Directs the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities to identify the history of formerly enslaved African Americans in Virginia and determine ways to preserve the history for educational and cultural purposes. Among other things, the Foundation would promote the identification, preservation, and conservation of historic sites significant to the history, presence, and contributions of formerly enslaved African Americans in Virginia; identify the contributions of African Americans to Virginia, the nation, and the world; identify historical sites significant to African American history in Virginia; and recommend ways to increase tourism and revenues associated with such sites. The bill creates a task force consisting of legislative and nonlegislative members to assist the Foundation in its work.
Sponsored bills
Requires all comprehensive agreements originally entered into on or after July 1, 2017, resulting in privately funded roads open for public transportation to include a provision requiring funding for adequate staffing, defined in the bill, for general law-enforcement services by the Virginia State Police.
Directs the distribution of funds appropriated for such purpose to qualifying charitable organizations that preserve historical African American cemeteries established before 1900. The funding formula is $5, or the average actual cost of routine maintenance, multiplied by the number of graves, monuments, and markers of African Americans who lived at any time between 1800 and 1900 and are interred in the cemetery. The bill lists two cemeteries, East End Cemetery in Henrico County and Evergreen Cemetery in the City of Richmond, that are to receive any funds appropriated for a total of 6,975 gravesites.
Reduces the maximum length of a long-term suspension from 364 calendar days to 90 school days. The bill prohibits a long-term suspension from extending beyond any 45 school day period unless the school principal or division superintendent finds that aggravating circumstances exist, as defined by the local school board. The bill requires that the length of any long-term suspension that extends beyond any 45 school day period shall be reviewed at the end of each such period.
Prohibits students in preschool through grade three from being suspended for more than five school days or expelled except for drug offenses, firearm offenses, or certain criminal acts.
Requires, for ophthalmic prescriptions written on or after July 1, 2017, that an ophthalmologist or optometrist establish a bona fide provider-patient relationship with a patient prior to prescribing spectacles, eyeglasses, lenses, or contact lenses, and sets out requirements for establishing such relationship, which includes options for examination of the patient either in person or through face-to-face interactive, two-way, real-time communication or store-and-forward technologies. This bill is identical to
Directs the Board of Education to establish guidelines for alternatives to short-term and long-term suspension for consideration by local school boards. This bill is identical to