General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tues., June 9, 2015
The Biden viewing in Legislative Hall resulted in the cancellation of Thursday’s legislation session. In fact, it’s likely that legislative leaders spent much of Wednesday recalibrating scheduling plans for the rest of the month, due to the imminent loss of that Thursday session. This has thrown off the normal cicadian rhythms of session. And played with my head.
Thankfully, despite the loss of the day, the House posted the results of Wednesday’s committee meetings, which ordinarily would not have been made part of the record until the House reconvened on Thursday (or, in this case, Tuesday). Which is understandable, as many of the bills just released from committees are on Tuesday’s House Agenda. I like HB 4(Bolden), which shouldn’t have been necessary, but is. Some employers are jerks, and, in some cases, you just have to make sure that the rights of their employees are protected. Hey, that’s kinda the theme of HB 82(Lynn) as well, in this case the prospective jerk being the Secretary of Education. Finally, HB 148(Keeley) creates the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission which shall:
…serve as a State advisory committee for the administration of planning, recommending and implementing changes to improve the quality and availability of education for children in Pre-K through 12 in the city of Wilmington and advise the State on improvements for all schools within the State with high concentrations of children living in poverty.
Specifically, the WEIC will develop a transition plan, including a timeline, for the provision of necessary services to affected schools and students. WEIC shall also develop a resource plan regarding transitional resources to effectively implement school district realignment. Both the transition plan and resource plan must be submitted first to the State Board of Education and then to the General Assembly and the Governor for final approval. Both are due for submission and related action by December 31, 2015.
There are two bills of note on today’s Senate Agenda.
SS1/SB 79(Sokola) , which is modeled after a California law:
“prohibits education technology service providers, primarily operators of Internet websites, online or cloud computing services, mobile service, and mobile applications used for K-12 school purposes, from selling student data, using student data to engage in targeted advertising to students or their families, amassing a profile on students to be used for non-educational purposes, or disclosing student data except as permitted by the Act. The Act also requires education technology service providers to have reasonable procedures and practices for ensuring the security of student data they collect or maintain, protecting that student data from unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification, or disclosure, and deleting the student data if appropriately requested to do so by a school or school district.”
One would hope that such a law would/could be enacted at the Federal level, but, until then, this should serve Delaware well.
HB 75(K. Williams) “allows the (Family) Court to consider a (juvenile criminal history) expungement where the individual has demonstrated rehabilitation despite multiple youthful indiscretions. These provisions will enable a greater number of deserving youth the ability to move beyond their past and recognizes that most youth mature out of offending behavior.” HB 75 unanimously passed the House, and I expect a similar result in the Senate. A real good bill from a legislator whose rise in my (cheap plug) 62 Project Legislator Rankings is well-deserved. BTW, I will update the 62 Project at the end of this session in June. Feel free to lobby for those who should move up and those who should move down. I’ll give you some early teasers: Sean Matthews and Sean Lynn are moving up. Monsignor Greg Lavelle, who wasn’t ranked too highly to begin with, is moving down.
Since I’m not certain that all of the committee notices for the week have been posted, I’ll once again post a preview of committee activity on Wednesday.
Until then, you can catch me on today’s Al Show from 10-12, where we’ll no doubt toss around Delaware Dem’s 2016 scenarios, and lots more.
