General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thursday, April 29, 2021
Not much to report from yesterday other than that the bills we featured were all released from committee. Here is yesterday’s Session Inactivity Report.
Fortunately, there are some interesting bills on today’s agendas. Let’s have at ’em, starting with the House. Highlights from Today’s House Agenda:
*HB 8 (Heffernan) ‘ mandates that the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and the Division of Public Health establish maximum contaminant levels for specific contaminants found in drinking water in this state. Such contaminants include PFOA and PFOS, which are man-made chemicals.’
*HB 133 (K. Williams) ‘changes the current evaluation system for all teachers from the former Delaware Performance Appraisal System II evaluation to a new Delaware Teacher Growth and Support System. The goal of this new evaluation system is to build a culture of professionalism and learning within every school by converting the evaluation system from a teacher-focused to a learning-focused system.’
*HB 198 (Dorsey Walker) ‘requires each school district and charter school to establish and implement a curriculum on Black History for students in grades K through 12. This Act incorporates contemporary events into discussions of Black History and the tools of experience.’ Dying to see the roll call on this one.
Today’s Senate Agenda features the annual corporation law package. The other highlight is SB 116 (Brown), which ‘creates an automatic expungement process for adult and juvenile charges that are eligible for mandatory expungement because under the petition-based system, only a small fraction of people eligible for expungement ever obtain this important relief. Under this Act, the State Bureau of Identification must identify and expunge cases eligible for automatic mandatory expungement on a monthly basis.’ That’s a good progressive bill right there.
That’s a wrap. Will Speaker Pete put the minimum wage bill on next week’s Agenda? I hope so. I doubt it. We’ll find out soon.
“requires each school district and charter school to establish and implement a curriculum on Black History”
Have’t read the bill yet, but I suppose I’m for this, because it is a necessary upgrade, but I hope it is implemented by integrating Black History into the History curriculum. The temptation will be great for schools to offer it as a separate class, which will marginalize it and make it a target for racists.
It’s ALREADY a target for racists. You have school board candidates railing against the supposed 1619 curriculum.
Kids, if you’ve got a candidate railing against that, vote for somebody else.
8 House Rethugs opposed Black History Education in the schools (7 no/1 not voting). They are:
Briggs King, Collins, Dukes, Gray, Morris, Postles, Vanderwende, and Yearick.