Governor Tony Evers today signed one bill affecting K-12 public schools into law and vetoed another, as he took action on 29 bills in total.
The governor signed Senate Bill 449 into law as 2021 Wisconsin Act 109.
This new law: a) allows critical incident mapping data to be submitted in lieu of school blueprints when school districts submit required school safety plan information to the Office of School Safety; and b) provides up to $2 million funding to the Department of Justice in the 2021-23 biennium that must be used to award schools grants to assist with submitting critical incident mapping data.
- The WASB supported Senate Bill 449.
The governor vetoed Senate Bill 463.
This bill would have required each school board to post on its Internet home page a lengthy and prescriptive list of the learning materials and educational activities used in pupil instruction in the school district as well as any procedure or policy in effect that applies to the documentation, review, or approval of such learning materials or educational activities. That bibliographic list would have to be organized by grade level, subject matter and teacher, updated at least twice a year and maintained for at least five years. Under the bill, any district resident could sue the district to force compliance and could be awarded up to $15,000 in attorney’s fees.
- The WASB submitted testimony opposing provisions of Senate Bill 463.
In our written testimony, the WASB noted that parents already have a legal right under a federal law—the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment—to review these materials. Under that federal law, all school districts that receive federal funds are required to have policies and procedures in place to allow parents access to instructional materials upon request.
The WASB’s testimony also noted the posting requirements alone will be burdensome because many, if not most, Wisconsin school districts do not have a staff person who is devoted full-time to managing the district’s website. As a result, this bill would likely have required school districts to either hire a new staff person solely to comply with these bills or to contract with a private vendor to perform this work at significant new cost either way.
With regard the provisions that would have allowed lawsuits to compel compliance and would have increased the amount of attorney’s fees to dramatically exceed the normal limit of $500, we noted that all legal actions brought against a school district, whether meritorious or not, must be defended at a cost to the district that may or may not have been budgeted for. That is money that cannot be used for educating children.
You can read the governor’s veto message here.
