- House Committee Substitute -

HCS/SS/SCS/SB 968 and SCS/SB 969 - This act alters policies with regard to school personnel.

SECTION 105.454 - Currently, school district officials are limited to $1,500 annually in the amount they can accept for performing certain services for their district. This section raises the threshold to $5,000 for school board members.

SECTION 162.032 - This section requires successor school districts to ensure access to continuation of health care for retired teachers and employees of a district that lapses, is merged or divided, or otherwise loses its corporate structure, provided that the original district provided such benefits at the time of its dissolution.

SECTIONS 163.031 & 168.515 - The proration factor is removed from the career ladder entitlement in the school funding formula.

These sections possess an emergency clause.

SECTION 167.166 - This section prohibits public school personnel from performing strip searches on students unless a life-threatening emergency condition exists. Further, the section prohibits school employees from directing a student to remove religious emblems or garments unless such attire is worn in a disruptive manner.

SECTION 168.104 - This section adds certified teachers who teach at the pre-kindergarten level to the definition of the word "teacher" in the teacher tenure act.

SECTIONS 168.110 & 168.126 - These sections permit districts to offer hiring incentives and salary schedule modifications under certain circumstances to both tenured and probationary teachers.

Further, current law requires school districts to notify in writing a probationary teacher who will not be retained by the school district of the termination of their employment and requires school districts to provide the teacher, upon the teacher's request, a concise statement concerning the reason for such termination. This section requires the district in all cases to issue notice to the teacher expressly declaring the reason for the termination if the reason for such is due to a decrease in pupil enrollment, school district reorganization, or the financial condition of the school district.

SECTION 168.124 - Districts meeting certain financial criteria that place contracted teachers on leave more than 40 days after the DESE appropriation bill is signed must pay the teachers the greater of the salary for days worked or $3,000.

SECTIONS 168.303 & 169.712 - Current law requires employment of at least seventeen hours per week in order to be considered eligible for the classroom teacher "job-sharing" program. This act seeks to alter the aforementioned requirement from a minimum of seventeen hours per week to a minimum of fifteen hours per week.

These sections are identical to portions of the perfected SCS/SB 1084.

SECTION 168.500 - Currently, a policy of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education allows teachers who have at least five years of teaching experience and who possess national board certification to automatically become eligible for stage III of the career ladder program.

This section directs the Commissioner of Education to cause the department to regard a speech pathologist who holds both a valid certificate of license to teach and a Certificate of Clinical Competence to have fulfilled the standards required to be placed on Stage III of the career ladder program, provided that such speech pathologist has been employed by a public school in Missouri for at least five years and is approved for such placement by the local district.

SECTION 171.053 - This section asserts that any school district which allows an excused absence for athletics or any other extra-curricular activity shall allow any student to use such regularly scheduled instructional time as is reasonably necessary for participation in an officially-sanctioned activity of any FFA, FCCLA and 4-H program.

The section also provides that students may participate in FFA, FCCLA and 4-H events and Missouri State Fair competitions while having such participation count as regular school attendance for the purpose of state school aid.

This section contains the provisions of SB 813.

SECTION 302.272 - Current law requires an annual re-examination of school bus drivers over the age of 70. This section requires that the (currently) annual background check portion of the re-examination occur every three years.

SECTION 1 - This section limits the number of A+ program coordinators for which school districts may be reimbursed.

DONALD THALHUBER