Students; transferring out of a public school. (HB259)
Introduced By
Progress
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Introduced |
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Passed Committee |
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Passed House |
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Passed Senate |
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Signed by Governor |
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Became Law |
Description
Students transferring out of a local school division. Requires a local school division to obtain written documentation, to the extent practicable, from the school to which a student has transferred before making any status classification in an information management system. Amends § 22.1-254.02 (“Students transferring from a public school.”), of the Code of Virginia. View Full Text »
Outcome
Bill Has Passed
View Bill's History
Comments
The purpose of this bill is to encourage schools to track down students when their whereabouts are unknown and to prevent dropouts from being mislabeled as transfers. It does not require anything extra from schools -- they should already receive records requests from the receiving school when a student is a bona fide transfer. Soon high school accreditation in Virginia will be based on graduation and completion statistics as well as test scores. There will be mounting pressure to mislabel dropouts as transfers in order to maintain full accreditation.
No mention is made of the EIMS state testing/tracking number assigned to all students. The Department of Education is now able to track all students using the State Testing Identifier and the four State Reporting submissions. If a student transfers within Virginia, the fail-safe is already in place, and school districts already are tracking these "lost sheep" students. If this bill is considered a high priority, then I would fully expect a funding bill to be attached for the state to fund such a position in each school district.