Del. Tommy Wright

Establishes the Commission on Student Behavioral Health as a legislative branch commission. The purpose of the Commission shall be to (i) assess the efficacy of developing and implementing a statewide behavioral health and suicide prevention hotline that students may use to report threats of violence or receive real-time counseling services; (ii) review the current school counselor-to-student ratio, and whether the realignment of counseling responsibilities proposed by the House Select Committee on School Safety is improving schools' ability to provide counseling services to students; (iii) review the current roles and responsibilities of school nurses, psychologists, and social workers in schools and determine whether a realignment of responsibilities could improve or streamline behavioral health services offered to students; (iv) evaluate the efficacy and costs of providing enhanced behavioral health services in schools delivered through partnerships established between school divisions and local departments of social services and community services boards; (v) assess the effectiveness of de-escalation and other alternative disciplinary policies when interacting with students suffering from behavioral health challenges; (vi) examine the value of additional teacher training requirements on student behavioral health, such as mental health first aid; and (vii) examine other topics related to student behavioral health identified by the Commission. The Commission shall consist of 12 members as follows: seven members of the House of Delegates, of whom two shall be members of the House Committee on Health, Welfare and Institutions, two shall be members of the House Committee on Education, two shall be members of the House Committee on Appropriations, and one shall be a member at-large, to be appointed by the Speaker of the House of Delegates; and five members of the Senate, of whom two shall be members of the Senate Committee on Education and Health, two shall be members of the Senate Committee on Finance, and one shall be a member at-large, to be appointed by the Senate Committee on Rules. The Commission may appoint, employ, and remove an executive director and such other persons as it deems necessary and determine their duties and fix their salaries or compensation within the amounts appropriated therefor. The Commission may also employ experts who have special knowledge of the issues before it. All agencies of the Commonwealth shall provide assistance to the Commission, upon request. The bill has an expiration date of July 1, 2021.

Increases from a Class 3 felony to a Class 2 felony and imposes a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of 25 years for the following crimes if minors under 15 years of age are involved: (i) pandering; (ii) receiving money for procuring a person for the purpose of prostitution, forced labor, or child pornography; (iii) receiving money from the earnings of a person engaged in prostitution; and (iv) commercial sex trafficking.

Requires each school board to develop training on safety procedures in the event of an emergency situation on school property. The bill requires such training to be delivered to each student and employee in each school at least once each school year. This bill is identical to

Requires each school board to include the chief law-enforcement officer, the fire chief, the chief of the emergency medical services agency, the executive director of the relevant regional emergency medical services council, and the emergency management official of the locality, or their designees, in the development and review of school crisis, emergency management, and medical emergency response plans. Under current law, the school board is required to provide copies of such plans to the chief law-enforcement officer, the fire chief, the chief of the emergency medical services agency, and the emergency management official of the locality but is not required to include such first responders in the development and review of such plans. This bill is identical to

Changes the name of guidance counselors to school counselors and requires each school counselor employed by a school board in a public elementary or secondary school to spend at least 80 percent of his staff time during normal school hours in the direct counseling of individual students or groups of students.