Study; Department of Small Business and Supplier Diversity; small business set-asides; report. Directs the Department of Small Business and Supplier Diversity to study small business set-asides and their effectiveness in promoting the growth and economic development of small businesses through participation in government contracting. For purposes of the study, \"small business\" includes women-owned and minority-owned businesses.
Celeste's Law; Board of Education; model policy; school bathroom safety checks. Requires the Board of Education to develop, adopt, and distribute to each local school board a model policy regarding bathroom safety checks in public elementary and secondary schools during normal school hours that includes consideration of appropriate staffing, the frequency of such checks, and any other topics that the Board of Education deems relevant.
Department of Education; paid parental and family leave program for certain school board employees. Requires the Department of Education (the Department) to establish and administer a paid parental and family leave program in which school boards may opt to participate and by which any individual employed full time for at least the immediately preceding three months by such a participating school board shall, after submitting to the school board an application form approved by the Department and with such supporting documentation as may be required by the Department, receive six weeks of paid leave at 50 percent of the employee's regular salary to care for a family member facing a serious health condition or emergency or six weeks of paid leave at 100 percent of the employee's regular salary following the birth, adoption, or foster placement of such employee's child, with certain terms and conditions set forth in the bill. The bill provides that the program shall be funded with such funds as may be provided pursuant to the general appropriation act and that the Department shall reimburse participating school boards for paid parental leave and paid family leave provided pursuant to the program.
Reports of certain incidents to school officials; recipients; subsequent reports to law enforcement. Requires reports of eight enumerated types of school-related incidents, including incidents involving alcohol, marijuana, a controlled substance, an imitation controlled substance, or an anabolic steroid on a school bus, on school property, or at a school-sponsored activity, including the theft or attempted theft of student prescription medications, to be made to the members of the school board in addition to the requirement in current law to report such incidents to the division superintendent and the principal or his designee. The bill also requires the school principal to subsequently report some such incidents that may involve a criminal offense to the local law-enforcement agency as soon as practicable but no later than 24 hours after receiving the report of the incident. Current law requires such reports to be made immediately but does not establish a reporting deadline of any specific length.
Public education; concurrent enrollment; high school graduation. Makes several changes relating to graduation from a public high school in the Commonwealth, including (i) eliminating the requirement for a student to complete one virtual course in order to graduate from high school and (ii) specifying that various career and technical education credentials earned for the purpose of satisfying high school graduation requirements are required to be high-demand career and technical education credentials. The bill also defines and thereby distinguishes the concepts of dual enrollment and concurrent enrollment in the context of high school students' participation in college-level coursework and requires the agreements for postsecondary attainment between school boards and comprehensive community colleges and certain other educational institutions to specify the credit available for dual enrollment and concurrent enrollment courses. The provisions of the bill amending the requirements for such agreements and for certain parental notification plans have a delayed effective date of August 1, 2026.
Nationally Certified School Psychologist Program established; incorporation into National Teacher Certification Incentive Reward Program and Fund. Establishes the Nationally Certified School Psychologist Program and incorporates such program into the existing National Teacher Certification Incentive Reward Program. The bill also renames the National Teacher Certification Incentive Reward Program Fund as the National Teacher Certification Incentive Reward Program and Nationally Certified School Psychologist Program Fund (the Fund) and expands the purpose for which disbursements may be made from the Fund to include the award of incentive grants to school psychologists obtaining national certification from the National Association of School Psychologists consisting of an initial state-funded award of $5,000 and a subsequent award of $2,500 each year for the life of the certificate.
State Police Officers' Retirement System; membership for Department of Wildlife Resources conservation police officers. Provides membership in the State Police Officers' Retirement System (SPORS) to conservation police officers in the Department of Wildlife Resources for service earned on or after July 1, 2026. The bill directs the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) to assess the administrative and financial impacts of the bill and provide recommendations for implementing the bill to the General Assembly no later than November 1, 2025. Except for the assessment and recommendations to be made by VRS, the provisions of the bill have a delayed effective date of July 1, 2026.
Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System; emergency dispatchers. Extends membership in the Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System (VaLORS) to emergency dispatchers who are employed by the Department of State Police, Capitol Police, and agencies whose law-enforcement officers are eligible for membership in VaLORS. The bill has a delayed effective date of July 1, 2026, and provides that such membership applies only to service earned on or after July 1, 2026.
Virginia Retirement System; enhanced retirement benefits for 911 dispatchers, animal control officers, and municipal park rangers. Allows local governments to provide enhanced retirement benefits for hazardous duty service to (i) full-time salaried 911 dispatchers, (ii) full-time animal control officers, and (iii) sworn municipal park rangers qualifying as conservators of the peace. The bill provides that such enhanced retirement benefits apply only to service earned in such positions on or after July 1, 2026, but allows an employer, as that term is defined in relevant law, to provide such enhanced retirement benefits for service earned in such positions before July 1, 2026, in addition to service earned on or after that date. The bill has a delayed effective date of July 1, 2026.
School boards; panic alarm systems in each school required. Requires each school board to equip each public elementary and secondary school building in the local school division with a panic alarm system that includes at least one panic alarm device in each classroom or other room in the building in which students will be present and that adheres to nationally recognized industry standards. The bill defines "panic alarm system" as a silent security system by which the user manually activates a device that sends a non-audible signal to the local 9-1-1 public safety answering point that indicates a school security emergency that requires immediate response and assistance from such public safety answering point, including a non-fire evacuation, lockdown, medical emergency, or active shooter situation. The bill has a delayed effective date of July 1, 2026.
Virginia Retirement System; service credit for career and technical education teachers. Provides that a member of the Virginia Retirement System shall be eligible for additional years of service credit for service earned as a teacher in the field of career and technical education. The amount of service credit earned shall be as follows: (i) for service earned as a member who is more than 45 years old but less than 55 years old at the time of such service, such service shall be multiplied by the weighted years of service factor of 2.0 and (ii) for service earned as a member who is more than 55 years old at the time of such service, such service shall be multiplied by the weighted years of service factor of 2.5.
Public elementary and secondary school libraries; model policies for review of print and audiovisual materials; sexually explicit visual content prohibited. Requires the Department of Education to develop and make available to each school board model policies prohibiting any school library in any public elementary or secondary school from obtaining or possessing any print or audiovisual materials that contain sexually explicit visual content, as that term is defined in the bill. The bill requires such model policies to (i) require the review of any print or audiovisual material that is (a) made available to any such school for placement in any school library or (b) accessible to students in any school library for the purpose of determining whether such material contains sexually explicit visual content; (ii) provide for the removal or exclusion from any school library of any print or audiovisual material that, upon review, is determined to contain sexually explicit visual content; and (iii) establish guidelines for implementing such policies in accordance with the provisions of the bill to ensure compliance with the First Amendment to the Constitution of United States and Article 1, Section 12 of the Constitution of Virginia. The bill requires each school board to adopt policies that are consistent with but may be more comprehensive than the model policies adopted by the Department of Education pursuant to the bill. Finally, the bill amends the exception in current law to the prohibition of certain sales and loans to juveniles for the purchase, distribution, exhibition, or loan of certain materials to schools to clarify that the exception does not apply in the case of public school libraries as provided in the provisions of the bill.
