CCS/HS/HCS/SS/SCS/SB 968 and SCS/SB 969 - This act renders several alterations to the state's education policy. SECTION 105.454 - Raises the amount school district officials can accept for performing services for (or selling property to) their district from $1,500 to $5,000. SECTION 160.254 - Current law establishes a Joint Committee on Education comprised of five members from each chamber that meets every four years. This section allows the committee to meet in any year that the president pro tem and the speaker appoint members to serve on the committee. The act alters the composition of the committee from five members per chamber to seven members per chamber. The act adds the study of education funding to the committee's charge. This section is similar to the perfected SB 1323. SECTION 160.261 - Students who are suspended for certain acts cannot be within 1,000 feet of any public school under certain conditions. Students expelled for bringing a weapon to school, violent behavior, or school violence, shall not, for the purposes of MSIP, be considered a drop-out or be included in the calculation of that district's educational persistence ratio. A portion of this section is identical to SB 1257 and is also included in the truly agreed to and finally passed HCS/SCS/SB 945 & SBs 803 & 1257. SECTION 160.570 - Allows school districts to offer incentives or impose supplementary work as a consequence of student performance on MAP. SECTION 161.089 - The scoring rubric for the MSIP or any successor accreditation program must not require points for the Parents as Teachers Program, although deficiencies may be noted as an area of concern. The scoring rubric for AP courses shall recognize the difficulty of providing such courses in sparsely populated areas and must reward districts that use instructional technology to accomplish their advanced placement goals. SECTION 161.209 - The department must seek feedback on its rules and regulations and give priority to the review of existing regulations that could be relaxed in hard economic times, as defined in the substitute, without affecting student achievement. 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. SECTION 162.261 - This section clarifies that the nepotism provisions of the Missouri Constitution apply to school districts. 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 163.036 - Beginning with the 2005-2006 school year, the summer school double counting of students shall only include those eligible pupils that attended summer school in the current year. Beginning with the 2004-2005 school year, in order for a school district to utilize an eligible pupil count for kindergarten from preceding school years, the district must schedule at least 90% of the hours that district scheduled in the current year for kindergarten instruction as that district scheduled in the immediately preceding year. In all other cases, the eligible pupils payment shall only include the current year kindergarten average daily attendance. This section is similar to SB 923. This section contains an emergency clause. SECTION 165.301 - Currently, the Board of Education of the St. Louis Public Schools must advertise for bids from banking institutions once a year, whereas every other school district in the state must bid for such services every three years. This section seeks to authorize a flexible one to five year bid-cycle for the St. Louis Public Schools. This section is similar to the perfected SB 941. SECTION 167.020 - Current law states that a hearing may be convened to determine a student's eligibility for a waiver regarding school district registration eligibility within three working days of the request for such a hearing. This section alters the aforementioned provision to five working days. SECTIONS 167.031, 167.051 & 167.052 - The City of St. Louis school district is permitted to raise its' compulsory school attendance age to 17 by action of the school board. This provision shall become effective for the 2007-2008 school year and shall terminate following the 2011-2012 school year. SECTION 167.166 - Prohibits school personnel from performing strip searches on students unless certain circumstances exist and from requiring students to remove religious emblems or garments if they are worn in a nondisruptive manner. SECTION 167.171 - Adds "statutory rape" and "statutory sodomy" to the list of offences for which students shall be denied re-admission to regular programs of instruction. 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. 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. SECTION 168.126 - 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 168.211 - Removes the current law provision that states that, should the board dismiss the superintendent of the metropolitan school district during his or her term, the superintendent shall be paid compensation only for the balance of the current year. 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. This section is similar to SB 1021. 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 172.360 - This section eliminates the minimum age qualification (which presently is set at sixteen) for admission to the University of the State of Missouri. This section is identical to SB 1052 and HB 773. SECTION 209.321 - This section provides for provisional certification of interpreters for education purposes. Further, the section provides a waiver of certain requirements for out-of-state interpreters and interpreters in training under limited circumstances. SECTION 210.145 - The Division of Family Services cannot meet with a child in the same school or child care facility where abuse is alleged to have occurred. Currently, the division cannot meet with a child at any school or child care facility. This provision contains an emergency clause. This section possesses an emergency clause. This section is identical to SB 803 and is also included in the truly agreed to and finally passed HCS/SCS/SB 945 & SBs 803 & 1257. 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 393.310 - Current law requires the Public Service Commission to treat a gas corporation's pipeline capacity costs for schools which aggregately purchase natural gas in the same manner as large industrial or commercial basic transportation customers. This section extends the termination date for the aforementioned program to June 30, 2007, two years after its original termination date and extends the experimental tariffs already set in place by the Public Service Commission to coincide with the extended termination date. This section is identical to the perfected SCS/SB 878. SECTION 1 - This section limits the number of A+ program coordinators for which school districts may be reimbursed. SECTION 2 - Professional development requirements for vocational-technical certification shall include contact hours relating to the specific vocational-technical subject area for which the educator seeks certification. SECTION 3 - If a school district hosts a web site, that district shall post both a current version of that district's policy manual and a current version of that district handbook(s). DONALD THALHUBER