Education

This Act repeals the ability of school districts to increase tax rates by up to 10% when recalculating the district’s rate of taxation after a general reassessment. This Act does not repeal the requirement under § 1916(b) of Title 14 that a school district recalculate the district’s rate of taxation after a general reassessment, but instead of the 10% maximum, limits the amount of money a district can collect as a result of increases in the fair market value of real property to an amount that is equal to or less than the sum of all of the following: 1. The actual operating revenue derived by the tax levied in the fiscal year immediately preceding the general reassessment. 2. A percentage that is equal to the average growth rate in taxable property in the district since the previous reassessment. This Act also allows school districts to increase a tax approved in a referendum election under Chapter 19 of Title 14 by up to 2% annually without a referendum if the district’s operational reserve balance is not more than 10% of the district’s annual revenue and it is not the same fiscal year that the rate of taxation is recalculated after a general reassessment. This authority will allow school districts to maintain services for students by gradually adjusting to challenges such as inflation, enrollment changes, and increased student needs. Under this Act, the new recalculation equation under § 1916(b) of Title 14 applies beginning for the fiscal year following the next general reassessment and a school district cannot begin to increase tax rates by no more than 2% without a referendum until after the next general reassessment or for fiscal year 2031, whichever is earlier. This Act does not do any of the following: • Allow school districts to levy an additional tax that is more than 2% without an approved referendum. • Change the differences under current law for tax rates for vocational-technical districts. Under current law and this Act, vocational-technical districts are required to use the same calculations as other school districts when recalculating the rate of taxation after a general reassessment. However, the tax authority for vocational-technical districts is under Chapter 26 of Title 14, not Chapter 19, so the authority to annually increase a tax rate by 2% does not apply to vocational-technical districts. This Act also makes the following corresponding and technical changes to Chapter 19 of Title 14: • Revises the definitions in § 1901 by adding “general reassessment” and “reassessed” as defined terms and updates the definition of “district” to reflect current school district boundaries. • Clarifies that if Chapter 26 applies to a school district, the ability of a district to levy an additional tax under § 1902(a) does not apply to that district. • Technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This Act is a substitute for HB 379 which includes revisions to the school and district level component section of Chapter 16 to align the code with current State and National guidelines for education. This Act reduces the emphasis on discipline and focuses instead on guidelines to promote a positive learning environment that assists students at risk for or experiencing academic or behavior problems. This Act repeals § 1605A of Title 14 as § 1605 of Title 14 now addresses its contents. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

The language of this Act is identical to Senate Bill No. 25 of the 153rd General Assembly. The only difference between this Act and Senate Bill No. 25 is the title, which has been changed to clarify that the language includes the Public Employment Relations Act of Title 19. This Act allows an employee organization to file a petition with the Board to become the exclusive representative of an appropriate bargaining unit for the purpose of collective bargaining. In the event an employee organization provides over 50% of the employees’ approval, through their authorized signatures, then the Board may not order an election but must certify the employee organization. This Act also makes technical corrections to confirm existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This Act requires additional reporting and disclosure related to the use of mechanical restraint and seclusion in public schools. While public school personnel cannot use mechanical restraint or seclusion on students in absence of a waiver, law-enforcement officers can. This Act requires the Department of Education to collect data from public schools about the use of mechanical restraint and seclusion, in addition to the physical restraint data that is already collected. The Department of Education shall include the mechanical restraint and seclusion data in its annual report. This Act adds a specific date by which the annual report is due. Additionally, the annual report must be submitted to certain entities, including the Delaware School Boards Association and the boards of education of school districts and the boards of directors of charter schools. This Act also adds mechanical restraint and seclusion to the parental notice requirement and special procedures and safeguard requirements that already exist for use of physical restraint. Though § 4112F defines “chemical restraint”, chemical restraint cannot be performed by anyone in a public school. Therefore, this Act does not add chemical restraint to data collection, reporting, parental notification, or safeguard requirements. Furthermore, this Act adds a definition of school resource officer (SRO) to clarify that SROs are law-enforcement officers. This Act requires the Department of Education to amend its regulations in accordance with the definitions in this Act. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual, including correctly formatting lists and revising § 4112F(d) of Title 14, the subsection addressing particular training requirements for SROs, to account for the creation of a definition of SRO. One technical correction in § 4112F(d) is changing a “shall not” to a “may not” as it applies to the prohibition against the use of SROs who have not complied with mandated training requirements. According to Rule 12 in the Legislative Drafting Manual, “shall not” should be avoided in legislative drafting. Furthermore, both “may not” and “must not” are proper ways to express a prohibition in the Delaware Code. They convey the same level of mandatory prohibition except that “may not” qualifies a verb in active voice while “must not” qualifies an inactive verb or an active verb in passive voice. This technical correction still prohibits school districts and charter schools from using an SRO who has not satisfied the training requirements in § 4112F(d). This Act takes effect on August 1, 2025.