HB 372 (Robinson), Delegate Roxann Robinson’s school calendar bill, has been carried over to 2019. The bill was one of two school calendar bills that reached crossover this year; the other bill, HB 1020 (Adams, L.), was incorporated into Delegate Robinson’s bill in the Senate Education and Health Committee. For more information on all the school calendar bills introduced during this session, please see our February 8 Capitol Contact.
HB 372 sought to let local school boards determine the opening day of the school year and eliminated the post-Labor Day opening requirement and “good cause” scenarios for which the Board of Education may grant waivers of this requirement. Delegate Robinson included language in this bill that would require school boards that set the school calendar with a pre-Labor Day opening date to close all schools in the division from (1) the Thursday immediately preceding Labor Day through Labor Day or (2) the Friday immediately preceding Labor Day through the Tuesday immediately succeeding Labor Day. This five-day weekend provision was an effort to appease the tourism and hospitality industries who historically oppose this kind of measure due to concerns about potential lost revenue.
After robust debate, the Senate Education and Health Committee moved to carry the bill over to 2019 by a 9-6 vote.
VACo Contact: Chris McDonald, Esq.