Statehouse Express: Season 6, Episode 4

We are almost halfway through the 2025 legislative session. Tune in to the latest issue of the Statehouse Express to see what INPEA is following! 

Transcript

Statehouse Express: Season 6, Episode 4

February 11, 2025

Welcome Back to the 4th Episode of the Statehouse Express! Hi I’m John Elcesser, Executive Director here at INPEA.  Thanks for coming aboard for this episode. It is hard to believe that the session almost half over. As I’ve shared before, we are currently tracking 57 bills at the Statehouse, but as we approach what is called crossover many of those bills will die because they were never heard or they didn’t pass out of the chamber of their origination. 

This past week 16 bills were scheduled to be heard in one of the two education committees. The good news is that most of new bills heard had no direct impact on non-public schools so no testimony was required. 

The House Education Committee amended and voted on HBs 1064 and 1634. HB 1064 deals with athletic transfers and accepting cash payments at athletic activities. It is currently focused on public schools. We understand that IHSAA is looking at a policy revision regarding transfers which may override the need for 1064. 1634 deals with Math education. It deals with automatic enrollment into upper level math courses in public middle schools. Similar to what has been required in reading, HB 1634 requires the use of a math screener and mandatory intervention for students deemed at risk in all schools.

Also in House Ed, testimony was taken on HB 1285 which deals with some special education issues in public schools while HB 1660 deals with allowing participation in FFA activities as excused absences. 1660 does include non-public schools.

The Senate Education Committee heard 9 bills while 6 of those had been heard previously so were listed as amend and vote only. SB 443 which we mentioned last week deals with instruction in Human Sexuality. Senator Byrne, the author of the bill, as promised amended non-public schools out of the bill. It then passed out of committee 9-4. Almost all of the other bills heard that day dealt with either higher ed or public schools. And by the way, we’re not complaining we prefer not to be included in legislation as much as possible.

The House Ways and Means Committee heard testimony on Thursday on the Governor’s proposed budget HB 1001 which included a provision for Universal Choice. We were very thankful for a number of parents and a few school administrators who came to the Statehouse to testify in support of universal choice. The hearing was about more than education funding so there were over a hundred folks there to testify. And of course there were a few who testified in opposition to expanding choice. We are told that the House Ways and Means Committee will release the House’s version of the budget this week. We anticipate that universal choice will be included in that version of the budget as well. We will need our non-public voice to passionately engage in getting the house version of the budget over to the Senate and then we will really need our advocates to be loud and clear because we will no doubt face some challenges on the Senate Side as the budget makes its way through the legislative process over on that side of the statehouse.

HB 1515 which had a number of non-public school items, including the ability to establish a police force, appeal choice ineligibility due to data errors, the ability to participate in the Indiana Principals Institute and access to STEM grant programs passed out of the full House 57-28. The bill drew a little more opposition when a charter school zoning piece was amended into the bill. HB 1498 also passed out of the full house 62-25. This bill deals with the reinstituting A-F with a new metric.

We are told that Senate Ed is finished meeting for the first half of the session. We assume the House ED committee will meet one more time to address a few more bills. We are assuming that HB 1499 will be heard. This would require school administrators to earn a literacy endorsement by 2027.  We’ll be watching this one closely. We met today with Rep. Behning who is the author of the bill who clarified the endorsement part of the bill will be amended to focus only elementary administrators in grades K-5.

We’ll keep you posted as bills now move through the second and third reading process and then the last week in February there will be no session for the full week as we reach what is called crossover.

Well that’s it for now. We’ll see you back here next week for the next episode of the Statehouse Express!