Today was a busy day at the General Assembly, featuring key committee discussions on wide-ranging education issues.
Lawmakers in the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved the school capital funding bill introduced by Senate leadership, after over an hour of intense debate comparing the Senate plan to a school bond proposal introduced in the House. The bill’s primary sponsors, Senators Harry Brown (R-Jones, Onslow), Kathy Harrington (R-Gaston), and Joyce Krawiec (R-Davie, Forsyth), addressed members of the Appropriations Committee to discuss their bill, Senate Bill 5 (SB 5), which proposes a pay-as-you-go model, generating $2 billion for K-12 facilities repair and renovation over 9 years. The bill was introduced as an alternative to a bond referendum proposal which would generate an estimated $1.5 billion for K-12 capital projects, if approved by voters statewide.
In its first meeting of the 2019-2020 Session, the House K-12 Education Committee discussed two school calendar flexibility bills, bringing to light both old and new arguments surrounding the current school calendar law. Committee members discussed House Bill 12, which would provide complete calendar flexibility for Alamance-Burlington Schools, as well as House Bill 13, which would allow LEAs in Catawba and Davie counties to align their school calendars with the calendars of local community colleges. The committee chairs decided to postpone voting on the two bills, instead allowing legislative staff to provide background information on the current calendar law and acknowledging bill sponsors to speak briefly on their bills.
