 120 hours of seat time. If you're on a five by five model, you've got about 85 hours of seat time. And so we're actually are already allowing this in the current system. This is the way we're actually operating currently, we're just changing it from 180 days to be hours. So we still have the, the seat time, which is where the learning's taking place. They can go longer classes if they want, they can go more and, and go year round or they can, it just allows 'em some flexibility with that.

Yeah. Sorry, I guess the pay part came in when I, because I know that it's like 180 days. It's like, oh, you get paid for each child each day, right? Yeah. So that's 180 days. So you're saying that you want the pay to come in for the hours as opposed to the days? Is that what you're kind of saying?

Um, I'm not factoring in pay at all. I'm not sure how that works out to be honest.

Okay. I I just, I was trying to understand the why of this and I'm, you know, and I'm and how it would play out in, in the factors of like the, the math. Yeah.

I, you know, a semester will still be half of the days that they have half of the, the hours. So if you've got 83 minimum seat hours, then a semester would be 41 and a half seat hours. That's how your, your classes get scheduled out.

Okay. I don't believe it changes pay in any anyway, but somebody smarter than me can phone in on that. Okay.

Uh, it actually matches what we'll already allow on a five by five schedule.

Uh, I'd like to move the amendment Correct? Yes, please. I, I'd like to move the first amendment.

Um, no, it just seems like a good clarification.

Uh, this just takes out a driver's ed piece that we thought needed to be there that doesn't need to be there.

I'd like make a, yeah, I'd like to make a motion to favorably recommend House Bill 3 58 School scheduling amendments.

Yeah. I, I do think that we have some schools who are trying to think about some different scheduling options there right now, having to come quite often to the board. And if this, if this helps clarify and lets them know what options are available that best fit their students. I think that's a good idea.

Yes. Thank you. I just think this ball balances, uh, the rigor standards that we already have in place, as well as allows for some innovation. I don't anticipate that most schools would would use this, but it's a tool that they now have at their disposal. We're just looking for clarification.

I'm gonna withdraw my motion while we figure out if we need to settle.

I would like to, um, move the first substitute of house Bill 3 58.

I'd like to make a motion. We favorably recommend first substitute of house bill 3 58. That motion is in order.

Already have. Thanks.

I'll Waive. Okay.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee. Glad to be here again. Um, I'll try to be fast. Um, and then if you have questions, you can ask me. So this, this first bill is an effort to create some flexibility in our, in our school system as far as, uh, being creative. We've talked a lot about innovation, and then we keep telling they have to fit in this box. And so what we did on this bill is we went through, when we looked at like what one credit was currently in the current system. So if I, if I take one credit of English, how many hours am I in in the classroom? How much seat time do I have? And if I'm on a five by five schedule, that's five classes each day, that's about 85 hours. If I'm on a trimester, that's about a hundred hours. And if I'm on a four by four schedule, that's about 120 hours. So what we've done is we've matched the, what we currently allow right now. So there's actually no difference in seat time, but by changing it to being, uh, 83 hours per credit would allow some flexibility in, in seat time. So you could have a school that says, you know what, we're gonna go four days a week. We're gonna have Fridays off. We'll go longer during the day, or we're gonna go four days a week, have Fridays off and have more school days in the year. Or we'll have Monday, Wednesday, Friday long and Tuesday, Thursday shorter. Whatever they think will work well for their, their school, they have the ability to do this. So, uh, it shouldn't change the rigor of our classes. You have the same seat time that we currently allow. It just allows some innovation and flexibility.

Thank you. Um, I love the flexibility in this bill, and with that, I recommend that we pass with a favorable recommendation. First substitute hospital 3 58 to the full body of the Senate. Okay, so the motion is to send out first substitute HP 3 58, this full body of the Senate, uh, discussion of the motion.

I will waive. Thank you.

Since there was no opposition, I would wondering if the sponsor would like to put on consent.

Um, yes. Yes, that would be great. Pretty, pretty non-controversial, so yeah, Hasn't Been. Okay. So

with that, I'd Make that motion.

Thank you Mr. Speaker Porter. Uh, this bill is, um, a bill that's brought to you that is trying to create some flexibility in schools. Over the last years, we've done a lot of work trying to add innovation and creation, uh, in our education system as well as in the public sector. And one of the things that our schools continually try to do, we've seen a lot of rural schools where they will, uh, apply to do a four day school day and then have a longer day or a longer year. And, uh, it works better for them as they travel and they've got long distances to travel. And so the, those have to go to the school board continually for approval because the current law says you have to have 180 days. What this does is it seeks to match the excellence of seat time by matching it to a credit hour. So in a high school, one credit equals 83 credit hours. That is actually what we currently allow in the law. There's several different schedules. We've got a five by five schedule. We have five classes each day. They're currently getting about 83 credits per per credit hour or 83 hours per credit hour. A trimester's about a hundred and a four by four schedule's, about 120 credits. But this is what we currently allow. All that we're doing is matching that current allowance that says one credit of high school credit or, or one high school credit equals 83 seat hours. This will allow, uh, LEAs to be able to go and say, do you know what? We might want to go to school Monday, Wednesday, Friday longer and Tuesday, Thursday shorter. We might want to go Monday through Thursday and have Friday off. We might want to go shorter class hours and go later into the school year. We might want to go fewer class hours and go a little bit later in the day. So this just allows them that flexibility. If your school likes their current system, there's nothing that they have to change with it. They still have full ability to, to match their, their, their current system. Uh, the one other piece to this is it would allow an LEA that has a a K 12 system to have their elementary and middle school match the high school schedule. Since they don't deal with credit hours at the elementary school level. Um, that doesn't really work. And so we just have language that allows 'em to match the high school, uh, schedule. And that's the bill.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to applaud the good sponsor's work on this bill. Um, I had heard from city or from, uh, school district board members in my area of wanting to have more flexibility in the way that they were administering school days, that they felt really restrained by, uh, the requirements that we had. And I had opened a bill kind of looking at different options for this, had a good conversation, uh, with Representative Welton and found that he was already moving in that direction. And so he has really taken the bull by the horns here and found a great solution, um, that secures, uh, the, the time that we need to ensure that our kids are getting in school, but giving flexibilities to our LEAs to be able to do what's best for their communities. And so I just, uh, applaud that great work and support the bill.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Um, just a side question. This will also apply to trimesters. They already fit in that 83 credit hours, so to, to just address that. But this allows flexibility, local control, and maintains excellence in our education system. And I would urge a favorable vote.

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Thank you Mr. President. This, this bill just conforms with the administrative rule. Um, it goes from six months to a thousand hours and had a chance to talk to Mark Steinle. That's the, it's basically the same, same definition. We're, we're actually putting a thousand hours in the code rather than than months and dates to make sure we, we conform with the administrative rule.