On Tuesday the Senate Education Committee took up the latest draft of their Miscellaneous Education bill. Chairman Campion asked to start at the back of the bill, the sections dealing with the drivers education pilot project. He informed Senator Hashim the
Agency of Transportation has weighed in opposing the funding source.

Senator Weeks commented that the main goal of this program is to “train the trainers” in driver education. A representative from the Agency of Education (AOE) added that they do not have a immediate solution to the pipeline problem for driver educators.

Campion agreed that efforts should be directed towards folks who can train trainers because this model is more sustainable.

Senator Gulick mentioned a desire to not allow teachers to be certified out of CCV. Her comments were not clear, but Campion explained they are not  the business of “decertifying” schools for these things as it was outside Legislative purview.

A separate provision in the bill asks for a curriculum audit of four schools with high rate of free or reduced lunch participants. There was discussion about adding an independent school to the list, but no decision was reached.

This section has a $200K appropriation. There apparently is a format for a curriculum audit that is both an art and science, so course offerings are not the whole story. AOE has legislative counsel guidance about what is entailed in that process and what is considered be best practice.

The Committee came back to the draft bill on Wednesday. The new version of the bill does not include the drivers education pilot program because consensus had not been reached.

After hearing more from the AOE they decided it was not possible to resolve the liability questions surrounding trainings. Senator Williams moved the bill and all voted in favor.